I was too wasted at that concert, man.
I can remember where and when I heard the news:
JFK assassinated. (8th grade, in midmorning class)**
Beatles on Sullivan.** (Home, walking through the room where my parents were watching it. I took a look and kept going, wasn’t interested yet. I would very soon become a Beatle freak for life. Saw them play in August '65.)**
RFK assassinated.** (age 17, at home in bed. My girlfriend called in tears.)
First footstep on the moon. (Watched it on TV with my pal Wes, his mother and sisters, in their living room, late morning. I was still coming down from my first LSD trip the night before, one of my life’s greatest milestones.)
Jim Morrison dead. (Driving to work that morning, saw the headline on a corner newstand.)
John Lennon murdered. (This one brought tears to my eyes. We were watching TV, don’t remember what except that it wasn’t Monday Night Football.)
Challenger explosion. (Tuning a piano in client’s dining room. Overheard the live bulletin from the TV in the kitchen.)
I remember where I was when I heard about the big 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami that happened and killed like 200,000 people in Indonesia and the surrounding areas. I was on the telephone with some sort of telemarketer. Who was near the area affected. And I hadn’t heard about it at all in the days since it had happened (this was like 2 or 3 days later). And he laughed and couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about it yet.
It was literally one of the worst natural disasters in RECORDED HISTORY, the third strongest earthquake EVER recorded on seismograph, and here I was on the phone with a guy who lived in the area, not having heard about it. I was a senior in high school at the time, but that’s really no excuse.
I can’t believe no one else in this thread has mentioned this major worldwide event yet. More people died in that than in all the other disasters mentioned so far, combined, by an order of magnitude or more. I’d reckon even if you include all the deaths from the war in Afghanistan and the deaths in the twin towers, you still have more people who died in that one single event than from 9/11 and aftermath.
Just being nosey- what were you doing here? Post-graduate at UI?
Nixon’s elections, both of them…
Martin Luther King being killed…our family Lab had puppies that day.
Nixon’s resignation…first and only time in my life I ate groundhog. I was at a friends parents in the hills of Wild Wonderful West Virginia. It wasn’t bad.
John Lennon…devastating.
Regan being shot, I was in boot camp.
Challenger…
OJ’s low speed car chase…work shlepping overpriced food and cocktails.
Jerry Garcia…the worst part is my ex-wife and NOT a Dead Head in any sense of the word called to tell me. I really still miss him a lot.
9/11/2001…I was appraising a beautiful log home in rural southern Illinois. I stayed there well after the appraisal data had been collected. The homeowner and I watched the TV for hours. It was the first and only time I ever met him but I will never forget his hospitality. My brother/sister-in-law was also “in the air” flying back from their honeymoon in Hawaii.
Going to the University (undergrad) as part of a Navy officer bootstrap program, majoring in Metallurgical Engineering, which I sucked at. I was there from 1971-1974 and lived in a farmhouse south of Moscow. The farm was owned by Ken Jensen, who had built a new house. It was a great old farmhouse, with a porch swing and root cellar, for which I paid the princely sum of $150/month. Two of my kids were born at the hospital in Moscow, and I worked as a volunteer auxiliary cop for two of those years. Sadly, I didn’t make it through the officer program and left in 1974 to return to my enlisted status.
Freddie Mercury dead.(Outside of Elias Brothers from a newspaper box)
Lennon murdered(Was watching the MNF game)
Challenger(at school)
Reagan Shot(at school)
Elvis dead( was in Maple Texas)
One event bugs me that I can’t remember when I heard about it is Mt. St. Helen’s eruption. I can’t even remember where I was living, although it was almost certainly Oregon, but I can’t remember where in Oregon, east or west, and you would think that living within a few hundred miles of a volcanic explosion would be noteworthy. I might have been stoned at the time.
-Challenger explosion
(In SoCal: in junior high math class, we watched live.)
-1987 Whittier Narrows quake
(In SoCal: in high school classics class, in the middle of reading “Lysistrata” that morning. I was about 10 miles from the epicenter.)
-1988 Lakers and Dodgers champs
(In SoCal: The Lakers won the NBA title in June and the Dodgers won the World Series in October. Mom took me out of school for both parades.)
-1989 Loma Prieta quake
(In NorCal: in my dorm, I was sleeping on the couch.)
-Rodney King case and LA riots
(In NorCal: watching in my dorm and tearing up seeing my city in flames.)
-1995 Great Hanshin quake & Tokyo subway sarin attacks
(In Tokyo: in my apartment having breakfast watching Japanese news.)
-Princess Diana death
(In Seattle: a co-worker at Tower Records comes in for her night shift crying, she mentioned the accident.)
-9/11 attacks
(In Tokyo: at home, preparing for a trip to Tokyo Disney the next day. )
-Obama elected
(In Tokyo: in office, checking 4-5 news websites for election results. When Obama was declared winner, even the Japanese TV stations sent out a special bulletin.)
-Michael Jackson death
(In Tokyo: reading news online on my mobile while taking train to work.)
-2011 Tohoku quake & tsunami
(In Tokyo: spending the day at Tokyo Disney. Stuck all night at Tokyo Disney due to train stoppage.)
9/11 – I was just getting to work, and someone had a portable TV on.
Princess Di’s death – sitting in the living room, reading a book, when my mother came in and told me.
I don’t think I can remember where I was when any other significant events occurred at all – not even the great Christchurch earthquake (which was a lot closer to home and more recent that the two above).
Judging by your name you are neither African American nor Catholic. If you were the 1960 and 2008 elections might have had more importance.
Roberto Clemente’s plane crash.
Now that everyone has pretty much covered anything I would have said let me say this;
I’ll never forget where I was when I heard that…“thats the smallest erect penis I have ever seen!”.
Prom night circa long ago did not go well. (I’m sorry I couldn’t resist 
)
The Omagh Bombing
9/11
Start of Iraq War
When I heard the blast on 22nd July, 2011.
December 7, 1941, we had just returned from a visit to the family farm, and I (11 years old) went into the living room and turned on the Philco.
The news was on, announcing that “…the Japs had just bombed Pearl Harbor” that morning. Never forget that one - all the other startling news since then (except maybe for 911) sort of pales in comparison.
Actually Qadgop is a common name in some black communities. And Mercotan was originally Mercotanelli.
I’ve only been here 7 years, and didn’t recognize the name, so I googled and found that Mr. Jensen died just eight weeks ago. He was 92.
.
Can I just say this is the coolest post I’ve possibly ever read on here.
Well, that’s a good, long life for a nice man. Renting to a couple of 20-somethings expecting their first child was taking a bit of a chance. He never required a lease and wished us well when we left.