# What is Your First News Memory? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 29, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812 "2019-07-29T15:05:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/41 "2019-07-29T20:02:21Z")
I also remember Nixon resigning. I was a few weeks shy of 6. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/42 "2019-07-29T20:03:54Z")
RFK being killed , I was 8. Local people went to the train tracks to pay respects because his body was passing through our town on the way to DC. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/43 "2019-07-29T20:08:20Z")
I can’t pin it down to a specific event. But there was some damn Cold War crisis or another (this was the early 80s; Cold War crises happened every month), and for whatever reason, that one stuck with me. I went to bed that night convinced that I wouldn’t get up the next morning, because we’d all be dead in nuclear Armageddon. The only other specific thing I remember about it is that the news showed a picture of a missile in the corner of the screen behind the anchor. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/44 "2019-07-29T20:08:57Z")
Repeal of Prohibition. Laughing, singing, mayhem in the streets. I got soused. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/45 "2019-07-29T20:33:16Z")
I can remember that I was in the living room of the house my family was living in at the time when the news came on and the broadcast led with the news of the death of Elvis. I was eight years old. I’ve always had a memory of Barbara Walters telling me that Elvis Presley had died, but in trying to find clips of the ABC News broadcast from August 16, 1977, I realize now that it may have been Harry Reasoner (they were co-hosts, and Reasoner mentions on the August 17 broadcast – I can’t find ABC News footage from the day of Elvis’s death – that Walters was on vacation). That’s my first news memory, if a faulty one. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/46 "2019-07-29T21:35:48Z")
[Moderating] I hadn’t noticed before that this was in CS, rather than the more fitting IMHO. I’ll move it now. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/47 "2019-07-29T21:40:06Z")
“The Middle East Crisis.” No idea what it meant, but looking back, it was almost certainly the Six Day War. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/48 "2019-07-29T21:40:42Z")
[Obligatory xkcd link](https://xkcd.com/2174/). ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/49 "2019-07-29T21:41:30Z")
The signing of the Camp David Accords by US President Jimmy Carter, Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt President Anwar Sadat. If I remember right King Kong was showing on one of the stations and got interrupted to show the proceedings at the White House. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/50 "2019-07-29T21:57:41Z")
My first news memory was from June 2, 1941, when a radio newscast announced the death of Lou Gerhig, the famous Yankee hitter. Then, shortly thereafter, on December 7, 1941 I had just turned on the radio and heard that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor. 1941 was a busy year newswise. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/51 "2019-07-29T22:05:44Z")
Watch? All you kiddies don’t recall when all news was on radio. Anyway, the first one I recall very vividly was the death of FDR. I was 8. This was followed quickly by VE day (which I don’t recall), the A-bombs over Japan and VJ day (which I do recall). When FDR died, people came out on the street to discuss and the mayor of Philadelphia, a HS dropout, said on radio, “We wuz all very sorry to hear it.” ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/52 "2019-07-29T22:18:51Z")
The Robert Kennedy assassination. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/53 "2019-07-29T22:49:14Z")
The Soviet launch of Sputnik, 4 October 1957. I was nineteen days shy of my 6th birthday. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/54 "2019-07-29T22:56:15Z")
Something to do with President Ford while he was in office. I don’t remember which came first, but I remember the two assassination attempts (one by Squeaky Fromme and one by Sara Jane Moore) and at least two occasions when he fell down–or even up, if memory serves–the stairs to Air Force One. As far as I can tell now, the earliest of these events was the time he fell down the stairs in Vienna in June 1975, when I would have been five years old. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/55 "2019-07-29T23:12:21Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I remember coming downstairs in the morning and my mother telling me that Alaska was now a state. I asked, “What was it before?” > > That was 1958. I was six. > > I supposedly helped my parents on the Adlai Stevenson campaign in 1956, but I don’t remember it. Me too, but they told me at school: I was in first grade. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/56 "2019-07-29T23:30:49Z")
I very vaguely remember Kennedy being elected because my parents would have been talking about it. I sure remember his assassination though. The whole school was marched, class by class, on to the playground and stood in silence for ten minutes. I just remember how incredibly long ten minutes is for a five year old. We didn’t get a a television until I was six or seven, and even then my mother made us watch it in the garage. She hated television. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/57 "2019-07-29T23:32:25Z")
Saturday morning cartoons, 1977. I was at a friend’s apartment (we didn’t have a TV), and there was an “In The News” segment on Begin meeting Sadat. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/58 "2019-07-29T23:47:17Z")
The Gemini VIII mission of 1966. ---
**Author:** ![jebert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ec9cab/32.png) [@jebert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jebert)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/59 "2019-07-29T23:59:17Z")
I remember seeing footage of the Korean War when John Cameron Swayze did the national news, which only lasted 15 minutes in those days. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812/60 "2019-07-30T00:05:13Z")
In a general sense the hoopla around the 1976 bicentennial. In a specific sense, I think the TV frenzy around the death of Elvis Presley in 1977. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-first-news-memory/837812.md?page=4)