What unexpected event had the most witnesses? By unexpected, I mean something that the witnesses had not planned on seeing. So something like the Apollo 11 moon landing or Obama’s inauguration wouldn’t count. And sports events don’t count if they’re within the confines of the sport - nobody was expecting the Washington Redskins to score 72 points and set a NFL record on November 27, 1966 but that was still just part of a football game that the viewers had expected to see. And as far as witnesses, I’ll accept both live witnesses at the event and witnesses who watched the event live as it occurred via television.
So under those terms, offhand I’m thinking that two widely witnessed unexpected events were Lee Oswald being shot on November 24, 1963 and Janet Jackson exposing herself on February 1, 2004.
I thought about the 9/11 attack but I figured that people who turned on their TVs knew the tower had been struck by a plane so the second attack was not completely unexpected.
And I don’t think any networks were broadcasting President Kennedy driving down the street at the moment he was shot. As far as I know, the only records of the shooting were taken by people at the scene with personal cameras.
Oswald’s murder was seen by millions on TV. It was completely unexpected. It was also the first time people had a chance to see the accused killer, so everyone was tuned in. Schools and a lot of businesses were closed, so the audience was much larger than usual for a weekday event.
The first 9/11 attack was not televised, so the later attacks were on follow-up coverage and really don’t fit the question of the OP.
The shuttle launch is a possibility, except that the audience for that was much smaller than for Oswald. Schools were in session, and shuttle launches were not news. The number of people in person was only a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people watching something on TV.
Other possibilities: LBJ announcing he wouldn’t run for president in 1968. It was a nationally televised address with a fairly large audience, and Johnson didn’t tell anyone about it beforehand.
Schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe was on board the Challenger; so even though schools were indeed in session, that launch was indeed big news. Schools across Florida either allowed classes to watch the launch on TV, or else let them go outside to watch the shuttle go up.
At Operation Crossroads, the first test of a hydrogen bomb by the US, we were so determined to make sure that the rest of the world was made aware of our new toy that we shot off half of the world’s supply of motion picture film. The article doesn’t say how many people saw it, but we were sure trying.
In addition there were lots of eye witnesses to various air raids, most recently, in Baghdad.
I’m also guessing not many viewers were quite expecting that outcome during R. Budd Dwyer’s infamous press conference. I believe that was aired live, too…at least locally in Pennsylvania.
Do “witnesses” include those who don’t survive it? If yes, I would say the giant earthquake and tsunamis a couple of years back that killed a quarter million people, and I’m sure was witnessed by many more.
For those of us on the West Coast who were just waking up, stumbling around for coffee and turning on the TV while we get dressed, the second plane was completely unexpected.
I remember seeing the WTC on TV with smoke coming out, and thinking “must be a pretty big fire in New York to be on the San Francisco news” and then seeing the second airplane. We had a few moments of “What was that? Did I just see what I think I saw?” and then realizing that we knew people that worked in those buildings.
I assume if the event was being broadcast, they wouldn’t have had to rely on the Zapruder film, etc. Re: 9/11, I assume my “live viewing” was typical – I got a call saying “turn on the tv, an airplane just hit the WTC”, and then saw the rest.
I’d nominate the head-butt at the end of the '06 World Cup (if that doesn’t break the sports rule). Dunno if that counts as “unexpected” enough, but for live viewer numbers, its pretty tough to beat the WC.
It’s amazing, reading through this thread, how many of these I missed.
Janet Jackson. We drove home during halftime of that game.
9/11. I was in my Contracts class in law school, then afterwards went to the library. I found out about it on LiveJournal.
OJ’s slow-speed chase. I was at the drive-in, watching Wolf (which was awful).
The Challenger. I was in school, but we weren’t watching it. I remember another teacher coming into the classroom and telling my teacher. All I can remember is my teacher saying “It blew up? With the TEACHER on it?” There were rumors that my teacher had tried to be the one and was pretty high up on the finalist list, but that might be one of those dubious claims…
That’s pretty much every one that happened within my lifetime in this thread, and I missed them all.
I think that any event that wasn’t on live television isn’t going to be in the running. “Nipplegate” for example was seen by about a hundred million people - far more than the population of any city.