I remember riding in the back seat of the car late at night and hearing the news radio repeat every fifteen minutes that former president Lyndon B. Johnson had just died. It was 1973.
Challenger explosion is mine, too. Unfortunately, do not remember seeing the Hulkster defeat the Iron Sheik.
I remember the two assassination attempts against President Ford a couple of weeks apart in September 1975. I was not quite six years old. I also remember one of the several times that Ford stumbled on the stairs of Air Force One. The most famous stumble happened in June 1975, but I’m not sure the event I remember.
I remember the BBC cutting into a show we were watching about the assasination of Kennedy(we were in the UK) also remember Churchill funeral on TV.
The opening of the Mall of America
Hearing about the death of JFK from my teacher Mrs. Alexander, who cried in front of the class. I remember being more shocked by a teacher openly crying than by hearing that a president had been killed. I also remember wondering why my teacher was so very upset since she didn’t actually know JFK personally.
The earliest news event which I recall being aware of as going on, and being reported on, at the time, was at the turn of the year 1951 / 52; I was aged three and a half. It was something relatively trivial, compared with historically important stuff which was unfolding at the time: involved the cargo ship Flying Enterprise which, on its intended voyage from Hamburg to New York, got into difficulties in the Atlantic a little way south-west of the British Isles – much news coverage of it here in the UK, with the events happening close to these islands, and with an abortive attempt to tow the stricken ship to an English port.
The drama went on for a couple of weeks, with – as above – failed attempts to save the ship, and with all personnel being taken off her: only one fatality. I remember newspaper photographs of the goings-on, and radio news bulletins and a good deal of talk about it all. The ship’s Captain Carlsen, who valiantly stayed on her till very shortly before her final sinking, was something of a popular hero for a while.
My father had spent some years in the Merchant Navy; it occurs to me that this may have contributed to his taking a particular interest in this story – thus following it closely, and communicating the interest to the family.
The 1970’s energy crisis. It wasn’t a singular event so much as an ongoing thing over the course of years, but nevertheless I remember family members complaining about having to pay $1.29 for gas. I also remember seeing the long lines at the gas station on the news.
I think it was the death of Zhou Enlai in early 1976. I was 3 and a half at the time, and I have a pretty vivid memory of Dad having come home from work with a handful of printing calculator roll centers for me to play with (which I thought was super-cool), and playing with them while he watched the evening news, and they were talking about the death, and showing a lot of people filing past a casket. I remember clearly thinking “Why are they saying “Joe” wrong?” when they kept referring to “Zhou”.
Children. I am surrounded by children.
The Challenger blew up during a 30th birthday party for me.
Except maybe Tripolar.
If I had to put a definite date on it, I would say 1961.
Now get off my lawn.
Regards,
Shodan
One hot summer night when I was just a little kid, I was staying at a North Carolina beach house with my parents and older sisters. My parents took us out to the car, as there was no TV or radio in the house, and we sat in the back seat while my dad said, “Pay attention, kids - this is history.” And then we listened to President Nixon announce that he would resign the next day, August 9, 1974.
First grade, JFK assassination and its aftershocks. Like others, I remember teachers in tears, and days of TV coverage disrupting episodes of Bozo the Clown and The Suppertime Super Show. Prior to that I had vague awareness of an ongoing event which made my parents extremely anxious and troubled as they watched the evening news. Only as an adult did I realize it was the Cuban Missile Crisis and that my parents were fearful the end of the world might well be near.
Reagan getting shot. They kept interrupting Scooby Doo with updates. I was not pleased.
Funny I remember that too. The only year I had any memory of was 1951, so I spent some time saying “nineteen-fifty-two” repeatedly, trying to get used to saying it. I was 6.
On the same day as the Reagan shooting, there was a murder a few blocks from the school where I and some other students were attending a special class off-campus from our own. When we got back to our own school, the vice principal met us at the bus and hustled us inside quickly, but wouldn’t tell us what was going on. Inside, we heard about Reagan getting shot, and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why the VP was so concerned for our safety when the Reagan shooting was hundreds of miles away, in Washington. Learned about the murder when I got home.
Well, I’m not feeling as old as Shodan, but I am starting to develop a nice patina.
The challenger explosion came directly on the heels of the Arrow Air disaster in the previous november and knocked it out of public consciousness. I was a teenager at the time.
January 20, 1993; I was 10 years old. The inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Our elementary school brought in all the TVs for that.
I remember one of the 1956 political conventions. I don’t know which one, I was only 7, after all. The reason I remember is that when we were little, my sister and I each got to spend a week with my mother’s parents, who lived in a small town about 50 miles away from home, and who spoiled us rotten (according to my father). This was my week, and there was nothing to watch on TV except that damned convention. Unfair! I thought.
Also, later that same election year, Adlai Stevenson was in a motorcade that went right by my school. We got to go outside (and wait, and wait) and wave at him as he went by. I had only the vaguest idea who he was. I didn’t associate him in my mind with that hell week of unwatchable television.
Now that you guys have jogged my memory, I remember the talk of a 49-star flag too, but it would have had to be retrospective in my case as well, since Hawaii became a state on August 21, 1959, and I would have heard it in kindergarten which wouldn’t have started until after Labor Day that year. But still almost certainly 1959.
When a new state is added, the US flag doesn’t change until the Independence Day following the admission. Alaska was admitted in the first half of 1959, so we had a 49-star flag from 4-Jul-1959 to 3-July-1960. Hawaii was admitted in the second half of 1959, so its star wasn’t added until 4-Jul-1960.