# What's the Earliest Historical Event You Can Personally Remember? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 17, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378 "2009-04-17T03:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/81 "2009-04-17T18:22:57Z")
Nixon’s resignation. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/82 "2009-04-17T18:28:18Z")
Elvis Presley’s death for me, too. I was going on six. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/83 "2009-04-17T18:28:59Z")
Watching the moon landings on a small black and white TV. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/84 "2009-04-17T18:34:11Z")
I was born in 1973. I don’t remember the bicentennial, but I remember new years day 1980, for some reason. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/85 "2009-04-17T18:39:37Z")
I guess this would be considered historical - listening to our Philco radio and hearing that Lou Gerhig had died. Then a few months later - a real historical event - hearing on that same radio that Pearl Harbor had just been attacked by the Japanese. Eleven years old at the time. Was living in Germany in 1933 when the Reichstag fire occured. Don’t remember a thing about that one, though. Do have a vague memory of seeing some dirigibles flying over Berlin. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/86 "2009-04-17T18:47:54Z")
I recall a lot of press coverage about “the Mid-East crisis,” which in restrospect was probably the Six Day War (1967)–which obviously at the time was not called “The Six Day War.” I definitely recall the announcement of Helen Keller’s death (1968), as well as Bobby Kennedy’s death a few days later. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/87 "2009-04-17T18:51:47Z")
The Reagan/Carter election, 1980. I remember going to the polls with my mom and a couple of my uncles, and they asked me who I liked, Reagan or Carter. I picked basically at random and said “Reagan” and they gave me a woo-hoo and hi-fived me. I was born in '77. ---
**Author:** ![TheFaerie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/88 "2009-04-17T19:12:00Z")
The Viking program Mars landing. We were at my aunt and uncle’s farm watching it on B&W tv. I was nine, but it seems like I was much younger. I also remember tv images of the Vietnam war, but my mother wouldn’t let us watch news coverage of it if she could help it. I often have a hard time remembering how old I was when stuff happened. I’m 42 now. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/89 "2009-04-17T20:59:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Alaska becoming a state. I was six. My mother told me “Alaska is now a state.” I asked, “What was it before?” My kindergarten teacher said that we would soon say the pledge of allegiance to a new flag. I felt sorry for the old one. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/90 "2009-04-17T21:52:58Z")
I was 7 when I heard about Watergate on tv. I remember trying to envision a gate for water and why it would be newsworthy. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/91 "2009-04-17T22:01:40Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Same memory, same age. We went home early and my mom was standing in front of the tv crying. For that entire weekend, no one on our block had parents. They were glued to the TV, paralyzed with grief. And when Oswald was murdered on national TV, well…that pretty much did it. The shock of the whole thing was like a massive slap in our collective face. The whole thing was surreal. We just kind of fended for ourselves. None of us had ever seen our folks in that kind of pain. Years later when I talked about this day with my parents and other older people, I came to realize that the fear the adults had that day was that the assassination could be the start of nuclear war with Russia. It was a big fear at the time and the information coming out of Dallas that day, with Oswald and his Russian connections, fed that fear. Tensions were eased within days, but on that first day the worst dreams were possible. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/92 "2009-04-17T22:29:28Z")
Mine isn’t all that historical: the Ford/Carter election in 1976. I do remember Ford on some talk program saying “I really thought we would win.” I remember the Bicentennial Train that year too. Born 1969. > [@DrCube](#): > > Not too long after, I recall my friend (whose father was and still is an avid hunter) telling me that Dukakis would take everybody’s guns away if he got elected instead of Bush. Heh… plus ça change, plus la même chose… > [@Daylate](#): > > Was living in Germany in 1933… Do have a vague memory of seeing some dirigibles flying over Berlin. This wins my vote as coolest memory in the thread. Only 'cos it’s dirigibles, not 'cos it was in Nazi Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/93 "2009-04-17T22:44:14Z")
The whole Patty Hearst thing. I was 4. I had a playmate named Patty Hearst and I couldn’t figure out why everyone was talking about her and not me. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/94 "2009-04-17T23:03:13Z")
I was going to say Tiananmen Square—saw it on TV…the one day I had decided, for whatever reason, to record some saturday morning cartoons. The tape’s still around somewhere, just with some gaps in “Flintstone Kids” and the news coverage itself when I got tired of wasting tape on footage of the tops of helmets milling around. Yeah. IIRC, I accepted my mother’s explanation that this was important enough to break in to regular programing with, but noted that surely the protesters could have just waited until _Sunday_ morning, when nothing good was on. (What? It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion!)—but I remembered that I actually remembered the results of the 88 Presidential Race, and that we’d actually had a mock election at school/kindergarten shortly before. (I voted for Dukakis, mainly because everyone else was voting for Bush.) ---
**Author:** ![costa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@costa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/costa)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/95 "2009-04-17T23:11:34Z")
I remember sttiingon my fathers schoulders and watching FDR riding by in a parade.I listened on the radio(detrola)as they announced the bombing of pearl harbor.I walked down market street .people schoulder to schoulder on market st.on VJ day.I rember seeing my father crying when FDR died. ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/96 "2009-04-17T23:19:38Z")
Not really the event, but actions relating to the 2nd world war. I was almost 4 when it started, but I remember the oilcloth window shades, ration stamps for shoes and gas, air raid alarms, all clear signals, etc. All the excitement of being a kid in a war. I had no idea what was going on, but it was mysterious to me. The earliest actual event I remember was Truman’s win over Dewey in 1948…I was 10. The most traumatic was the JFK assassination, I was on a coffee break and heard about it after we left the coffee shop at a TV shop next door. Couldn’t believe it. I was 25. I was to be married the next month and my then girlfriend were both shocked by it. No TV except assassination stories for the next 3 days on all 3 networks. In case you’re curious, yes we went ahead with the wedding and we’re still married, just celebrated our 45th anniversary last year. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/97 "2009-04-17T23:44:57Z")
I _think_ I watched Nixon resign on TV. Certainly my mother pointed him out to me and said, “Do you know who that is?” and she had to tell me. Whether or not he was resigning, I don’t remember, but he was on TV giving a speech. God, reading all the other posts of Dopers who were barely old enough to remember Tiananmen Square and such makes me feel old. I was at WORK when that happened! ---
**Author:** ![SylverOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@SylverOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SylverOne)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/98 "2009-04-17T23:47:08Z")
Mount St. Helens. I was 4 and I couldn’t go outside and play. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/99 "2009-04-18T00:35:42Z")
JFK’s election. I was six. I remember much being made of a Catholic running for president. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378/100 "2009-04-18T00:40:50Z")
1976 Winter Olympics. The first major political event would be the Iranian Revolution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-historical-event-you-can-personally-remember/493378.md?page=6)