# What's the first news event you remember? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2002, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395 "2002-12-13T01:50:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/81 "2002-12-13T22:32:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kyla \* > \*\*I was born in 1978, and I disctinctly remember hearing about the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. However, a few years ago I realized that this occurred in 1980 - a couple months before my second birthday. So I now kind of doubt that memory as false. > \*\* Maybe you saw the movie that came out about it when we were little? I think it was about how people refused to evacuate. I can’t find an IMDB entry for it, but there’s one scene of birds confused by smoke hitting the windshield of a small plane that’s a very vivid memory for me. I was too little to really understand what the movie was about, so I place it early to mid-80’s. There’s one listed for 84’ but no details on it at all so I can’t say if that was it or not. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/82 "2002-12-13T23:21:53Z")
Summer of 1951. We were in a hash house in Georgia. The jukebox was playing Vaughn Monroe singing “Old Soldiers Never Die.” This was hot at the time as it reflected MacArthur’s speech when he was removed as head of the Army. I was eating grits, eggs and bacon. The water tasted funny. The waitress said it was the ducks swimming on the pond outside. That’s where they got their water. Then the election of Ike in '52. We learned how to use voting machines at our elementary school. I asked mom why she and dad were voting for Ike. They said "because Stevenson was (shhhh…d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d). ---
**Author:** ![Gopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gopher)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/83 "2002-12-14T00:34:12Z")
The Gulf War. I remember yelling “Saddam is insane in the membrane” with my brother and drawing pictures of tanks blowing other tanks up. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/84 "2002-12-14T04:21:21Z")
January 18, 1957. I don’t know why [this](http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/modern_flight/mf44.htm), rather obscure round-the-world flight stayed with me. It was prior to Sputnik, which is also vivid in my memory. This predates TV in our home, so I must have read about it as a 2nd grader! ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/85 "2002-12-14T04:29:47Z")
Prince Charles and Princess Diana getting married. I would have been nearly 5. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/86 "2002-12-14T04:43:00Z")
[The Tasman Bridge Disaster](http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/history/brd1.htm). Probably not news outside Australia, but the images of cars with their front wheels dangling over the edge of the bridge where the missing section had been was the sort of thing to interest a five year-old. I remember gough Whitlam being our Prime minister. I think I remember Vietnam, but not sure. It’s a bit blurry. More importantly I remember The News rather than the news. I recall the black and white “talking heads” broadcast the grown ups would watch after the cartoons were over. Also the haraldic music and British-style “This. Is. The. News.” Seemingly quaint now were the non-computerised weather forecasts with the weatherman pulling large maps on slides across the back of the set. I recognised the outline of Australia, but not the outline of my home state of New South Wales (the land in the surrounding states was rendered in the same shade as the ocean), and would get into arguments with my father, “No Daddy, that’s NOT wherwe we live, it was the last one!” ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/87 "2002-12-14T18:06:54Z")
The Challenger disaster as well…I remember being sprawled across the living room floor and it was on the news, and I understood that people had died in the big explosion. I don’t know that I understood that they were going to SPACE, but I knew that it was kind of like a plane, and that they were supposed to go somewhere and come back, but now they couldn’t. I was about 5 1/2. The Baby Jessica ordeal, where she was stuck in a well for 2 days, occured in October 1987, so I was 6 at the time, and I DEFINITELY remember that! My own sisters name was Jessica, and I remember making sure that she wasn’t the one in the well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/88 "2002-12-14T19:17:58Z")
Harold Wilson resigning as UK prime minister in '76; walking out of No. 10 and waving. I do remember things in the news, such as the Labour Party, from a couple of years before, but nothing I could put a date to. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/89 "2002-12-14T19:22:10Z")
The Kennedy-Nixon election night coverage. Everybody kept talking about a presidential “race”, and I was imagining Kennedy and Nixon speeding around an oval track! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Michele\_in\_SoCal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michele_in_SoCal)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/90 "2002-12-14T22:23:56Z")
Born 1953. I remember Khruschev banging his shoe. I remember being so shocked that a GROWN-UP would do such a thing! I remember the Kennedy-Nixon debates and election. And I remember when Ernie Kovacs (innovative comedian) died in a car crash. My dad was a big fan and was very upset. ---
**Author:** ![Mephisto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@Mephisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mephisto)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/91 "2002-12-14T22:29:20Z")
I think I remember President Ford giving some sort of speech. I was aware that Jimmy Carter screwed everything up–that’s pretty much all I “understood” about politics and world events in elementary school. I couldn’t tell you the first event I really watched with interest and mostly understood but it would have been in the Eighties. Reagan getting shot, the space shuttle exploding (that’s probably the first news story that had an emotional effect on me), the invasion of Grenada, the proper way to spell that Libyan guy’s name, a bunch of stuff about the Contras. I remember a lot of stories about terrorism and hijackings in Europe and I remember wondering why all the Brigades and Factions were Red. I also vividly remember stories about Reagan’s jelly beans. ---
**Author:** ![Torgo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@Torgo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torgo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/92 "2002-12-14T22:33:35Z")
Born in 1966. The '72 Munich Olympics; primitive live satellite TV at it’s finest. Images of a hooded figure seen through a shaky news camera lens. Bleary-eyed ABC Sports correspondents reporting live from Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/93 "2002-12-14T22:44:10Z")
Another old timer here. I suppose the first I definitely remember would be Sputnik, in 1957, when I was 6. I remember _Hound Dog_ being on the radio, which would have been when I was 5. ---
**Author:** ![Ikoiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3e96dc/32.png) [@Ikoiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ikoiko)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/94 "2002-12-14T22:58:37Z")
The rescue of Baby Jessica from the well (in Oregon, I think), on October 16, 1987. I remember because that’s the day my little brother was born, and I was more interested in watching the rescue than seeing him. ☹ I also vaguely recall the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. My dad was upset, and I couldn’t understand why. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/95 "2002-12-14T23:31:38Z")
Like **TVeblen** and others, I remember Alan Shepard’s flight in 1961. I was 5. I was in the second grade when JFK was shot. I remember being very scared when the teacher came in and broke down in tears. That was the first time I saw an adult cry. Wow, what a strange mix of emotions this thread is bringing up! Wonder, sadness, horror, amazement. Makes me want to take a trip to the Newseum (if they weren’t closed until 2006 ☹ ). ---
**Author:** ![Lure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@Lure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lure)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/96 "2002-12-14T23:36:41Z")
I remember the '44 election,only because an older kid in the neighborhood tore a Roosevelt poster off a telephone pole. I couldn’t imagine anyone preferring Dewey over FDR,and thought we’d be in big trouble if Dewey won.Of course I was still not in grammar school,so my comprehension of world events were sketchy at best,but thought FDR was the only man that could win the war. Movietone news brought me war battles,and later the Berlin airlift. The first major news event that hit home with me,I guess was the Soviet bomb in '49. Pass the geritol. PS-I not only knew of Billy Joel’s “trouble in the Suez”,I volunteered for 6th fleeet duty because of it.I bet most people alive today have no conception of what it meant at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Jello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@Jello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jello)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/97 "2002-12-15T00:38:32Z")
Born in '85, remember Saddam invading Kuwait in August of 1990. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/98 "2002-12-15T00:47:59Z")
Watergate. When I was first learning to talk, my parents had a coffee mug that was designed as a picture of Nixon on a three dollar bill. I was fascinated by it (all the other mugs in the house were plain) and my father would point to Nixon and say “Tricky Dicky.” (So that was one of my earliest phrases.) My parents were able to explain quite loosely in terms that a two-year-old could understand that Nixon was in charge of the U.S., but he had been very naughty and had fibbed. So during the Watergate media-fest, when Nixon was on TV, I would occasionally point to the screen and say either “Tricky Dicky” or “liar.” ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/99 "2002-12-15T00:58:11Z")
The 1988 election. I was arguing with a cousin, that was a year younger than me, about who should win the election. I said Dukakis, and he said Bush, of course, since I was six, it’s not like I had any idea why I thought Dukakis should win other than my mom was going to vote for him. :rolleyes: I remember doing a mock vote in school for that '88 election and when it was announced that Bush won the school election I was worried that the real election would probably turn out that way too. I remember the earthquake from the '89 World Series. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395/100 "2002-12-15T02:33:46Z")
…and just in case any of you young _whippersnappers_ are looking for nice things to do for old people during the Holidays, you can come seranade **LouisB, Lure** and me at the nursing home. It gets _so_ lonely, sometimes… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-first-news-event-you-remember/142395.md?page=6)