Born in '73 here, I have a vague memories of Lennon getting shot (1980 IIRC), but the challenger was the big one.
I was born November 1974. And the first news event I specifically remember was watching a very red map of the US in 1984 and knowing that every red state had voted for Reagan and the only blue state, Minnesota, had voted for Mondale. I was disappointed. Now that puts it at 10 but in my defence we didn’t have a TV (no electricity) when I was little and when we did get one I just didn’t get why watching pictures on a box was all that fun.
Although I also have a terrible memory. I don’t remember the first time my grandfather visited or going to Disneyland, both about when I was 6 or 7.
Another one with the JFK assassination. I also remember my mom’s immediate, forceful declaration that LBJ had to be involved. Since she expressed this in terms I was explicitly forbidden to use, I inferred that she was really upset and kept my mouth shut.
I had no idea who LBJ was, but I vaguely ‘understood’ that a President was sort of like a king.
FIrst thing?
The IRA planting bombs in train stations.
Let’s see… born September 1972, and the first thing I recall on news-wise was seeing Mao Tse-Tung lying in state on the CBS evening news. (September 1976).
I remember a lot of stuff from the following year too - the premiere of teh Incredible Hulk(remember, I was 5!), the deaths of two popes(Paul and John Paul I), and the Jim Jones Guyana mass suicide. That last one was really creepy to see on the news as a kid, for what it’s worth.
The first news event I remember is Elvis’ death. I was born in June 1973.
Twiddle
When Micheal Jackson had that accident witht the fire and his hair filming that pepsi commercial
Born in Nov, 1970.
I remember John Lennon being shot and everyone crying and me saying “Who’s John Lennon?”
I vaguely remember the Iran Hostage Crisis, when they would put the number of days up behind the newscasters.
I vaguely remember Reagan being elected.
I remember New Years, 1980 (a whole new DECADE!).
That’s about it. I don’t think I was very aware of the outside world before I was about 9-10 years old.
The first news story I remember clearly was when Reagan got shot. The broke into my daily installment of The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show with the announcement, and when I wandered into the kitchen to mention it to Mom, she didn’t believe me.
Born 1983. I only have personal memories of the 80s, not any major events. The first major news event I remember is the Gulf War. I didn’t really understand much of it, just that some guy from Iraq called Saddam Hussien was having a war with some other countries and everybody hated him for it. I also remember when the USSR existed and it was on my map of the world. I used to get the USSR and the USA mixed up because of the similar abbreviations. Then there’s some local news from 1991 or 1992, when Paul Keating became Australian Prime Minister and my parents were talking about him stabbing Bob Hawke (former PM) in the back. I used to think that they meant that literally - that Keating had stabbed him in the back with a knife and killed him. Somewhere along the way there’s a memory of my parents telling me about the Chamberlain trials and how she said a dingo ate her baby but everybody thought she killed the baby.
Then there’s a gap as far as major world events go and they only start to flood back into my memory at 1994 - Levy Shoemaker-9 (the comet that crashed into Jupiter; I heard something about there might be earthquakes here or something, or it might even miss Jupiter and hit earth), OJ being chased down the freeway in his white Bronco and a vague memory of the trials (I wasn’t particularly interested in listening to some boring trial, so I didn’t pay much attention to it), John Candy dying (I was a major fan of Uncle Buck at the time and I found his death to be quite significant), etc. Up until around 1994, I have far more personal memories than memories of world events.
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The gigantic wall map at my former elementary school (as of 2002) still has the USSR on it. Quite comical, in retrospect.
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Born 1967.
I don’t remember Watergate, or the 1972 Olympics. I think I should, but I don’t.
The first news event I recall is the Apollo-Soyuz docking. I think I was about 8. Some friends of our family had dropped their kids off at our house, because they were going to do something, and my mom had said she’d watch them. I remember their mom telling my mom that Adam really wanted to watch the docking, and was it okay if he watched it over here?
Adam was a year younger than me, but he was really in to space stuff. So we watched it, and he explained what it was all about. It was neat. 
Born 1981, and I remember hearing about “that space shuttle, the one that was going up into space, burned up and fell back down” or something to that effect. We were in the car listening to the radio, and my father was driving. The shopping center we were driving past is still there, though we no longer live where we did then. For anyone who lives in the general northern virginia area, it’s the yorktown shopping center.
Election involving Adlai Stephenson/Estes Kefauver/coonskin hat. This when I was 11 and first exposed to TV. TV seems to make more of an impression than print and the radio.
Also, discussion of the Korean War; also Stalin and Russia.
This isn’t quite the first news event I remember but it’s sorta related.
Around the age of six or seven I noticed that Ronald Reagan had been in office for a couple years running and this struck me as strange. For some reason I thought we got a new president every year.
So I said to my mother (a liberal): “Mommy, why is Ronald Reagan President year after year?”
Her reply: “Because we’re stupid.”
“There’s a new drug on the streets, and it’s called crack.”
I didn’t think of Lennon - and I still do not remember any of the news coverage of him getting shot, but I remember a SNL skit about Buckwheat getting shot - that sticks out in my mind. Was it around the same time?