Pretty much the biggest, most important historical event of my lifetime has to be the 9/11 attacks. I was 19, and working at Blockbuster at the time… We had a DirecTV system in our store, because we were an authorized seller. A woman who worked for the shopping complex came in and told us that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. We put the DirecTV on the news and there it stayed, all day.
I remember the lines around the gas stations, and I remember soliciting donations to the September 11 Fund, which I guess was supposed to go to the family members?
Where were you during the most important historical events of your lifetime? Not limited to just 9/11.
I was 1 yo when Kennedy was shot
I was working in a pet store when I heard about the challenger accident
I was up in a very old house in the Catskills when we watched Nixon’s resignation statement.
I was at the beach in the south of France for the moon landing
I watched Secretariat’s unbelievable race replay from the living room floor, with my dad.
I was cleaning stalls in a glorious fall afternoon when the news broke about the 9/11 attacks.
I was picking my pasture when the Jan 6 attack took place.
(Yes, I know this isn’t in order, it’s just as things occurred to me, and I’m sure I’m missing things)
I remember I was angry about the January 6 attacks, so I went online to try and roleplay, and my character ended up making a complete ass of herself, and I had to leave one of my “jobs” in that game. I should have known better than to try and interact with people when I was that angry.
Moon landing - on our old B&W tv at the cottage, with the curtains drawn to make the image better.
Nixon’s resignation - also at our family cottage. I was reading a book outside and my dad came out and said 'there’s going to be something on tv you should watch."
First Quebec referendum - at home in our rumpus room, watching on tv.
Patriation of the Constitution - watched it on tv in the common room of our residence; then went out to the chapel and I rang the bell, loudly, several times. A couple of my buds told me I had a good sense of occcasion.
2nd Quebec referendum - Mrs P and I watched it with some friends at their house, with the needle showing the count flickering back and forth over 50%. Went to bed wondering if we would have a country when we woke up.
9/11 - woke up to the CBC news on the radio, announcing that a plane had hit the WTO. Initial reports made it sound like it was a small plane, then they made it clear it was much more serious. Went down to our living room to watch the coverage. I remember when one of the towers went down, and the dust and smoke cleared, and Peter Jennings just said, very quietly, “There’s nothing there.”
I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing on a TV in my family’s living room (I was four; it’s the earliest memory I have of an important event)
I watched Nixon’s resignation in that same room (though on a newer, color TV)
I was in biology class, as a high school freshman, when Reagan was shot (the principal announced this over the PA system, and led us in prayer, as it was a Catholic school)
I was in a Transportation Logistics class in college when Challenger exploded; I learned about it when I got to my work-study job after class, and a co-worker told me what had happened
I had just started my first real job when Tiananmen Square happened, and then when the Berlin Wall fell, a few months later; I watched coverage of both of those on CNN in the living room of the house I was renting
I was driving to the train station, heading into work, when the first plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11, and I heard an initial news bulletin on the radio about it; the second plane hit just after I got on the train. By the time I made it to the office, the Pentagon had also been hit, and the agency hurriedly sent us all back home (we were in downtown Chicago, and, as far as we knew, we could be next on the list). I remember being on the outbound L train, coming out of the subway tunnel, and the sense of relief on seeing the Sears Tower still standing. Once I got home, I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV, in shock.
I was working from home, sitting on my bed, when the January 6 attack happened; I listened to the coverage on MSNBC, on my Alexa, while feeling sick to my stomach
That’s the Canadian constitution, in case anyone was confused.
Anyway, you made me laugh, @Northern_Piper. I did watch the ceremony on TV in 1982. Then, when I was in law school, perhaps around 2005 or so, our Constitutional Law professor asked the class, “What is the significance of April 17, 1982?” I was the only one to raise a hand.
Then the professor said, “Spoons, thank you, don’t answer. I want to hear from somebody born after 1980.”
I was preparing for my class while a student at Monterey Peninsula College. A friend called me to ask if I’d seen the news. I did not know until I got to the campus that day that all classes had been canceled.
For the first Moon landing, I was sick in bed with what turned out to be appendicitis. The thing burst when the landing was announced on the news.
We watched moon landings on the b&w tv in the basement.
I was in the cafeteria in junior high when the gym teacher/lunchroom monitor announced the attempted Reagan assassination.
Freshman year in college, in Astronomy class, when the professor told us about the Challenger disaster. Class was dismissed.
9/11 pulling into the parking lot at work when the first plane hit. No work was done that day, and we were let go early.
I’m too young to remember the Challenger explosion.
The first event I can actually put a date to was the '88 election. My dad despised Bush.
I was working graveyard shift when Columbia exploded and I read about it in the paper – we had to take a stack of Sunday papers around the building and deliver them. It was, of course, front page news.
On the morning of 9/11 my SIL called and my wife answered (we were still in bed). She said something to the effect of “one of the World Trade Center towers just fell over!” (She’s never been big on details). We turned on the TV and… there it was.
Interestingly the one I remember the most vividly was the Charlie Hebdo shooting. I had heard about it online and my initial reaction was anger and disgust – I abhor gun violence. That evening I was going across the city for dinner and while waiting for the streetcar some random woman started engaging me in small talk. It was, unsurprisingly, a rainy night in Portland so we were both in the little shelter. I made some comment about how disgusted I was with humanity and she wanted to know why. I mentioned the shooting and she had no idea what I was on about so she pulled out her phone and, I guess, looked it up… then absolutely lost it, crying and bawling. I felt like a fool and she simply walked away crying.
I followed along the Jan 6 insurrection here, but we were preparing to open our school to F2F after 10 months of distance learning so I had other things on my mind. I mostly read about it after the fact.
Kennedy shot … in school as a little kid, didn’t make an impression except for my parents looking ashen when I came home.
Man landing on the moon … was staying in a cheap motel in Delaware with my parents. We were visiting my paternal grandparents but they were more comfortable with us not overnighting with them.
Challenger exploding … at work in Washington DC. Someone came into my office and told me what happened, and I can still clearly feel how my stomach dropped. It didn’t make sense, but we all wanted the teacher to survive somehow, and I remember hoping that if only one astronaut survived, please let it be her.
9/11 … I was in Jakarta and it was evening; I was in the study doing something trivial on the computer. My husband walked in, looking more somber than I had ever seen him. “Something’s happening,” he said. We went to the TV and watched live coverage, including seeing the second plane hit. I sobbed all night.
Obama’s first election … was at a US-embassy-sponsored party in Jakarta. Things went pretty much as expected. I felt jubilant.
Trump’s election in 2016 … was at a friend’s house in Jakarta for a “victory” party (we assumed) for the Dems. As it became painfully clear what had just happened, I went into the garden outside her house and cried my eyes out.
Cuban Missile Crisis: First grade. Another kid told me Cuba had missiles aimed at the US. I didn’t know where Cuba was–thought it might be nearby.
JFK assassination: second grade, about to start a spelling test. Teacher got called out of the room, didn’t come back. Eventually a nun stood in the door, said, “Children, the President was shot, and he died” and left again. I was scared: who’d be the country’s dad now?
MLK assassination: came in from playing to find my parents grimly watching the news.
RFK assassination: Mom woke me up just after dawn to tell me.
Nixon resignation: home watching it with my folks. I had a 20th Century US History class that night. The prof wasn’t going to let us watch it, so the entire class walked out.
John Lennon killed: Doing laundry and singing “Across the Universe” when my husband called downstairs, “John Lennon died.”
Challenger disaster: on my way to give a speech. Had to pull over.
OKC bombing: had just turned on the news in my classroom. Somehow missed there was a daycare center until that night. Held my sleeping baby for a long time.
9/11: en route to school, then in classes with kids all day. Roughest day of my career.
Jan. 6th Insurrection: Here on The Dope. A bad day made better by all of you.
The difference between young and old: the list is a lot longer when you’re old.
Some of us don’t know the most important historical events in our lifetime because we just don’t pay much attention to much that happens outside the U.S. For example see this list of wars by death toll:
The biggest since World War II was the Second Congo War otherwise known as the Great War of Africa from 1998 to 2003 where maybe 5.4 million people died.
I was living in Germany in 1985 when I saw the body of a US serviceman dumped on the tarmac of a Beirut airport. I was 10 years old at the time and it’s the first memory I have of the Middle East.
I was in 5th grade in class in 1986 when the principal announce over the PA that the Challenger space shuttle had exploded shortly after launch and it appeared that all astronauts were dead. We were following the launch fairly closely no doubt in part because teacher Christa McAuliffe was onboard.
I was at home from school ill in 1993 watching the news when coverage of the Branch Davidian massacre happened.
In 1995, I was on my way to school when I heard about an explosion in Oklahoma Cita.
In 2001 my sister called me and told me what was happening in New York. When I turned on the television, I heard the news announcer say one of the WTC towers had collapsed and I rolled my eyes because I assumed he was greatly exaggerating. When the gravity of what I was watching on television hit me I won’t lie, I cried.
Not every event can be narrowed down to a single date. For instance, the most important historical event of my lifetime was probably the fall of the Soviet Block and the end of the cold war. Now I remember where I was when the Berlin Wall fell (at home, watching the news with my parents), and where I was during the 1991 aborted coup against Gorbachev (hiking in the Sinai), but those were just two events out of hundreds. Likewise, what was the key date for the Covid-19 pandemic, the most important event of the 21st Century so far? Was it the date we first heard of a new disease coming out of China? Was it the first reported case in my country (which wasn’t on the same day as the first reported case in your country)? Was it the day they sent all the kids home from school? I remember all of those, but I wouldn’t call them the Covid-19 “dates”.
That said, there were a few sudden events that I can pin a date on:
1995 - I was on leave from the military, coming home from hanging out with friends, when I turned on the TV and learned that Yitzhak Rabin had been shot.
2001 - I was living in Manhattan at the time. On September 11 I arrived at work on 18th and Broadway a few minutes after the second plane hit, and watched the towers fall from my office window.
2003 - my wife and I were on our way back from a reunion when we heard on the radio that Columbia had crashed.
I recall watching the news with my dad as a little kid and seeing a news story about the death of Zhou Enlai, and a couple years later, a story about the Jonestown Massacre on the news. I don’t recall seeing anything about John Lennon, but that may have just been the vagaries of a 7 year old boy’s news watching.
I watched the Shuttle aerodynamic tests on TV with my Dad on a weekend afternoon, and also the first Shuttle launch with him as well. IIRC, I got to stay home from school for the morning in order to do that.
I recall being in school in the 2nd grade, in Miss Barber’s class when the release of the hostages from Iran happened, and President Reagan was shot.
I was in 7th grade in Mr. Doggett’s computer class when the Challenger accident happened. He came in and announced it to us, and they had everyone go back to their homerooms and watch the news footage.
Branch Davidian stuff - the first attempt to storm the compound I saw on the College Station news that afternoon as they broke in live into Jeopardy or a cartoon. Later that same semester, I was in Geology lab when the final assault/fire went down- as we left the lab, someone said “Hey did you hear?..”
OKC bombing- I was in class in college, and didn’t know about it until I got back to my dorm and saw a bunch of shell-shocked people watching the TV.
I was sound asleep on 9/11- I had taken the day off for a job interview later that afternoon, and was sleeping in, until a friend called me frantic telling me to watch the news. Got up, turned on the TV, and I beat on my roommate’s door telling him to get up and come see what was going on.
I was asleep in bed more or less, when Columbia disintegrated over North Texas. In a weird turn of events, I woke up about 30 seconds before my roommate came tearing up the stairs and started beating on my door saying I had to get up and come see something. Turns out he’d read in the paper that the Columbia was going to go nearly overhead that morning on its reentry way to Cape Canaveral, and he’d got up early to see it, and apparently managed to just see the wreckage re-entering. We watched it fall for about 5-10 minutes, and then went in and turned on the news.
Jan 6, 2021 - I think my wife was watching TV and yelled at me to come see the assholes milling around the Capitol at some point in the early-mid afternoon. Basically played hooky from work and watched the news the rest of the afternoon (like I’m sure most of my co-workers did as well).
A few additional ones for me, which reading others’ posts reminded me of:
As many people did, I heard about John Lennon’s death from Howard Cosell, while watching the end of a Monday Night Football game in 1980.
My then-fiancee and I were somewhere on Interstate 43 in Wisconsin, driving up to Green Bay on Christmas morning, 1991, when we heard, on the radio, coverage of Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech, in which he effectively dissolved the USSR.
When Princess Diana died, my wife and I, along with my in-laws, were up at a cabin that they owned in central Wisconsin – they had no TV in that cabin, and only a radio (which wasn’t often on). We didn’t hear about Diana until we headed into town to buy gas, at which point we saw the news on the front page of the newspapers being sold at the gas station.
I was lazing in bed on a Saturday morning in 2003, listening to the news, when they broke in to the regular reporting to report that the Space Shuttle Columbia had broken up on re-entry.
