# Widely Reported Event You Somehow Missed For Years **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 27, 2016, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993 "2016-07-27T01:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/21 "2016-07-27T17:49:08Z")
Just a couple days ago I was wondering if George McGovern’s health was good enough to allow him to attend the convention in Philadelphia. Apparently not. He’s been dead almost four years. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_Bowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@Doug\_Bowe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_Bowe)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/22 "2016-07-27T18:08:26Z")
Last week I saw a news story about Luciano Pavarotti’s widow. Widow? He died in 2007. Then it sunk in why we haven’t pledged around the Three Tenors for awhile. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/23 "2016-07-27T18:11:38Z")
We landed a MAN? on the MOON? In a more serious note: I learned just a week or so ago that Patrick Swayze died. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/24 "2016-07-28T12:49:32Z")
> [@newservice](#): > > I missed that Lenard Skynard’s plane crashed. Took me 3 years to hear Johnny was dead. > [@Folacin](#): > > Do you mean Johnny Carson? Because I think he was dead 6 years or more before someone mentioned it (I think on this board) and I didn’t have a clue. No they mean that Lynyrd Skynyrd’s lead singer died - Johnny Van Zant. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/25 "2016-07-28T13:32:41Z")
So you’re telling me that there’s a NEW Mexico? How long has that been there? Is it behind a wall? ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/26 "2016-07-28T16:14:56Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Most of these entries have been about missing that someone has died. But some of us hearing about a famous actor/actress dying in their 80s to 90s have the reaction: “I thought he/she died years ago”. Username / post combo for the win! I don’t miss much because my mother is like an early alert warning system with this sort of thing. “That short guy in movies, the ones about the war? Well, they said he passed away yesterday in California.” So on that little amount of information, I try to look it up, only to realize that it was actually someone tall, who died in a plane crash over Columbia, last year. However, she just came across it on her newsfeed today… Plus, I’m subscribed to Death Beeper by email. All the biggies get posted about within hours. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/27 "2016-07-28T18:44:42Z")
> [@Rebo](#): > > No they mean that Lynyrd Skynyrd’s lead singer died - Johnny Van Zant. But Johnny Van Zant is still alive, as far as I know (although he was the subject of a death rumor about a month ago). Skynyrd’s original lead singer who was killed in the plane crash was Johnny’s older brother, _Ronnie_ Van Zant. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/28 "2016-07-28T19:21:44Z")
I stand corrected. And I _knew_ that! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/29 "2016-07-28T23:13:27Z")
I left the US for a backpacking trip across Asia in 1975. I didn’t make it back until 1983. In those pre internet days, unless there was an important event in the US that the whole world took note of, I had no clue as to what was going on the whole time I was gone. Celebrity deaths, new celebrities, rock band break ups, sports happenings, domestic events, elections (other than presidential), all took place without me knowing about them. Its not exactly that I didn’t care, I just had no access to the news. Much of the time I spent in Taipei. It had a small English paper, but hardly any news of events happening in America. When I got back a spent a little time at my parent’s house. They were RVing, but my sister was there. I can’t tell you how many, “WHAT? WHEN?” moments we shared when she started telling me about the things that had happened while I was gone. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/30 "2016-07-29T00:09:45Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > I left the US for a backpacking trip across Asia in 1975. I didn’t make it back until 1983. In those pre internet days, unless there was an important event in the US that the whole world took note of, I had no clue as to what was going on the whole time I was gone. Celebrity deaths, new celebrities, rock band break ups, sports happenings, domestic events, elections (other than presidential), all took place without me knowing about them. > > Its not exactly that I didn’t care, I just had no access to the news. Much of the time I spent in Taipei. It had a small English paper, but hardly any news of events happening in America. > > When I got back a spent a little time at my parent’s house. They were RVing, but my sister was there. I can’t tell you how many, “WHAT? WHEN?” moments we shared when she started telling me about the things that had happened while I was gone. Reading this I can only hear “Aw MAN, The Doobie Brothers broke up! Shit. When did that happen?” in my head. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/31 "2016-07-29T01:02:40Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Reading this I can only hear “Aw MAN, The Doobie Brothers broke up! Shit. When did that happen?” in my head. I see I’m not the only person who started hearing that line from _Romancing the Stone._ ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/32 "2016-07-29T01:11:00Z")
I missed the entire Yugoslavia/Croatian/Serbia war. I didn’t realize it all happened until about 5 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/33 "2016-07-29T02:29:28Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Kind of in reverse - a few years back, I was riding into DC with a coworker and we crossed the 14th Street Bridge. I commented how I’d been at the far end of that bridge when Air Florida flt 90 crashed into it, then into the Potomac. He had no idea what I was talking about. But it happened years before he was born (did I ever feel ancient…) so it really doesn’t count, does it? > > 😃 I was living in Northern Virginia on that day and remember Howard Stern was just starting a job as a DJ at the radio station I listened to (until the next day when I decided if Stern was their new morning guy I wanted no part of it). He called Air Florida from his Washington, DC studio and asked them how much a one way ticket to the 14th Street Bridge was. WHILE THE RESCUES WERE STILL GOING ON. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993/34 "2016-07-29T12:18:31Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Can’t top that, but I had no idea until a couple days ago that Michael (“Jurassic Park”) Crichton died in 2008. Wow, really? I didn’t know that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/widely-reported-event-you-somehow-missed-for-years/760993.md?page=1)