For me it would be
9/11
Queen's mother death
Germany 1-5 England football match.
9/11
Queen's mother death
Germany 1-5 England football match.
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What is the first big news story you remember?
- Thread starter Reevefoug
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For me, the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
Then, I also remember (vividly) the first moon landing (although I also remember the coverage of Apollo 8, Apollo 9, and Apollo 10, as well).
Then, I also remember (vividly) the first moon landing (although I also remember the coverage of Apollo 8, Apollo 9, and Apollo 10, as well).
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For me, it was the lunar landing. I was 5 years old.
My brother and sister always had the radio on and the coverage was all over the radio. I remember the crew member radio transmissions just as clear today as it was back then.
The radio that I heard this on still works to this day and is an old Radio Shack clock radio. I plugged it in several years ago to try it out.
My brother and sister always had the radio on and the coverage was all over the radio. I remember the crew member radio transmissions just as clear today as it was back then.
The radio that I heard this on still works to this day and is an old Radio Shack clock radio. I plugged it in several years ago to try it out.
Kennedy shot in Dallas, November 1963.
I grew up in Hartford, CT. There was a morning paper, which my parents subscribed to, and an evening paper, which they never read. I remember my father coming home with the evening paper and opening the front page on the dining room table. It said "Kennedy Shot." It's a very vivid picture. I still have the table.
I grew up in Hartford, CT. There was a morning paper, which my parents subscribed to, and an evening paper, which they never read. I remember my father coming home with the evening paper and opening the front page on the dining room table. It said "Kennedy Shot." It's a very vivid picture. I still have the table.
The crash of UAL 232 (the DC-10 flying from Denver to Chicago that crash-landed at Sioux City, IA 30yrs ago) - remember seeing the ABC World News Tonight reporting on this
en.wikipedia.org
United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia
The first I vaguely remember is the Challenger shuttle exploding. Although I couldn't say if I remember it from the news or if was talked about in school later in life.
The first I firmly remember is Saddam invading Kuwait. Then the subsequent military build up and Gulf War. Mostly because of how upsetting it was. That all the networks were talking about it every week and not showing Saturday morning cartoons.
The first I firmly remember is Saddam invading Kuwait. Then the subsequent military build up and Gulf War. Mostly because of how upsetting it was. That all the networks were talking about it every week and not showing Saturday morning cartoons.
I was a kid in the 70's and recall the following in no particular order:
Killer bees (they were definitely coming to kill me)
Thurman Munson (catcher for Yankees)dies in plane crash
Iranian hostage crisis (I wasn't quite sure what was going on but I was petrified of nuclear war and people kept talking about it)
Killer bees (they were definitely coming to kill me)
Thurman Munson (catcher for Yankees)dies in plane crash
Iranian hostage crisis (I wasn't quite sure what was going on but I was petrified of nuclear war and people kept talking about it)
The big bang.
It was very big. The biggest ever.
My ears are still ringing.
It was very big. The biggest ever.
My ears are still ringing.
Probably Chernobyl and the Challenger disaster.
This will show my age ....... but I remember the first man in space - Yuri Gagarin and also the 1st orbit of planet earth - I was 12 years old and this just blew my mind at the time. I was a paper boy and every paper has this story on the front page with a photograph of Yuri.
Well that was - just - before I was born but I recall Apollo 11 landing on moon when I was three. I had an astronaut figure that could "fly" on a string as well.
As a small child, I remember staring up at the moon, during the Apollo 11 mission, absolutely amazed that people were wandering (or bouncing) around its surface.
Challenger explosion is the first I can actually remember. I was in 3rd grade and the whole class was watching the launch on TV.
These TV and VCR's on roller carts because not every classroom could have a television.
Thanks for the shout out - I'm a Falklands War Veteran.
I recall news of the death of President Roosevelt, vaguely, or rather the fact that people, grownups, went around crying. The whole thing of adults crying was completely new to me, and very scary. I was just old enough to have been expected to shush up whenever "the President is talking!" on the radio.
Naturally I didn't know who Roosevelt was, just that "the President" was sort of like another grownup even if he only showed up as a particular voice coming out of that box on the shelf in the kitchen or a bigger box in the living room.
I didn't understand death yet of course. I learned "Mr. Truman" would be the new President. OK so I liked him, I could pronounce his name at least, I remember saying his name over and over Truman Truman Truman Truman! and eventually being told "that'll do now, that'll do!" by my grandpa (who I learned later on loathed the man). The other guy had always just been described to me as "the President" and I never said his name as far as I can remember. So Mr. Truman (or Truman Truman Truman!) was the new voice in that box on the shelf... and whenever he talked, I was to be quiet, just like for the other guy.
But in sharper focus later on, I so clearly remember news accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. I was just pre-kindergarten and could read, but of course not yet regularly reading newspapers. However, those incidents were definitely all that was being talked about for days, even weeks at every sit-down to table, including breakfast... so those news reports stuck like a mountain in memory... because otherwise [shrug] the days and especially breakfast were just how morning started, something to eat and then some chores. Grandpa read the paper and then headed off to the bank. Grandma and mom set about their daily routines. Sometimes the mailman brought a letter from my dad or an uncle and everyone took a break while that got read aloud to all of us. My chores were stuff like kneading that orange dot into the white margarine packets that we had instead of butter during the war rationing, and then taking kitchen veggie tops and peels out to the barn to feed the rabbits.
I remember feeling anxious about whether atomic bombs could hurt the rabbits. I knew the bombs dropped on Japan were made in the USA, that had been in the newspapers. I didn't really understand if Japan had bombs like that too. I probably couldn't deal with the idea that if bombs got dropped here it wasn't just going to be rabbits at stake. I don't remember being afraid for us, just our rabbits. Weird how kids process what they can and lay the rest off. LOL I never really got it that those rabbits were being raised (and sold) for meat. We didn't eat them, so I was spared the need to know what happened to them as they grew up.
Naturally I didn't know who Roosevelt was, just that "the President" was sort of like another grownup even if he only showed up as a particular voice coming out of that box on the shelf in the kitchen or a bigger box in the living room.
I didn't understand death yet of course. I learned "Mr. Truman" would be the new President. OK so I liked him, I could pronounce his name at least, I remember saying his name over and over Truman Truman Truman Truman! and eventually being told "that'll do now, that'll do!" by my grandpa (who I learned later on loathed the man). The other guy had always just been described to me as "the President" and I never said his name as far as I can remember. So Mr. Truman (or Truman Truman Truman!) was the new voice in that box on the shelf... and whenever he talked, I was to be quiet, just like for the other guy.
But in sharper focus later on, I so clearly remember news accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. I was just pre-kindergarten and could read, but of course not yet regularly reading newspapers. However, those incidents were definitely all that was being talked about for days, even weeks at every sit-down to table, including breakfast... so those news reports stuck like a mountain in memory... because otherwise [shrug] the days and especially breakfast were just how morning started, something to eat and then some chores. Grandpa read the paper and then headed off to the bank. Grandma and mom set about their daily routines. Sometimes the mailman brought a letter from my dad or an uncle and everyone took a break while that got read aloud to all of us. My chores were stuff like kneading that orange dot into the white margarine packets that we had instead of butter during the war rationing, and then taking kitchen veggie tops and peels out to the barn to feed the rabbits.
I remember feeling anxious about whether atomic bombs could hurt the rabbits. I knew the bombs dropped on Japan were made in the USA, that had been in the newspapers. I didn't really understand if Japan had bombs like that too. I probably couldn't deal with the idea that if bombs got dropped here it wasn't just going to be rabbits at stake. I don't remember being afraid for us, just our rabbits. Weird how kids process what they can and lay the rest off. LOL I never really got it that those rabbits were being raised (and sold) for meat. We didn't eat them, so I was spared the need to know what happened to them as they grew up.
The first big news came from my dad. He said, “you’re gonna get your ass kicked when church is over.“
That’s just all in a days work.
That’s just all in a days work.
Queen Elizabeth's coronation and ascension to the throne, and also (very vaguely) the McCarthy Hearings..... I think my parents must've gotten our first TV around that time frame, which was the early 1950's. Also I have some vague memory of when in school doing something with putting stamps in books to support the Korean War effort. Yeah, I'm getting old..... 
The Iran hostage crisis. I was barely 6 when it started, and I remember talking to my dad about it, and the Ayatollah Khomeini while we were in the car.
I also remember that he spoke to me seriously about it, and didn’t gloss over or dismiss my questions. Both of my parents did the same regarding all manner of topics, and I really appreciated that, then and now.
I also remember that he spoke to me seriously about it, and didn’t gloss over or dismiss my questions. Both of my parents did the same regarding all manner of topics, and I really appreciated that, then and now.
Queen Elizabeth's coronation and ascension to the throne, and also (very vaguely) the McCarthy Hearings..... I think my parents must've gotten our first TV around that time frame, which was the early 1950's. Also I have some vague memory of when in school doing something with putting stamps in books to support the Korean War effort. Yeah, I'm getting old.....
That coronation is my first sure memory of televised fare after we acquired a TV set. My young brothers went all in for Howdy Doody. That show triggered my aversion to "TV entertainment" in general. It was decades and decades later that someone coined the phrase "I just can't...even..." but it would have been perfect for how I reacted to Howdy Doody.
AAAAGHHH!!!!! Howdy Doody!!!!!! Yeah. I remember that and also remember after a while just not wanting to watch It any more even though the whole television thing in itself was fascinating. There was something distinctly creepy about that show, and even little kids could discern that! At least I did..... A few years later I did become entranced by "The [original] Mickey Mouse Club," and after that as I matured, segued into rushing home from school in time to be able to see "American Bandstand."
We also got to see the original "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy....." We were really kind of lucky back then, weren't we?
Oh, and yeah, when my grandparents came to visit the family had to sit down in front of the TV and watch "The Lawrence Welk Show," and of course I was interested in the Lennon Sisters but not the rest of it. Janet Lennon was (is) around my age. Of course as a kid I had no idea of what probably was going on behind the scenes, the intense hard work needed in advance for those girls to perform and for all of the other performances that occurred during any given broadcast show.
Now anyone can view those early shows but you know what? It's not the same, not at all, as it was when viewing them for the first time back in the 1950's on a small-screen TV and with the perspective of a 1950's lifestyle.....
First American in space Alan Shepard (1961). I was 8 years old. Recommended reading: The Right Stuff if you are interested in the post WWII history of American aerospace. Great read.
JFK- 3rd grade announcement at school over the PA. I don’t remember if school was let out early.
JFK- 3rd grade announcement at school over the PA. I don’t remember if school was let out early.