What would you remember as the one major news story at the time of your childhood?
Asked by
ucme (
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April 24th, 2012
Something fairly big obviously, whether it was good or bad.
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59 Answers
John F. Kennedy was shot and killed.
One small step for man, I giant leap for mankind. 7–20-69
@chyna you got my first answer ahead of me.
I can’t remember much from the childhood, but 9/11 was the major event of my teen years.
I was born in 1961: (and here are more than one)
Man on the moon
1972 Olympics
1971 Earthquake in Southern California
Lakers finally win the NBA championship 1972
Nixon Elected
Malibu/San Fernando Valley brush fires 1970
@Charles Did you guys see when Buzz Aldrin punched that moon landing skeptic in the face?
John Lennon being assassinated.
1980 – I was nine. It was a big deal in my house as my father was a huge music fan. I think it’s the first time I remember him crying.
@WestRiverrat I was back and forth over which one to post and the Kennedy thing was first in the timeline.
I as born in 1961. I remember all of the above. I also remember sitting in our living room watching the lottery for the draft in Vietnam. My oldest brother was eligible as were two of my cousins. My brother’s birthday was March 16 and he didn’t get drafted. I remember my Mom crying out of joy and fear and saying she had to pull herself together before she called my aunt whose son was drafted. It was pretty scary.
The Challenger explosion was a pretty big deal. We were let out of school early for that one.
The Flixborough disaster in 1974. It was about 25 miles from where I lived and I heard the explosion.
Hm. Sixth grade was Monica Lewinski. Shortly before that was O.J.
When I was in the third grade we had to do current events projects – summarizing stories from the newspaper. My dad had to go to a parent-teacher conference to discuss how much my papers were creeping the other students out. I had a thing for murder stories.
A Vietnam protest march in Washington, DC. My much older sister left her university campus to attend, and when Dad found out, he was furious. I don’t know whether this was due to the fact that she left school grounds, could have been at risk, or because it was an “unpatriotic” thing to do.
Probably the first real headliner news that comes to mind without family influence was when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs on the tennis court in 1973. It represented a symbolic win for women.
Probably 9/11. I wasn’t that young at the time, but it definitely was memorable, so to speak.
Son of Sam
The Challenger
Reagan being shot
Roosevelt dies, HST drops two atomic bombs and WWII ends. The Yankees win every world series so it stops being news.
The launching of Sputnik in October, 1957 by the USSR.
I think one of the ramifications of that event was a resurgence of anticommunist paranoia in the US.
I think that resurgence was what motivated the FBI to hassle my parents, after I wrote a paper saying that I’d like to visit the USSR.
@Brian1946 Me too! The first item in the news that I recall is the Soviet 1957 launch of the “Sputnik” satellite. I was 6 years old at the time and I stuck sticks in a orange and through it in the air. I thought that it resembled Sputnik but it impressed no one.
The Gulf War/Desert Storm (whichever you call it). I only remember it because my dad had it on TV all the time. Other than that, we seemed to live under a rock.
The first large event that I took interest in, on my own, was the Rwandan Genocide. That affected me deeply. I was around 16–17 years old by then.
Oh, I almost forgot…1988. The Winter Olympics were held in our province ..that was big (one of my teachers got to run with the torch and I got to meet Rick Hansen in person).
@Charles I grew up in Southern California in the 1970’s too; the Sylmar earthquake and the 1970 wildfires were both on my list. In terms of national news I remember Richard Nixon’s resignation and the Bicentennial.
Interesting question @ucme.
Strangely I remember music and people more than news events. I remember Harold Wilson and Ted Heath being the Prime Ministers, I remember Enoch Powell getting a lot of news coverage and I remember Beatles albums being released, but specific news is less clear.
I remember man landing on the moon.
I remember Paul McCartney marrying Linda Eastman.
I remember the QEII being launched.
I remember a lot of stories about Northern Ireland and ‘The Troubles’.
I remember IRA bombing campaigns both in the news and reality.
I remember a lot of stories about British Leyland.
I remember the decision to join the EEC.
I remember the coal miners strikes.
I remember the oil embargo by OPEC countries.
I remember an attempt to kidnap Princess Anne.
I remember Lesley Whittle being kidnapped and murdered.
The Lord Lucan mystery…
The Yorkshire Ripper was still free and murdering women in the area where I lived.
Jeremy Thorpe, homosexuality and his nodules.
The heat wave of 1976.
Challenger explosion
Reagan shooting
Baby Jessica
1984 Olympics
@chyna Lol, yes, my dad watched that show. He even named one of cows J.R. because of it.
I was 10 months old when Kennedy was assassinated.
I remember watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on tv in school (was that recorded and played live?). I was in first grade.
I remember watching Helter Skelter on tv and being scared to death when, at the end, they said Manson would be up for parole in a few years.
I remember when Elvis died. I was in a hotel in Pittsburg, PA.
Nixon’s impeachment.
Vietnamese hanging off the helicopters as they flew out of Vietnam.
The kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the tapes she recorded and her bank robberies.
The suicide of Freddie Prinze.
The death of Ed Sullivan.
I remember Nadia Comaneci getting a perfect 10 for Romania in the Olympics. I was about 10 at that point. The other news stories I mentioned I was younger for.
I realize that I am dating myself, but I remember when I was 8 years old (1954) was the first time that the vaccine against polio was used & it caused a dramatic decrease in the number of polio cases. When I was a child, getting polio just terrified both parents & kids.
@bkcunningham Thanks : ) That would have been way to late to see the actual live coverage at school. Maybe it was the coverage of it the next day. I just remember everyone being all abuzz over it and I was so excited to watch it in school.
The gulf war, OJ Simpson, 9/11. As far as Media coverage, those were the big ones that I remember.
Kennedy being assassinated
The first manned moon landing.
Dr. M.L. King being assassinated.
Apollo 13 and how scared we all were for them.
The Bush/Gore election going to the supreme court.
9/11, without a doubt. I still remember where I was and the emotion of that day.
After that, the election of Barack Obama. (And soon, the fact that I will be able to tell my kids that I voted for the first black president of the United States in his second term this coming November. ;) )
You guys make me feel so young.
@Fly You make me feel so old.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death. VE Day. (victory in Europe) The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
The Vietnam War
Elvis Presley
The Polio Vaccine
Sputnik
Diving under to desk in case of a nuclear attack
The Nixon JFK election
The JFK assassination
Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston
The arrival of The Beatles
Wow @gailcalled, You beat me. I was alive when Roosevelt died, but barely over 1 year old.
The outbreak of the Korean war on June 25, 1950 is the first newsworthy event I still recall. The first news event I ever saw on TV was the inaugural parade for President Eisenhower in 1953. We had a TV, but the first broadcast station in Norfolk, VA was still under construction at the time. Fortunately, we visited my aunt in Atlanta, and their station was on the air. I was fascinated by the new medium, so the memory is vivid even today.
@ETpro if you don’t mind my asking, and if you were old enough to recall clearly enough, do you remember what was running through your head as you watched the Korean War begin? This is very interesting to me.
Which reminds me… another event I remember from my early childhood was the Yugoslav Wars from ‘91 to ‘95. As a youngster, I knew nothing about these conflicts or their scope, but seeing tanks and fires on tv convinced me that a massive war was surely upon us and that the end was probably nigh, which is pretty funny in hindsight. I’m pretty sure that this early experience is what helped seed my ongoing interest in military history.
I thought of another….
AIDS. A new disease that killed a lot of people.
@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I don’t mind at all. The outbreak of the war was disturbing, but not nearly so much as the news that Chinese regulars were in the fray. I was worried that it would lead to war with China and by extension, the Soviet Union. I knew the threat a nuclear confrontation would mean. So like you, it produced a strong interest in military history in me.
@ETpro, that must have been terrifying… The uncertainty of it all. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers peeps, good stuff.
One of my earliest memories is of hearing a sudden cacophony of car horns. I wondered how so many horns could have broken at once. (It happened often in those days.)
My mother reminded me that it was in celebration of the end of WWII in Europe…VE day.
May 7, 1945.
Locally, I was playing and exploring in the area where Clifford Robert Olson was abducting and killing children.
Columbine was a big one too.
I was 3 when 9/11 happened. But I was 12 when Micheal Jackson died.
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