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What is your earliest memory of a news event that made national headlines?


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My parents shielded us from TV news. Therefore, my earliest memories are of the Watergate hearings and the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich at the Olympics. :sad: I was in early grade school during both, and these seeped in past the news because the overall coverage.

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I have vague memories of Kent State, only because my cousin was in the National Guard and was called out that night and we were all worried about him. The first news thing that I REALLY remember was Nixon going to China and Wallace being shot, in 72. I was 7 yrs old then.

 

But the one news story that will be imbedded in my mind the rest of my life because of watching the footage was the Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire, and Jim Jones. I guess I was relatively sheltered, because I was 12 and 14 yrs, respectively.

 

I also have vague recollections of Vietnam being on the news but nothing real solid.

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I remember watching a manned moon landing, but I don't know which one it was. That would have been late 60s/early 70s, so I would have been 4 or 5 years old. After that, I don't remember many things until Elvis' death, which affected my next door neighbor's mother dramatically. :) Interesting question to post; I'll have to ask my older kids what they remember.

 

Shelly

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JFK assasination. I was 4 (almost 5).

 

I'm amazed at how young everyone here is.

 

My dad was an intelligence officer in the Navy during Viet Nam - he watched the news every single night and I remember lots of footage of troops in the jungle.

 

I was 14 during Watergate - most boring summer of my life - nothing on tv but hearings. We had just moved from Hawaii to Virginia and I had no friends.

 

Elvis died the year after I graduated from high school.

 

I went to Williamsburg during my freshman year in college to watch the presidential debate between Carter and Ford - listened to them both give speeches at a building at William & Mary. I have a gold peanut lapel pin to commemorate the event.

 

I sang "I'll Be Home for Christmas" at a USDA Christmas party in honor of the hostages in Iran who still hadn't been released.

 

I was teaching 1st grade when the Challenger exploded.

 

Yes, I feel old. OP, I think you and I are about the same age.

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The Challenger Explosion.

 

This is the first thing that comes to mind for me too, though I would have been in 4th or 5th grade. It seems odd that I wouldn't remember anything earlier than that, but my parents weren't big news watchers. They read the local papers, but that was pretty much it.

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The Challenger disaster is my earliest news-related memory, just before I turned 5, though at the time I didn't understand why Mom was crying as she watched the TV coverage. I grew up in Houston, and my dad, a NASA contractor, was actually watching the live feed at Johnson Space Center when it happened, so it hit close to home.

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I remember Elvis dying.:) I was 8. My mom was a huge Elvis fan!

 

I also remember the hostages being released. I was in 6th grade.

 

Challenger was horrible! I was in 11th grade and in my chemistry class when we heard the news.

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I remember the Baby Jessica rescue. I watched the live footage for hours, waiting to see if they would get her out safely or not. It was terrifying, and I refused to step on grates for the next two decades. I still avoid stepping on them if I can. I was 3.

 

 

I am the same way! enough so that all my kids are scared of them. Though what she fell in was not a grate. My boss at the daycare owns the greenhouses in my town and it has "frenchmen's" wells. They are exactly the kind that baby jessica fell in. My kids are not allowed anywhere near there (she just bought the greenhouses last year they had been abandoned for years so you can imagine the kind of condition they are in, and kids/teens like to hang out over there)

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The earliest things I remember are:

OJ Simpson

Princess Diana's death

And I watched the 9/11 attacks on TV in high school.

Don't make me tell you how old(young) I am. :001_smile:

 

:001_smile: Yay, I'm not the youngest! I was a freshman in college when 9/11 happened, ironically in a speech class discussing Pearl Harbor at the time of the attacks. DH would have been a junior in high school.

 

I was a sophomore in high school when Columbine happened. That probably sticks out more than anything because of all the threats and lockdowns that followed. It definitely changed the atmosphere in high schools.

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Watergate. It pre-empted Captain Kangeroo and Romper Room. ;)

This is why I remember the popes of '78. I came home from school and JPI was being elected. Seemed like it took for ever to get to be able to watch regular TV after school. Then he had to go and die. Oh, here we go again, no after school TV for for.ev.er. The JPII was finally elected and they just had to keep talking about it. I am missing Hogan's Heros, All in the Family and That Girl. Come on people. What is the big deal already.

 

:lol:

I remember the gathering at our house more than the actual event - but that memory is of the first walk on the moon, I'd just turned three a couple of months before that. All the adults gathered at our house were very excited about it and glued to the television.

 

I vividly remember the re-election of Nixon, mostly because in elementary school we were all chanting a variety of political slogans as we learned about the process electing the President. So I'd say that is the first real memory of a national headline since the walk on the moon is more a memory of the event gathering than the event itself.

I should remember the moon walk. I was almost 3. My mom was pregnant with my brother, but I have no memories before he was born.

 

I don't remember Nixon's re-election because we were overseas at the time. We came back to Watergate. I remember when Nixon resigned and Ford took office.

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:001_smile: Yay, I'm not the youngest! I was a freshman in college when 9/11 happened, ironically in a speech class discussing Pearl Harbor at the time of the attacks. DH would have been a junior in high school.

 

I was a sophomore in high school when Columbine happened. That probably sticks out more than anything because of all the threats and lockdowns that followed. It definitely changed the atmosphere in high schools.

 

I've got two years on ya ;) - I was a junior in college for 9/11. Columbine happened my senior year of high school, so I fortunately missed all the increased security. I remember how the Buffy finale was delayed b/c of it - the ptb ;) thought blowing up a school (and having the principal eaten) was too close to home; there was some discussion that it would have to be changed, but it eventually aired as written.

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"Quiet Texas Mom Kills Self, Husband, Five Children." One of the lines read something like, "when the police entered the home, they heard one of the children crying for his mother. When the police found the children, they were all dead." Dh remembers that as well, but he says he thinks that was 1971. I don't know.

 

Haunted me for years.

 

So when people seem so shocked about this sort of thing 'happening today", I pull that sad story out of my little- child brain (I had barely learned to read) and remember there is new under the sun.

Edited by LibraryLover
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I remember Carter being president, but I don't specifically remember him being elected. I would have been barely 4 when he was elected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember my mother going to see him speak at Nashua High School during his first Presidential Campaign. We went with her, but the crowd was huge so my sister and I couldn't see him (or anything except for legs!). I was pretty young, so I didn't understand what was going on very well.

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Endless Watergate hearings. My Grandma not happy because it interrupted her 'stories'. I was around 5 I guess.

 

Why yes, I am older than dirt. :D

 

Watergate is my earliest news memory too along with Nixon resigning I think I was about 6.

 

And we are not the oldest here - but I too am surprised at how old I've gotten compared to the young ones here!! When did I become old?

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:001_smile: Yay, I'm not the youngest! I was a freshman in college when 9/11 happened, ironically in a speech class discussing Pearl Harbor at the time of the attacks. DH would have been a junior in high school.

 

I was a sophomore in high school when Columbine happened. That probably sticks out more than anything because of all the threats and lockdowns that followed. It definitely changed the atmosphere in high schools.

 

 

I have basically the same list (OJ trial (very foggy on that one), Princess Di, Columbine)

 

I remember people talking about the OJ trial, and the glove (I was 9). I remember returning from a camping trip and hearing that Princess Di had died. And I was in Middle School for Columbine and was terrified because I was about to move out of state, to a new school, and was afraid of what the school would be like. 9/11 I was a sophomore in High School, and remember that very vividly.

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JFK's assassination. I remember watching coverage with my parents and grandparents. The funny thing is though, at that time radio was still the major source of news. I was home from school sick that day, and my grandmother called my mother to tell her, "Turn on the radio. The president's been shot."

 

I was just old enough to remember JFK's assassination, but mostly because of the reactions of the adults around me.

 

I clearly remember Kent State, this was an impressionable moment for me. Years and years later when my oldest dd decided to protest the amendment banning gay marriage with some of her fellow college students, I nearly hyperventilated. I had more anxiety over that than I am currently having over sending her to Italy. :glare:

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Oh...I said that eldest was a baby, but I think that was during the trial. I guess I was pregnant with my eldest when the chase happened.

 

eta: The car chase was June of 1994. I guess it happened before we moved to California. I was thinking it happened after I moved to California. I guess I saw so much coverage about it while we lived there that I'm remembering wrong.

 

We moved to California in March of 1995, just before the OKC bombing. I'm originally from the OKC area, so that was extremely hard to be away from home during that time.

 

I was pregnant with my eldest during the OJ trial. I was on strict bedrest Jan 3-April 2 of 1995 and the ONLY thing on TV was the trial. The meds I was on made my vision too blurry and my hands too shaky to read. My grad school friends took turns bringing me lunch and catching up on the trial.

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I already said the boat people who fled Vietnam.

 

But someone else's post triggered another memory that would have been a little earlier - George McGovern's run for the presidency in 1972. I was in 3rd grade. McGovern wanted to make schools year round, and I thought that would be grand. :D

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I remember a lot about the Bicentennial and Nadia Comanichi (sp?) earning 10s at the Olympics. Both would have been 1976. Oh, and I remember Carter being elected the same year. I would have been in about 1st grade.

 

I can remember the news being on a lot in earlier years, probably as my parents were watching Watergate stuff. But I can only remember those broadcasts as something that made me leave the room until the Brady Bunch came on (in weekly original episodes, not daily after school reruns).

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[quote name=

I was 14 during Watergate - most boring summer of my life - nothing on tv but hearings.

 

:iagree::lol: I was 15 during the Watergate hearings. My mother watched them ALL DAY LONG and there weren't even any cable news channels. I didn't understand the significance, or didn't care. A few years later I read All the President's Men and saw the movie, but at the time it just drove me CRAZY. I laugh now because I'm a news junkie and would be just like my mom if it happened today :001_smile:

 

Mary

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I remember a lot about the Bicentennial and Nadia Comanichi (sp?) earning 10s at the Olympics. Both would have been 1976. Oh, and I remember Carter being elected the same year. I would have been in about 1st grade.

 

 

I remember being at my grandparents' house for the bicentennial and we all went out on the street and rang bells. I have the bell my grandmother rang that day. She left it to me in her will.

 

I also remember being in a hotel watching Nadia at the Olympics, which is very odd because we never stayed in hotels.

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I would post. But you all would think I was a young teenage mother. I have been thinking of news events and I can't remember any before 911.

 

I'm not super young. Just don't have any memories of watching news till I was in my 20s. Even then I can't put my finger on any one event till 911. :001_huh: When 911 happened I was home since I couldn't teach that semester this my eldest was due during exam week.

 

WAIT.

 

I remember when Princess Diana died.

Tada.

Edited by Julie Smith
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I remember many of the same things you do too.

 

although I do have memories of the JFK assassination stuff.

 

It has occurred to me that there are probably homeschooling mothers on this board who are half my age! That got me wondering what kinds of things were in the headlines when the younger set was growing up. So I ask, what huge news event do you remember from your earliest childhood? How old were you at the time?

 

ETA: Those of you who are "older" (like me!), please answer as well. My earliest memories of national news include the

Freedom Marches/race riots and also U.S. troops being sent to Vietnam (1965, the year I turned 5). I have vivid memories of the Bobby Kennedy assassination, the MLK assassination, the Manson murders, the 1968 election, the Apollo missions of the 1960s (in particular, Apollo 8 & Apollo 11), Jackie Kennedy marrying Aristotle Onassis, Ted Kennedy & Chappaquiddick, Lt. William Calley & My Lai Massacre, Eisenhower's death, Woodstock, Black Panthers... and all of these things happened between 1965 & 1969, when I was between the ages of 4 & 9.

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Jim Jones

 

and

 

the hostages being released from Iran. We read the count every day in the paper of them still being held in captivity. Then, on that day we got to watch TV in the classroom (and it was my birthday, so BIG DEAL!) because it was the presidential inaugeration. I still get chills when I think about both of these events.

 

:iagree: That's my earliest event/news memory. I must have been in first grade and the release was announced at school during lunch. I remember the cafeteria erupting in cheers and applause.

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The first news event that I distinctly remember was the Challenger explosion (when I was 6). I have memories of some nightmares when I was about 4 that had a distinct Cold War flavor, and some memories of adults talking about nuclear power plant safety that were probably related to Chernobyl (also when I was 6),

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I remember St. Helen's erupting, but not the news coverage, I was only 5. We live in Oregon, and we had ash where i live, It looked like it had snowed, but it was grey. We couldn't go outside and the grownups were all wearing masks.

 

I remember my 11th birthday really clearly. That was the day the challenger exploded. I didn't really feel like opening my presents that night or having birthday dinner.

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ETA: Those of you who are "older" (like me!), please answer as well. My earliest memories of national news include the

Freedom Marches/race riots and also U.S. troops being sent to Vietnam (1965, the year I turned 5). I have vivid memories of the Bobby Kennedy assassination, the MLK assassination, the Manson murders, the 1968 election, the Apollo missions of the 1960s (in particular, Apollo 8 & Apollo 11), Jackie Kennedy marrying Aristotle Onassis, Ted Kennedy & Chappaquiddick, Lt. William Calley & My Lai Massacre, Eisenhower's death, Woodstock, Black Panthers... and all of these things happened between 1965 & 1969, when I was between the ages of 4 & 9.

 

I didn't see your ETA until someone else quoted it. I already said I remember JFK's assassination, and that I was 8. I also remember everything else you mentioned, plus Ruby shooting Oswald, and the 1965 Blackout (we got sent home from school when the power went out). I was older when these things happened though -- between 10 and 14.

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