For fun…where were you When historic things happened?

[Ginevra]

When Regan said, “Mr, Gorbachov, tear down this wall,” I was at a house party in the outer banks, seeing it on TV. (I may have spelled that wrong but you know what I mean.) I remember looking at the TV, thinking, “Wow, I think that’s probably a really big deal!” But there was only about two other people who were even looking at the Telly. 
 

I was at a doctor’s appointment when Sept 11, 2001 happened. I remember coming out to the lobby and the women working behind the desk were glued to the radio, faces looking stricken. One said, “There’s been a horrible accident in New York!” Still didn’t know yet what that day was going to be about. As I was driving home, the radio broadcast reported in horror as the first building collapsed. 
 

I remember when the Columbine shooting happened. My oldest was a toddler. It was right around her birthday. I had been playing with the idea of homeschooling, though at that time I didn’t know any homeschoolers except the weird kind and dh was absolutely opposed. But that was when the seed started to take root. Kids at school might be shot by their classmates. Holy hell. Yes, I had other reasons, but I’m not saying that didn’t have an effect. 
 

How about you? What things do you remember? 

[kbutton]

I was at work on 9/11. Not all that long before 9/11, a prop plane had crashed into a tall building (maybe NYC?), so at first, I thought the news report meant something like that had happened again since I heard someone say a plane vs. a commercial flight. Not long after that, we were all glued to the news all day. The internet was so overworked that anyone who was connected to a news channel left their computer on that page, and people crowded around. They set up TVs in common areas to watch news all day. It was comforting to not be alone and to have a chance to talk to people and process the news. I can’t remember if I was watching when the second plane hit for sure (I think I was) but for sure saw the first tower collapse real time. No words for that.

[rebcoola]

Not a very exciting list for gorbachev I was 4 so no idea. The other 2 I was in school both times parents came to get there kids but not mine so we watched the news and didn't really do class.  We watched the OJ trial  live in social studies in 7th (?)

 Cant really think of much else .  I was at the gym we people stormed the Capital

[sweet2ndchance]

I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down on TV. I was living in Phoenix at the time.

I had my 6 week post partum appointment with my oldest dd on September 11. I was a military wife then and my then-husband was on deployment. The hospital where my appointment was was on base. It was a long day for sure.

I had the same reaction you did with my then toddler oldest son when the Columbine shootings happened. I ended up homeschooling him through 8th grade.

My current husband is 7 years younger than me so he was 1 day old when the Challenger accident happened. I was in first grade and just happened to be home sick from school that day and saw the whole thing unfold on TV.

I was staying the night at my best friend's house when Princess Diana died. Her mom was glued to the TV watching the coverage of it.

Edited August 21, 2023 by sweet2ndchance
Spelling

[HomeAgain]

I was watching in assembly when the Challenger exploded.  Our school had just had several astronauts come visit the month before to tell us about the mission and their jobs.

I was in class when the OJ verdict was handed down.  Our office sent out runners to deliver a note to all teachers, interrupting every class to share the news.

I was at work when 9/11 happened and everything went haywire.

 

I think those are the only 3 that really stick out to me, having impacted my life in long term ways. 

 

[Wheres Toto]

Berlin Wall I was at work.   I don't remember it super well, but I was in a stage of working full time and going to school full time so didn't spend a lot of time watching news.  

9/11 I was at school (college) right across the river from NYC.   Someone in the hallways said two planes hit the WTC and my first thought was "that doesn't sound  like an accident".    Getting home from school took way longer than usual.  Traffic was a mess, cell phones didn't work.  I know many people who were stuck in the city and couldn't get home until the next day.   I don't know anyone who was in the towers, although my cousin was supposed to be there that day but ended up taking the day off work.   I know many people who lost people in the towers.  

[Melissa Louise]

Because historic things happening often happen on the other side of the world, I've nearly always been in bed, or just out of bed making a cuppa, when I've heard the news. 

My mum woke me up twice - once to tell me about when someone tried to kill the then-Pope, and when John Lennon was murdered. My ex woke me to tell me about 9/11 and about the London Tube bombings. 

I was in Europe for the fall of the Berlin Wall, but have zero memory of hearing about it.

I don't have many of those lightbulb memories. The one about John Paul is strongest, because as my mother told me, she opened the blinds in my room, and the light flooding in is superimposed with the news in my mind. And after that, 9/11, standing waiting for the kettle to boil with the radio on, and telling ex I was sure it must be a hoax because I just couldn't believe it.

The saddest memory I have is of a massacre that happened in Tasmania, AU, in the 1990s. Ex and I were lying down and listening to music (pre-Spotify, radio) and news began to break in of a gunman in Port Arthur. We listened to the news all afternoon and into the evening, as it became increasingly clear how deadly the afternoon had been. It was horribly shocking - we don't have mass shootings the way you guys do, although there had been a few prior. 

 

 

[cjzimmer1]

17 minutes ago, sweet2ndchance said:

 

My current husband is 7 years younger than me so he was 1 day old when the Challenger accident happened. I was in first grade and just happened to be home sick from school that day and saw the whole thing unfold on TV.

I was home sick that day too but I don't remember what grade I was in.  I just remember being so annoyed because it was on EVERY channel (there was only like 5 to choose from) and they interrupted every single one.  I was sick and miserable and then completely bored because I really didn't care one bit about what happened.

 

 

I was driving to my lifeguarding class when the wall came down.  I've always found the news to be incredibly boring so paid very little attention to it.  But my dad had it on before I left for class and I actually turned on the radio to continue to follow the story on my way to class.  I remember sitting in the parking lot at the YMCA, trying to decide how long I could listen and still make it into to class on time.

I was home with my oldest two kids on 9/11.  We didn't have a TV (and still don't) so the only coverage I saw was what I could find on the internet (there was still plenty).

I honestly don't remember Columbine at all.  For some reason this one (nor any of the shootings) have ever stuck in my head as important/traumatic/? (can't really find the right word).  I realize that sounds terribly cold-hearted but for some reason they just don't hit me emotionally the same ways as the others do. 

[MercyA]

I was in elementary school when the Challenger exploded. The principal told us the news over the PA. We gathered around a small tv in the computer room to watch the footage. 

I was taking a nap in my college dorm room when DH woke me up to tell me Kurt Cobain had committed suicide. 😞  I'm not sure that qualifies as historic but it's burned into my brain.

I was living in Silicon Valley on 9-11. My DH was in China on business. He had to stay longer than expected, and then traveled through mostly empty airports on his way home. I remember my mom calling me from Indiana to talk about it; she was not at all shocked that it had happened. I had my first dog at that time and he was good company while I was alone.

Edited August 22, 2023 by MercyA

[Indigo Blue]

I was in the lounge area at work at a data operations center at a bank when the Challenger exploded. 
 

@Ginevra I was also at an appointment (had a sinus infection) and was walking out when I got a phone call about 9/11. 

[kathyl]

JFK assignation - I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and the teacher told us that the president had been assassinated.  She was visibly shaken but we were little clueless dweebs.  I mostly remember looking out the huge open windows with no screens at the gorgeous sunshine on a beautiful clear fall day and wishing I was outside.

1969 moon landing - I was at my grandparents' house in Baton Rouge.  We watched the whole thing gathered around their black and white TV in their living room.  

1973 Roe vs Wade - I was at my boyfriend's house and his father told me about it for some unknown reason.  I had no clue what he was talking about.

1993 Waco burning - I was at home in Idaho at the time with my kids and had the TV on and saw the whole thing as it unfolded.  I think my older kids may have watched it, too.  

1995 OJ Simpson verdict came out over the radio news.  Dc and I were at the dump in NH and it was a beautiful clear fall day.

1999 Columbine - I was at home with dc doing school.  

9-11 - I was at home with dc doing school.  Dh called and told me to turn on the TV.  We watched as the towers fell, but as soon as I realized there were still a lot of people in those buildings, I turned it off and we prayed for them.  Then, we did a little more school and took the rest of the day off.

[knitgrl]

I was in 6th grade when our class watched the Challenger explode.

[Scarlett]

9/11 I was at my moms and my son was 18 months old.  He had just woke up so I laid down with him and nursed him for a bit….by the time I got up with him the first plane had hit and the news anchors were just taking about it like ‘what just happened’.  Then the second one hit and they knew then it was a terrorist attack.  My mom was at school and they had no internet or tv and my now xhusband was at work also no internet or tv, so they were calling me for updates all day.  It was very scary.

For the challenger explosion I was on my way to work at a restaurant and I heard it on the radio.

I was also driving on Jan 6 when my husband called me to tell me they were storming the capitol. 
 

Katrina I watched unfold on live tv with my 5 year old.

Princess Di death my now xh and I were driving around looking at lake properties in a jeep  and we were sooo hot.  We got a hotel room amd crashed out.  When we woke up and turned on the tv that  said she was dead.

For OJ’s acquittal several of us had gathered in the conference room at work where we found an old tv with rabbit ears so we could watch it.  I have never been so shocked in my life.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Scarlett

[Pawz4me]

Moon landing--We watched on our black and white television. I was so sleepy but my brother insisted I had to stay awake.

Nixon's resignation--We were at our grandparent's house. I remember going outside to tell some of the family members who were out there.

I was out running errands on my lunch hour when I heard on the radio about the Challenger explosion. When I got back to the office I told everybody. Someone had a TV in their office and a bunch of us crammed in and watched the coverage for awhile.

I don't remember what I was doing when the Berlin Wall came down. I remember watching the footage on television.

On 9/11 I'd dropped oldest DS off at school and youngest at preschool and was headed to the vet with a dog when I heard it on the radio. At that time the news was reporting that it was a small plane. I got to the vet's and me, my dog and another lady with a Greyhound sat in the waiting room forever. I'm pretty sure all the vets and staff were in the back huddled around a television because it was eerily quiet. I finally got my dog the vaccinations he needed, dropped him off at home, and picked youngest up from preschool. I debated about going to get oldest from school early, but decided there was no real point in it.

When Columbia exploded (disintegrated?) we were at home. I thought it was a Sunday morning, but I just looked it up and it was a Saturday.

[kbutton]

Just now, knitgrl said:

I was in 6th grade when our class watched the Challenger explode.

4th for me, and I think we were watching live, but I am not positive.

Like a previous poster, I didn’t feel connected to it, though I did think it was horrible for people who were. A teacher said something really stupid about it being like the Tower of Babel where people were trying to build a tower to heaven.

I have a friend I met years later that is not in my age bracket who was very affected by the Challenger disaster. She was very pleased to learn many years later about John Denver’s tribute song (“They Were Flying For Me”). In a college communication class, we studied the communication failures in the program, and I later saw a really good documentary. All of those things made me able to kind of reprocess the whole thing as an adult, which I appreciated.

[kbutton]

J6 I heard about on here, but I had been trying to stay off the boards that day to get things done. It probably saved me a lot of angst to hear about it after things were getting more controlled.

[teachermom2834]

We were watching live in my 5th grade classroom when the challenger exploded. So traumatic. 
 

I’m kind of embarrassed about 9/11. I had just dropped my oldest off at nursery school. He was 3 yo and it was the first week and I had never been away from him at all. I was young and a hovering mom and sending him to nursery school for 3 hours at a stretch was apparently a huge deal to me at the time. I dropped him off and went to Walmart where I heard what was happening on the radio and then went home and watched news coverage. Well, the school was having a parent meeting that morning and I was just not going to miss a parent meeting. It was just an informal chat with the director coffee type thing. But this was a big deal and of course I was going to go. I was the only one to show up to the silly coffee meeting with the director (because hello the country is under attack!!) and I dumbly showed up and that director chit chatted with me politely while of course everyone else was watching the news and she would have rather been. 
 

I don’t know what I was thinking. I was kind of a news junkie at the time and there was no way I wasn’t interested in what was happening. I think I was just young and so myopic about my child and his first week at preschool. I’m still embarrassed when I think about that.

 

[Clarita]

9/11 I was asleep, then waking up and getting ready for school (in California). I arrived in my class at 7:00am and saw the teacher had a movie on. We asked "Are we watching a movie?" as we stepped into the classroom and the teacher told us no it's not a movie it's something that just happened.

Tiananmen Square protests happened I was 4 living in Hong Kong. I didn't know exactly when it happened, but my parents did take me to the parade/protests that happened in Hong Kong following the incident.  

Columbine happened while I was in high school. That's when we started having active shooter drills. Those first active shooter drills people really didn't know what to do, the thing we were told to do was lock the door and hide behind our desks. I think they just took the earthquake handbook and went from there. I've had more active shooter drills since then and they have improved from "hid behind your desk".

[TexasProud]

Various events I remember

Being in the middle school library when a classmate came in hysterical that Reagan had been shot.

Being in my college dorm room the day of the Challenger explosion and my parents telling me they were getting a divorce.

This will be long about Oklahoma City Bombing. 
My husband was working downtown in the VA hospital as a resident. Our first was just a few weeks old and his birth had been traumatic, then in the hospital for over a week because they couldn't get him to stop having seizures. He was stable and we had just talked about my going to the Murrah building in the next couple of days to get him a social security card and number.

He wasn't sleeping and I had nursed him with the Today show on and fell asleep on my bed with my oldest on my chest when a sound/explosion woke me up.   I head a garbage truck and thought maybe it hit our house. I went outside and looked all around and didn't see anything and came back in and began to the helicopters were starting to fly over the scene on the news.  I immediately called my husband who didn't realize anything had happened. They were in the basement area at the time of the explosion. I hung up and immediately left messages on my mom's  and in-laws' phones to let them know my husband was ok.  Glad I did because phone service went out shortly thereafter. 

A woman in our Sunday School class was a reporter on the scene, and she just kept holding up all of these pictures of missing babies and children.  I was on maternity leave from teaching at a public high school, and a couple of students lost parents in the bombing.  I still remember being surprised when my husband walked in that night.  I expected him to be treating the casualties all night. He said, "There is no one left to treat..."  That is when I realized that all of the people they were looking for were dead.  The news was nonstop for days in OKC.   He told me that he and the other resident at the VA went on the street and they got word to bring some equipment to the building.  So they went and brought the supplies to their chairman who was the doctor that amputated the leg ( I think, maybe an arm) of a woman to get her out of the building. 

9/11- Two memories.  The actual day it happened I was getting ready to help lead a MOPS group.  The first plane hit and I left.  By the time I got home after the meeting, the other plane hit, both buildings had collapsed and the Pentagon was hit. It felt like the world was ending.  Then on the year anniversary, my husband set me down to tell me my step-dad had a stroke. 

[Kidlit]

I was sitting in my sixth grade classroom watching it on TV when the Challenger exploded.

I was teaching high school in public school when the Columbine massacre occurred. 

I was sitting outside the elementary school where my MIL taught when 9/11 went down. (I later went inside to work in a few classrooms and we still didn't know what had happened.)

I was on a trip with my family to Disney World, pregnant with my fourth and final child, when the Sandy Hook massacre occurred.   I don't know but what that one wasn't the one that made the biggest impression because I had children then.

[Kidlit]

OJ's acquittal--I was in the student union at my university 

[Corraleno]

I was at work in Los Angeles when the Rodney King verdict came down, and things got dangerous very quickly so everyone was told to get home ASAP. Trying to get to my apartment on the other side of the city was total chaos, people were speeding, running red lights, etc., and I had to take several detours to try to stay off the main roads. When I got home I ran into my neighbor, who was bleeding and had a shattered windshield. A bunch of us went up onto the roof of the building, where we could see people smashing up stores on LaBrea and there were fires in every direction. 

I was asleep in a 10th floor apartment when the 1994 Northridge earthquake happened that collapsed freeways and buildings and killed 57 people. Very surreal feeling to go, in a matter of seconds, from sound asleep in a safe warm bed to standing under a doorframe waiting to see if you're gonna die. Everything in the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and any art on the walls was smashed on the floor, there was broken glass everywhere, floor tiles were popped up, and the walls in the living room were bowed out and cracked. Outside, the entire city had gone dark except for green flashes all over as transformers blew, and every car alarm in the city was going off at once, mixed with the sounds of sirens.

I was staying in a little boarding house in Nuku'alofa, on the main island of Tonga, the night Reagan was elected. The owner was from NZ and I think her husband was Swiss. There were also several Germans staying there and they were all flabbergasted at the result.

I was living in the UK when 9/11 happened, and flew to Cambodia 4 days later, at a time when the State Dept was telling Americans to be extremely cautious while traveling. I picked up a really nasty virus while there, and ended up mostly bedridden for about a month, quarantined in the guest room, so I wouldn't get DS or DH sick. Without access to a TV, I missed most of the news about 9/11 and mostly just remember binge reading the first four Harry Potter books while stuck in bed.

I was also in the UK (and also mostly bedridden due to severe hyperemesis) when Diana died, and I vividly remember waking up and turning on the TV and just staring in disbelief and thinking it must be a mistake. It was pretty much all that was on TV for the next month, and I couldn't get out of bed without puking, so I watched all of it, including the entire funeral.

ETA: I remember coming home from school when JFK was shot and finding my mother crying in the kitchen, saying "They shot the president!" And I remember watching the evening news when MLK was killed, without really understanding the significance, and then going to school the next day and being told that our class trip was cancelled because of it. And then a few weeks later RFK was shot and my mother was crying again and my father was in a rage. And I remember watching the moon landing on our B&W TV. My father was a cop at the time and he told me that he stopped to help a motorist who had pulled over and was crying, and when he asked the guy if he was OK he said "They just landed on the moon, man. Can you believe that??? There are men ON THE MOON. I just had to pull over."

 

[Ginevra]

1 hour ago, knitgrl said:

I was in 6th grade when our class watched the Challenger explode.

Pretty much exactly but I think I was in 8th grade. We watched it on one of those big media dart TVs at school. It took several minutes for us to really know it had gone wrong. Most of us thought that was what the separating rocket thingy looks like. 

[Indigo Blue]

I was in high school art class when John Lennon was shot. I remember a fellow art student being very visibly upset. 

[marbel]

I have a bunch 'cause I am old! 😉 In school when JFK was shot; I mostly remember that my mother picked me up rather than having me take the bus home. And that everyone was crying.

I would have been at work when the Challenger exploded; I don't remember much about that though for some reason.

When the Berlin wall came down, I was at work. My German coworker was ecstatic that day - she really brought it home to me, though of course I was familiar with it. I had been oddly fascinated with the Berlin wall since it had gone up. 

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake is a big memory for me as I lived and worked near there. I was at work when it happened and was in a hurry to get home as my elderly mother was alone in our house which was near a fault line (not San Andreas but still). 

I was home with a 4-day-old baby when the Hong Kong handover took place. I remember crying a lot which probably had as much to do with post-partum emotions as anything to do with the actual event. But it all seemed so dramatic.

9/11 was very weird (as well as tragic, of course) for me, because my husband was supposed to get on a plane for a business trip that day, and I was stressed out about him going. I didn't like to be left alone with the 2 little ones and I remember thinking "I wish something would happen so that he wouldn't have to go." Well, not that. 

[Corraleno]

I don't remember where I was when Nixon resigned, but I got to attend several days of Watergate Hearings in person, and that was by far the most memorable experience of what was otherwise a rather miserable and useless three years of high school. I had a friend who was a congressional intern, and I was a HS senior with less than a month to go before graduation and was I just DONE with school, so I took a bus to DC to spend a week with my friend and got to sit in on the hearings with her, eat in the Capital cafeteria, meet several congressmen, etc. One night we snuck into the iconic Cellar Door nightclub in Georgetown with fake IDs to see Phil Ochs, who was a famous folk/protest singer at the time, and he was changing up some of his lyrics to refer to Nixon and Watergate and it was really exciting to feel like we were right there watching history as it happened.

[Ginevra]

1 hour ago, Pawz4me said:

When Columbia exploded (disintegrated?) we were at home. I thought it was a Sunday morning, but I just looked it up and it was a Saturday.

I remember that one super well, too. We had just moved into our current house and some kind of subcontractor was coming by to finish something - might have been drywall point-up or some remaining carpentry. I heard about the disintegration upon re-entry and was so shocked, I told the only other adult handy - the contractor. 

[City Mouse]

it is too sad for me to list them all, but there is one that I haven’t seen anyone mention.

I was in labor with my oldest when the singer Selena was murdered. I was in the Houston area and it was the only thing on tv most of the day.

[vonfirmath]

4 hours ago, knitgrl said:

I was in 6th grade when our class watched the Challenger explode.

I was in 7th and had been pulled from PE to watch the Challenger launch on TV as a special privilege.

We ended staying out of class the rest of the day.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

The only moment I really clearly remember is Steve Irwin's death. I remember exactly the intersection I was stopped at when it came on the radio. 

Australia Zoo is my neck of the woods. So tragic.

[bookbard]

19 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

The only moment I really clearly remember is Steve Irwin's death. I remember exactly the intersection I was stopped at when it came on the radio. 

 

An online American friend told me about it, and I said, 'Who?' She was like - isn't he the most famous Australian ever? But at the time I didn't have a TV, and I don't even know if Crocodile Hunter was on Australian TV. Maybe only in Queensland!

I remember the Challenger disaster - came out of my room to see my mum crying next to the radio. I also remember Sept 11. I had no TV or internet, but on the way to the train station I saw everyone talking in the street and knew something must have happened. I found out about the Boxing Day Tsunami when I was in an important meeting with a minister for education in a developing country. We were interrupted by an admin person who came in and told us. I didn't really know the extent till I returned to Australia though. 

[Ellie]

7 hours ago, Ginevra said:

When Regan said, “Mr, Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” I was at a house party in the outer banks, seeing it on TV.

Wait...you were on the Outer Banks??? My whole family is from there!

I was getting my school pictures taken, in the gym at my junior high, when President Kennedy was assassinated. 😞

I was driving my car in Campbell, California, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake happened, on my way to pick up my daughter from her dance class. And we had just been in Santa Cruz the day before, which was close to the epicenter of the earthquake.

[Shoeless]

I was driving to work when I heard about 9/11. I didn't understand the magnitude of what was being said. Something about a plane hijacking...and then I realized what the radio was saying wasn't just a "regular" hijacking. I raced to work, ran up the stairs, and met my boss as the door. "Is it gone? Is the tower really gone?" and he said yes, they both were, and I started sobbing. 

I was taking my 8th grade midterms when Challenger exploded. I found out from the bus driver after exams, and thought he was pranking us. "Guys, no. This is real, listen", and he turned on his radio. Quiet bus ride home that day. 

I was in high school when the wall came down. I was at my boyfriend's house, watching people dance on the wall, and thinking "No way". I never imagined it happening in my lifetime. 

I was in basic training during OKC bombing, so I don't have any memories of it beyond being very surprised when I found out later.

 

[KidsHappen]

The first really big thing I remember was when the Sunshine Skyway Bridge between Tampa and St. Pete collapsed. That's because we lived in St. Pete at the time and my dad was in the Coast Guard and had to go help recover bodies.

I was in a JC Penney's when Reagan was shot. There were a bunch of people huddled around the TV sections so I decided to go see what was going on and walked up just in time to see him get shot. I went to find my mom and tell her that he had been shot.

I was in Japan when the Challenger exploded and was watching in live on TV at like 2:00 AM.

I was living in Germany when the wall came down. I was in a bar and saw it on the news when it happened. There were country wide celebrations for weeks.

I was living in Wisconsin on 9/11. I was asleep and my hubby called me from work and told me to turn the TV on. I asked him why and he said he didn't really know but something was going on. I turned it on just in time to see the second plane hit the tower. I literally fell on the floor in shock. This was the one year we decided to let our girls try PS so I called my hubby to come home and we went to pick them up.

We lived in OKC after the bombing and we drove downtown once. It was one of the most devastating experiences of my life. It looked like a wartorn third world country.

We were living in Wisconsin again when Princess Di died. My hubby hadn't left or work yet and he told me so I went and turned the TV on to watch the news. I remember the boys walking behind her coffin for her funeral and it was one of the most heartbreaking things I ever saw.

Oh wait, I also remember when Elvis died and my mom and her best friend bawled about it. 

My mom said that when we landed on the moon it was not a full moon and I asked her if they brought part of it home with them. I don't remember that but I heard the story.

I remember OJ's crazy car chase and hearing the verdict.

I don't really remember Columbine when it happened, not sure why. 

I remember when I first heard about Covid. 

[Ginevra]

6 hours ago, Ellie said:

Wait...you were on the Outer Banks??? My whole family is from there!

I was getting my school pictures taken, in the gym at my junior high, when President Kennedy was assassinated. 😞

I was driving my car in Campbell, California, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake happened, on my way to pick up my daughter from her dance class. And we had just been in Santa Cruz the day before, which was close to the epicenter of the earthquake.

Yes! Nice house a friend’s parents were renting for the week. It is a very nice place to vacay. 🙂

[cintinative]

I am pretty sure we watched the Challenger launch at school in 8th grade. I don't remember a lot but I am sure there was a tv in the room and we were watching.

I don't remember what I was doing when the Berlin wall went down.  Not sure why.

On 9/11 morning I was in a line to board a plane from Providence, RI to Cincinnati.  The video of the first plane hitting was on the tvs as we were waiting in line. At first I didn't know what to think. I thought it was an accident maybe. Then the footage of the second plane. It didn't register to me what was going on really, except that it was tragic.  They boarded us and we sat and sat in the plane.  People were talking to loved ones on their phones. I called the office about the delay.  The news passed around the plane about the Pentagon. I immediately thought, "we are at war." Then they of course cancelled the flight and disembarked us. I got in a line for a refund on my ticket. I remember an older gentleman at the counter all upset that they wouldn't reschedule his flight. I didn't quite get it because he looked old enough to have been around when the US was at war before. It was like the gravity of the situation hadn't fallen on him yet. I got a rental car, stopped at AAA for maps, and drove home, listening to the news coverage.  Everywhere I stopped there were displaced people trying to get home to their families.  

[Momto6inIN]

I was 3 when Elvis died and I remember my mom crying in the bathroom.

I was in 6th grade and we watched the Challenger explosion live on TV in science class.

I was in high school when the Berlin wall fell and I remember thinking this was probably a big deal but I didn't really get why.

I was a junior in high school when the first Iraq war started and I remember looking at my male friend and being frightened that he might get drafted because he was almost 18.

I was working in a college child development lab when OJ got aquitted and we were all flabbergasted.

I was pregnant with my oldest when Columbine happened. I remember watching footage of the parents waiting outside the school for news of their kids and I was horrified. I suddenly realized in a real and visceral way that the world my kids would inhabit would be a very different world than the one I grew up in and was used to. The evil they would confront in their lives was different than the evil I had had to confront. That realization helped clarify and make plain a decision DH and I had been wrestling with together about where we should attend church as a family.

I was at home with DS and pregnant with 2nd DS on the morning of 9/11. The dad of the kid I babysat for dropped him off and said this crazy weird thing happened in NYC where a plane flew into a huge skyscraper even though it was a clear blue sky. The dad left for work and I turned on the news and then I think I didn't turn it off again for weeks (or so it felt). Lots of our friends from church didn't have TVs so several trickled in to our house that afternoon and watched with us. I'm embarrassed to say that with my inward-facing-pregnancy-brain it took a little while for me to grasp the immensity of what happened because I didn't immediately connect it with me and where I lived and I definitely didn't connect it to war right away.

When we heard about the initial 2 week COVID lockdown I was at the eye dr with all my kids and the oldest 2 has driven separately so that they could go from the appt directly to their drama troupe tech set up for their play which was supposed to have its all day every day tech week rehearsals that week that they had been preparing for for months. Lots of tears and disappointment that day.

[CTVKath]

I was 9 when Elvis died. My best friend was staying with us because her mom was in labor with her sister. Her mom was a huge fan of Elvis and had a scrapbook and I had never heard of him.

I don't remember how old I was when the Sunshine Bridge in Tampa collapsed. My uncle took that bridge about half the time he went to work and my aunt had no idea which bridge he had taken that morning. I had to go to school and I didn't want to go but they made me go. I rushed home to great relief that he'd taken a different bridge and was fine.

I was home sick when Reagan was shot. The room was dark and I didn't feel well and I didn't really understand what everyone was talking about.

When the Challenger exploded, I was in math class. All the science classes were watching it live and one of the students ran into our class and shouted the news. He was typically the class prankster so we didn't believe him at first. Then it was very somber.

When the Columbia disintegrated, I was out of town visiting my sister. We were rushing back to her house so we could watch the landing when we heard the news on the radio. Then we slowed down because we really didn't want to go home to her house anymore.

I was at work when 9/11 happened. My boss had a tv in his office and we all huddled around it. Once they started saying the towers would collapse, none of us wanted to watch it. But none of us could walk away either. That's probably one of the worse days of my life.

It's interesting how these tragedies really capture the moment and sear themselves into your brain. Sounds, smells, sight, feeling.

[QueenCat]

When the Challenger exploded, I was watching it on tv in the snack bar on my college campus. 

 

When 9/11 happened, I was at church for the first week in our Disciple study. I went to the office to let the secretary know

we were starting, since she was joining us, and she was just staring at her screen in disbelief. Almost simutanelsy, we said, "we have been

attacked, we are at war." 

 

[vonfirmath]

3 hours ago, cintinative said:

I am pretty sure we watched the Challenger launch at school in 8th grade. I don't remember a lot but I am sure there was a tv in the room and we were watching.

I don't remember what I was doing when the Berlin wall went down.  Not sure why.

On 9/11 morning I was in a line to board a plane from Providence, RI to Cincinnati.  The video of the first plane hitting was on the tvs as we were waiting in line. At first I didn't know what to think. I thought it was an accident maybe. Then the footage of the second plane. It didn't register to me what was going on really, except that it was tragic.  They boarded us and we sat and sat in the plane.  People were talking to loved ones on their phones. I called the office about the delay.  The news passed around the plane about the Pentagon. I immediately thought, "we are at war." Then they of course cancelled the flight and disembarked us. I got in a line for a refund on my ticket. I remember an older gentleman at the counter all upset that they wouldn't reschedule his flight. I didn't quite get it because he looked old enough to have been around when the US was at war before. It was like the gravity of the situation hadn't fallen on him yet. I got a rental car, stopped at AAA for maps, and drove home, listening to the news coverage.  Everywhere I stopped there were displaced people trying to get home to their families.  

When the second plane hit I knew we were at war.

I lived in Puget Sound Washington and worked for Boeing (and there was a lot of concern after 9/11 if people would ever be comfortable flying again) and was waking up to a radio show. I vaguely recall it was a slow news day and then there were reports of a plane and the first plane hit and Kirby Wilbur was talking about the last time a plane hit a tall building in NYC (The Empire States Building) etc... but it was a clear day this day. And then the second plane hit and I realized it was intuitional and we were at war and rushed out to my TV to record.  I remember not believing a online friend who said they had a relative on one of the planes that was calling out trying to get help. And I scoffed that hijackers would not allow that - -except it turns out the hijackers would not care.  And the quiet skies and wondering where else would be hit. The radio at first thought the plane around the Pentagon was a commuter plane not a jet -- except it was a jet as well.  There was a lot of confusion.

And when the second tower fell, thinking how sad it would be to see one tower up where two used to be. Except of course the first tower ended up collapsing as well.

[Lady Florida.]

Well I'm old so there are many -

JFK - I was home from school sick that day. My grandmother called my mom and told her "Turn on the radio. The president's been shot". Yes, radio. We did watch all the rest of the events on tv (black and white) but the initial news was from the radio. Oddly, though I was older when both MLK Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were shot, I don't remember the details. I just remember hearing about the assassinations.

Moon landing - My parents were separated and it was my dad's weekend to have us We were making candy apples at his house and kept stopping to watch the tv. I watched Neil Armstrong actually set foot on the moon at home because by that time my dad brought us back. 

Elvis - I was working in the fabric department of a regional big box store and they always played a radio station throughout the store. It came over the radio. I called my mom on my break and she hadn't heard yet. She was a huge fan, always played his records while I was growing up, and she cried when I told her.

John Lennon - I was among those who heard it from Howard Cosell. I was watching Monday Night Football with my then roommates and he announced it. We all just looked at each other in shock and one of my roommates kept saying, "No! No!"

Berlin Wall - I don't recall where or when I heard. I just remember that my mom and I were on the phone both watching it on our tvs and talking about what it meant for the future of the Soviet Union.

Challenger - I live on the Space Coast. We watch launches all the time. At the time I was teaching at a high school that's directly across the river from the launch pad. Many teachers, including myself, took students outside to watch launches then went back in to our classrooms to continue the lesson. I was standing outside with my special ed students and we watched it explode in the sky above us. I was dating a guy at Patrick AF Base who flew rescue helicopters. He later said they went up expecting to rescue the astronauts and the realization that there was no one to rescue really hit hard.

9/11 - It was a dreary day. Hurricane Gabrielle was either a tropical storm or tropical depression. It was across the state in the Gulf of Mexico but brought us outer bands with some rain and I was trying to keep my newly minted very active 4yo (ds 25) occupied in the house. When the first plane hit my mom called to tell me I should turn on the tv. 

Columbia - Again, I'm on the Space Coast. I turned on the tv to find out when it would land (we always looked weirdly forward to the twin sonic booms) and the local newscaster was saying they lost contact with it. Dh worked for a civilian contractor at Canaveral AF Station and was at work. He had worked an overnight shift and was supposed to be home soon but everything was locked down and no one was allowed to leave. 

[Lady Florida.]

17 hours ago, kathyl said:

JFK assignation - I was in 2nd or 3rd grade

I was in 3rd grade at Catholic school. If I hadn't been home sick that day I would have been in church with the entire school for a mass that was called for when the news came.

[Lady Florida.]

17 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

Nixon's resignation

Oh I forgot the Watergate hearings. My mom was constantly watching on tv so I absorbed it even through my teen I-don't-care-about-politics attitude.

[Lady Florida.]

17 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

I thought it was a Sunday morning, but I just looked it up and it was a Saturday.

Yep. It was a Saturday. We had a family event scheduled for later in the day and we weren't sure if dh was going to make it. No one was allowed to make or receive calls but he managed to give me a quick call to let me know he had no idea when they'd be released. He did eventually make it but he was late to the family thing (I can't recall what the family thing was even though I know it was important at the time).

[wisdomandtreasures]

I was a year old when the Berlin Wall fell so I no memory. 

September 11, I had just woken up and came into the living room. My parents were staring at the TV with horrified expressions. My mom was crying. I asked what was wrong and they screamed at me to be quiet. So I got ready for school and when I got to school, TVs were on in all the rooms. We just watched the news all day. One of th boys in my class was supposed to go to New York with his dad on a business trip. They were going to visit the Twin Towers but the trip was cancelled at the last minute. He looked like a ghost the whole day and kept saying "I could be dead right now..." 

[Lady Florida.]

12 hours ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

The only moment I really clearly remember is Steve Irwin's death.

Ds was a huge Steve Irwin fan. He named our dog Dingo because - "Steve Irwin is from Australia and dingoes are from Australia". I remember having to tell him about just after his Crocodile Hunter themed 9th birthday party we had the previous weekend. Poor kid was so sad.

[Dmmetler]

I was in 3rd grade when the hostages were released, and we watched it on a classroom TV. I wrote a poem that was printed in the local paper about it. 

I was in middle school Algebra when the Challenger exploded. The science classes were watching, and one of the teachers came from next door, whispered to our teacher, and then we filed into the science room to sit on the floor and watch with them. 

 

When 9/11 happened, I was teaching elementary music. It was kind of surreal, because the information spread via word of mouth through the teachers, but we were under orders NOT to let the kids know anything was going on, and they locked us out of the internet on school computers. So we had teachers creeping out to their cars on their breaks to listen to the radio to get information, and then passing it on by word of mouth. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Dmmetler

[Terabith]

I was in fourth grade when Challenger exploded, and our teachers told us about it, but we weren't watching as it happened.  Our art teacher had actually been one of the finalists to go, so that struck close to home.  

I don't remember where I was when the Berlin Wall fell.  I was in junior high, so old enough to be aware, but I just wasn't.  I heard about it maybe later that day or a few days later, and I knew it was a big deal, but I was busy with other things.

I heard about 9/11 on my way to work.  I was working in a preschool as an assistant, and I heard it on the radio as "plane," and I assumed an accident like a cesna, but then it became evident it was not an accident.  We couldn't tell the kids or let them know, so people were going into the break room to listen to the radio as things progressed.  

I was in grad school in Denver when Columbine happened, and we heard the sirens.  

When Oklahoma City bombing happened, I was in college, and we didn't have televisions in our rooms; nobody subscribed to the newspaper; I didn't listen to the radio, and the internet wasn't quite a huge thing yet.  A day or two later, I saw signs around campus for a prayer service for Oklahoma City, and a friend and I asked someone why we were praying for random midwestern cities, and someone told us what had happened.  I felt crappy for joking about it then.

ETA:  Princess Di was killed a couple years later, and the internet had gone from something we accessed in a computer lab via vax and irc to basically like it is today in those couple of years, and I had a computer in my room and saw the news about it in real time.  

Edited August 22, 2023 by Terabith

[kbutton]

I remember a ton of talk about the Unabomber being caught while I was in college. I share a very similar ancestral name with him (my ancestors Americanized it a bit). A friend was very intrigued that he could’ve been a distant relative of mine and had fun sharing this fact with others. Said friend was later killed in Afghanistan when my oldest was a baby. 

Princess Diana was killed the same summer that a dear friend was killed in a car accident.

Its weird how memories are tangled up together.

 

[DawnM]

I was in the college student center getting my main when I saw a commotion around the small TV on the wall.   Turns out it was the space shuttle disaster.

For 9/11, I was getting ready for work (6am PST) and wasn't sure if I should go to work.   Turns out, by the end of the day,  armed guards were lining the streets of Los Angeles.   We still had to go to work each day, but the armed guards were there for a while as we had no idea where they might attack next.

Lady Diana died when I was visiting my cousin up in San Jose.   I was about 4 months pregnant with my first child at the time.

The OJ verdict was another one that I remember well.   I couldn't get a TV for my classroom because they were all already taken, so I used a radio and we all listened as the not guilty verdict was read.   

The most memorable for me though was the LA Riots.   I was working at a school in East LA and the entire surrounding area was on fire by about 10am.   Hardly any students had come to school, but we had to wait for those there to be picked up.   We then had to be escorted by police out of the area, it was surreal.   Fires along each side of the road in stores, very close to the school, and even though it was scary, I just kept worrying about my students who were not able to escape the area as they lived there and most didn't have reliable transportation.   We were on curfew for a a bit over a week after that and I took several trips down to help my students' families get groceries and essentials.

Another memorable event for me was the Northridge Earthquake.   I lost electricity for over a week, school was canceled for about 8 school days, and my close friend lived in the main apartment building that collapsed (I used to live there with her but had moved about a year prior.).  The earthquake happened in the middle of the night and I remember being so out of it, I kept wandering around my apartment trying to get the dang lights to turn on.   It wasn't until I was fully awake and looked outside that I realized all the lights were out.   My husband lived in Reseda at the time, right next to Northridge, and he had it worse.   A large fish tank shattered and he stepped on glass and couldn't find his shoes or flashlight.    To this day, he sleeps with a flashlight, his shoes, and his glasses right next to his bed.   And we dont' even live in CA anymore!