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Biggest news stories of your lifetime

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Dec 19, 2012.

  1. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    So many stories. Hard to pick a top 10 but I like the thread.
     
  2. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    My national and international ones will pretty much be the same as most of everyone else's national ones -- anything after 1971, anyway

    But I will say Obama winning trumps all of the tragedies. I didn't think we'd have a black president for another 25 years. Don't get me wrong, I voted for him and knew he would win once he got the nomination. I just thought we'd have a woman president before a black person.

    Anyway, localizing the question:

    The biggest story of my lifetime is the day Richard Ramirez -- "The Night Stalker" -- was caught. It scared the shit out of me because his killings were in different cities every time. I was 14. I thought he might show up in Long Beach one night and climb through my window and kill me. I slept well the first week or so after they caught him.

    Second is when I won Best Weekly Sports Section in New Hampshire in 2005.

    Sports and sex moments make up the rest of the list.
     
  3. farmerjerome

    farmerjerome Active Member

    No order, except for No. 1....

    1. 9/11
    2. Fall of the Wall
    3. Magic
    4. OJ
    5. Oklahoma City
    6. Columbine
    7. Obama
    8. Challenger
    9. Recession
    10. Newton
     
  4. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Agreed. I'd say the Rwanda Genocide is probably the single most mindbogglingly horrific world event from my lifetime. But nobody thinks of it because it got scant notice from the U.S. media at the time.
     
  5. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Don't forget the Cambodian genocide in the mid-to-late 1970s ... figures vary, but reasonable estimates run in the millions.
     
  6. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Hmmm, interesting topic.

    1) 9/11 attacks..... totally changed the world we live in

    2) Start of Iraq war

    3) Hurricane Katrina..... biggest natural disaster in North America

    4) Oklahoma City bombing..... killed more people than the other tragedies

    5) Connecticut school shootings..... might drop in ranking over time

    6) Virginia Tech shooting

    7) Iran hostages (1979).... made Libya look like a picnic in comparison

    8 ) Bush/Gore 2000 presidential election controversy

    9) Watergate/Nixon resigns

    10) First OJ Simpson trial

    I will differ on one thing from most of the others. I don't see Obama's election or re-election as anything especially significant. He's been a decent president, IMO, but nothing phenomenal. Most notable accomplishment to date was the controversial health care law. Thus, I would not rank his election as any more significant than Reagan's or Clinton's.
     
  7. Captain_Kirk

    Captain_Kirk Well-Known Member

    9-11
    Kennedy assassination
    Challenger
    Moon landing
    Watergate

    To me, those five stand alone and nothing else comes close. All the rest are in the next tier.
     
  8. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    (Note to self -- Whitman is apparently about to emerge from puberty :D )

    1) If you were born after 1945, hard to imagine ANYTHING being bigger than landing men on the muthafuggin' MOON. That was more than 40 years ago and I can still hardly believe we did it.

    2) 9/11

    others) Watergate, African famines (especially Biafra), Munich '72, Bangladesh floods of '74/Asian tsunami
     
  9. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    One of those things affects your daily life substantially more than the other.
     
  10. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    Damn right, Vers. Without the moon landing I never would have met the sweetest thing ever - Tang!
     
  11. The collapse of Texas A&M University's bonfire that killed 12 students would make my personal list. It may not have ranked up there nationally, but as a freshman who worked for the student paper, I'll never forget it, either covering it or seeing the way others covered it. Not only that, it irrevocably changed the culture of the community where I still live today.
     
  12. RubberSoul1979

    RubberSoul1979 Active Member

    Let's try to narrow it down:
    1979: Ayatollah rasising hell-ah; hostages in Iran
    1980: America going from Jimmy Carter telling us to put on sweater, to Reagan's thousand-dollar suits.
    1981: Reagan Shot
    1982: "I don't want to die fighting in the Falkland Straits" - The Clash
    1983: Soviets shoot down Korean Airlines jet
    1984: First commercially successful Olympics/Soviets stay home
    1985: First Reagan/Gorby summit
    1986: Challenger disaster
    1987: That baby girl rescued from the well, or the first Palestinian uprising (Intafadeh) in occupied territories
    1988: Wayne Gretzky traded
    1989: Berlin Wall comes down
    1990: Nelson Mandela freed from prison
    1991: Gulf War I
    1992: L.A. Riots
    1993: John Wayne Bobbitt. I'll stop there
    1994: Rwanda Genocide
    1995: U.S. troops to Bosnia, OKC Bombing, O.J. acquitted
    1996: Suicide bombings in Israel, The Macarena
    1997: It's a "Spice World," Princess Di killed
    1998: Stains on a blue dress! Naughty Cigars! White House intern gone wild!
    1999: NATO bombs Serbia; Columbine - Which was on 4-20. Oh the things you remember from college.
    2000: Elian Gonzalez; Reality TV era begins with "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?," followed by "Who Wants to Win Florida and Be Elected President?"
    2001: 9-11, Enron collapse, Jeremy Giambi can't slide
    2002: How much longer 'til we invade Iraq?
    2003: The wait's over
    2004: Indian Ocean Tsunami
    2005: Katrina (and the Waves, so went the thread title on this board)
    2006: Saddam Hussein executed
    2007: That murdering a-hole at Virginia Tech, that dog-murdering a-hole from Virginia Tech, together with Tim Donaghy's revelations and Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's record = What an awesome year.
    2008: Recession wreaks havoc, Obama elected
    2009: Seniors say the darndest things - "Keep the Government out of my Medicare!" - at town hall meetings
    2010: Oil disater in the Gulf
    2011: Earthquake/nuclear disaster in Japan
    2012: Prayers for Newtown
     
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