Your top news stories of each decade?

Spinning out of the Osama thread, per Starman's suggestion. What would you consider the top five news stories of each decade, starting with, say, the 1960s (although you can feel free to go back further if you're so inclined)?

 

1. The founding of SportsJournalists.com
2. The welcoming of Knickfan
3. The fight between Anon3:28 and Anon11:18
4. Moddy posting a pic of him with Jane Lynch
5. The posting by CentralIllinoisan of "Ceiling Cat is Watching JDV Make a Video"

 

1860s - Civil War
1870s - Battle of Little Bighorn/Custer's last stand (not that big of a deal but big news)
1880s - beats me
1890s - Spanish-American War
1900s - first flight by the Wright brothers
1910s - WWI
1920s - Crash of 29
1930s - Great Depression
1940s - WWII
1950s - Cold War
1960s - moon landing
1970s - Watergate/Nixon resigns (Shoeless Joe being born a close second)
1980s - Iran-Contra was probably biggest news story, but not that big in terms of world impact. Challenger well covered.
1990s - rise of the Internet
2000s - 911
2010s - locally, the friggin tornadoes that wiped out part of our county last Wednesday

 

Joe, you'd put Iran-Contra and the internet ahead of the dynamic duo of the Berlin Wall and fall of the USSR in the 1980s/90s?

 

Who let Ilmago possess Batman's body?

 

All these lists are obviously US-centric but also have worldwide significance. I'm going for 5-8 stories per decade; there may be more or less:

1900s:

1. The Wright Brothers (one of the slowest-developing 'great stories' of all time -- it was not really publicly confirmed they had flown in Dec. 1903 until 1908.)
2. T. Roosevelt and progressivism
3. Assassination of McKinley
4. Automobiles/ mass production
5. Telephones


1910s:
1. World War I
2. Recession of early decade
3. Influenza, 1918
4. Prohibition
5. Women's suffrage
6. Automobiles push horse traffic off the roads
7. Titanic


1920s:
1. Lindbergh, 1927
2. Economic recovery and prosperity, most of the decade
3. Mass entertainment (actors, singers, athletes become huge national celebrities)
4. Isolationism (U.S. rejects League of Nations, most overseas involvements)
5. Teapot Dome
6. KKK/institutionalized racism widespread
7. Radio/movies become common
8. Medical improvements (antibiotics - penicillin, 1928) start eliminating many widespread diseases


1930s
THE GREAT DEPRESSION

1. The Crash (actually Oct. 1929)
2. FDR and the New Deal (esp. 1933-36) -- the institution of the "social contract"
3. GOP pushback (1936-38)
4. Clouds of War 1933-1939
5. Economic pickup near end of decade
6. The Dust Bowl
7. Labor as a significant economic force
8. Transportation (rail travel reaches its apex, automobiles more widespread, air travel more than just a curiosity)
9. The Hindenberg (as a specific event)

1940s
WORLD WAR II

1. Pearl Harbor
2. Hiroshima/V-J Day
3. Hitler/FDR die within an 18-day span; V-E day quickly follows
4. D-Day
5. Doolittle's Raid
6. Berlin Blockade (1948)
7. Postwar economic recovery
8. Jackie Robinson/early civil rights


1950s
THE COLD WAR

1. Sputnik
2. Korea
3. USSR gets nukes (actually 1949)
4. China goes commie (also actually 1949)
5. Polio vaccine, 1955
6. Economic doldrums much of decade
7. Brown vs. Board of Education, early civil rights
8. TV gains acceptance
9. Automobiles become nearly universal
10. Air travel (jets)



1960s
1. JFK (Election, Camelot, assassination)
2. Apollo 11
3. Vietnam
4. RFK/MLK/ civil violence of 1968
5. Civil rights (entire decade)
6. Cuban Crises (Fidel takes over [1959], Bay of Pigs and Missile)
7. Rise of the youth culture (music, styles, politics)
8. Mideast War of 1967
9. TV ubiquitous in American society

1970s

1. Watergate
2. Economic malaise (pretty much entire decade)
3. Vietnam (winding down through 1975)
4. Oil crises (1973 and 78); US auto industry slumps as a result
5. Women's issues (Roe-Wade and push for the ERA)
6. Detente (Nixon to Moscow, China)
7. Fall of the youth culture (after 1972, especially in politics)
8. Environmentalism as a hot cause
9. Rise of radical Islam on the US radar (Iran hostage crisis)
10. Three Mile Island

1980s

1. Fall of Communism
2. Economic recovery 1984-87
3. Assassination attempt on Reagan
4. Challenger
5 John Lennon
6. Assassination attempt on the Pope
7. War worries 1980-84
8. Terrorism (Lockerbie, Beirut)
9. Rise of computers
10. Iran-Contra

1990s

1. Desert Storm
2. Fall of Communism, chapter 2
3. OKC
4. Computers become commonplace, birth of the Internet
5. Monicagate
6. Economic prosperity 1995-2000
7. More terrorism (WTC 1993)
8. Cell phones no longer curios
10. Broadcast TV audience splinters due to cable

2000-2011

1. 9/11 (I count homeland security, war on terrorism, and Osama dead as sequels/codas)
2. Mideast wars (Iraq-Afghanistan-Libya)
3. Economic crash 2008-2011
4. Obama's election
5. Computers/Internet now dominates most facets of life
6. Japan quake
7. Hanging chads, 2000
8. Katrina
9. Columbia, 2003
10. Conservatives push back, 2009-2011

 

Well, it had to be done or the whole Osama thread was going to get jacked.

Now, I'm going to call Billy Joel and offer him some songwriting help.

 

It's a toss up I guess. Notice I was kinda wishy-washy on Iran-Contra. I personally don't think it was that big of a deal. I was thinking in terms of news coverage. As a Cold War veteran and someone who was very much on high alert and high delight when the USSR crumbled, yeah that was big. But as for global impact, the rise of the Internet is still being felt on a daily basis. Was it bigger? I don't know. Was it big? Certainly.

 

Looking back over my lists, I would say way more than half are not tied to any one specific event but rather on a series of overall trends.

 

Best list I've seen thus far. Good job.

 

-Plame Affair
-Revolution of 1994
-Clarence Thomas hearings