Your top news stories of each decade?

Haven't seen it mentioned on any lists, but should KAL 007 (the Korean jetliner shot down by the Soviets in 1983) be on the 1980s lists? I was a kid at the time, so maybe it was just a blip in the bigger picture of the Cold War, but I seem to remember it stoking a lot of fears of World War III.

 

I'll do one for sports:

1900s: The American League is born
1910s: The Johnson/Jeffries fight.
1920s: Trade of Babe Ruth to the Yankees
1930s: The second Louis/Schmeling fight.
1940s: Jackie Robinson's major league debut
1950s: The Giants/Colts title game in '58.
1960s: The first Super Bowl
1970s: The first Ali-Frazier fight
1980s: Miracle on Ice
1990s: Magic Johnson's HIV announcement
2000s: The MLB steroid hearing in Congress
2010-so far: The Decision.

 

Super Bowl III started the game on the way to the spectacle it has become. First two had the feel of postseason exhibitions.

 

1960s: NY Jets beat Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III (Jan. 12, 1969), ultimately necessitating the merger of the AFL and NFL.
1970s: ESPN founded; Bird-Magic game ushers in March Madness (Both in '79, I think.)
1980s: NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, June 27, 1984: The Supreme Court allows individual schools to negotiate their own football TV deals, thereby opening the door to contracts between conferences and cable outlets. The world hasn't been the same since.
1990s: Baseball strike; Tiger Woods arrives.

 

The 2004 tsunami was responsible for almost a quarter-million deaths.

We will never see, knock on wood, a death toll like that in our lifetimes.

 

Surprised not to see any mention of OJ Simpson in the 1990's lists.

Here's my brief list.

1990: Advent of the internet changes world forever, Oklahoma City bombing, OJ Simpson trial, Clinton's impeachment, Desert Storm
2000: 9/11, Obama elected, Social media takes off, Bush-Gore, Recession
2010: Charlie Sheen.

(Just kidding on that last part)

 

Starman has a pretty comprehensive list and I have some overlap, but here goes.

1880s-90s: Manifest Destiny/Imperialism (War with Spain, acquiring Philippines, Guam and other expansion)

Edison's Illuminating Company (without electricity none of the other fancy computer stuff works)

1910s:

1. World War I
America did its best to stay out, but we eventually got involved at the end and the aftermath led to WWII .

2. Progressivism
(Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Birth of Fire Codes, 40 hour work week, child labor, breakup of monopolies)
Immigration from Europe (over 30 million from 1836 to 1914)


1920s:

1. Growth of American Cities
Skyscrapers,
2. Growth of the Stock Market
3. rise of Gangs because of prohibition
4. Jazz music (Harlem Renaissance)


1930s:
1. Economic Collapse Depression
2. Democracy in trouble (Italy and Germany fall and Americans question capitalism)
3. FDR and the rise of the Alphabet Soup Programs to put people back to work.
4. Dust Bowl
5. Migration (Okies to California, Poor blacks in the south to Detroit, Chicago, New York)

1940s
World War II

2. Baby Boomers
3. Introduction of computers (1945)
3. Birth of television

1950s
Cold War
1. McCarthyism/ Red Scare
2. Growth of the suburbs (Title I and II, Urban Renewal, Federal Highway Act)
3. Consumerism (people bought TVs, cars, houses, ect)
4. School Integration (Alabama, Arkansas, ect)
5. I Like Ike

1960s:
1. Political Upheaval JFK/RFK/MLK assassinated
2. Protests (Vietnam, Civil Rights)
3. Riots (from Watts, to Detroit to Newark, major cities erupted in flames at least a couple of times)
3A. White Flight
4. Malcolm X, Stokeley Carmichael, Black Panthers.
5. Space Race

1970s
Big Government
1. Nixon: established the EPA, War on Drugs, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Established ties with Red China and signed SALT I with Communist Russia.
1A: In addition, Nixon secretly bombed Cambodia, allowed incursions into Laos, instituted price controls and threatened the Constitution with Watergate.
2. Technology (Atari, VCRs, widespread use of the barcode)
3. cocaine use among middle and upper class

1980s
Me Decade
1. Reagan landslide
2. Stock Market
3. Insider Trading scandals.
4. Growth of street gangs
5. Crack epidemic, violence in inner cities.
6. fall of Soviet Bloc countries

1990s
1. Desert Storm
2. Rise of the Internet
3. Bill Clinton and triangulation that won him two terms
4. Economic Growth

2000s
Terrorism
1. 9/11
2. action in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries
3. Black President
4. Bin Laden dead.

 

To be totally anal about it, Babe Ruth was sold by Boston to the Yankees on Dec. 26, 1919, and the Black Sox scandal didn't break until August 1920. But Babe Ruth is associated by the public with the 1920s, and the Black Sox with 1919, so that's probably where they belong.

 

I thought about the Black Sox. But to me, the fight was just a bit bigger. because of the riots and the social significance. It was one of the first hugely-built up sporting events of its time.

 

I'm really surprised the O.J. Simpson trial has only come up once so far. Maybe people forget how huge that was. Maybe, in hindsight, it seems like an embarrassingly lurid tabloid story. But, in reality, there were some huge themes about crime-and-punishment, domestic violence, and race in America running through the whole thing. To this day I can't get enough of it.

 

There are two news stories that I'm not sure if they belong on a top-five list for their respective decades, but they could: Kent State and Columbine. Surprised neither have been mentioned.