Your top news stories of each decade?

The problem with lists like these is differentiating between history and news. The spread of the Internet was probably the most important HISTORICAL development of the 1990s (end of Cold War its competition for that spot), but as news, it really wasn't covered except in terms of business and the stock market. It couldn't be, because many of the changes it created weren't imagined by the people doing the reporting. The O.J. Simpson case was hands-down the news story that got the most coverage, hence the biggest story, of that decade. Murder always sells papers, drives ratings, etc.
Gator, sad but true, mass murders by deranged gunmen are so commonplace in American society they don't get to make lists like these.

 

If I were to pick the one story that was the biggest of each decade in my view, they would be as follows:

1940s: Pearl Harbor
1950s: ???
1960s: Kennedy Assassination
1970s: Watergate
1980s: Challenger
1990s: OJ Simpson
2000s: 9/11

The 50s seem so non-descript in retrospect. A number come to mind--Elvis breaking on the scene, The McCarthy hearings, Uncle Miltie on TV. Hell, maybe even the Bobby Thompson home run could qualify.

In the end, I'd probably go with McCarthy.

 

Capt. Kirk, you of all people (judging by your handle) should have gotten this one for the '50s: Sputnik and the space race. It was THE news story of the late 50s.

 

Yea, I thought of that as well, but it just doesn't resonate with any degree of impact for me. Maybe because it was before my time and was half a world away in Russia, I don't know. Certainly a prime candidate, though, for the top spot of that decade.

 

I was a little kid at the time, and the national freakout over Sputnik was amazing. It made the space race the biggest story from then until the Kennedy assassination.

 

I guess I'm thinking in terms of things that have affected how people live every day instead of huge news stories.

So, for instance, the funding and construction of the Interstate Highway system (1950s) and the widespread availability of the birth control pill (around 1960) would rate pretty high on the chart.

And yeah, that li'l ol' information superhighway invented by Al Gore was a big deal, too.

 

I disagree. I brought up Virginia Tech and Gator brought up Columbine. Yes, there have been other spree killings. But Columbine was a huge news story, both while it was happening and for months/years afterward, for many reasons.

 

I was a young kid, but Chernobyl took a definite cultural toehold. It was the world's greatest nuclear accident.

I can remember it even making its way into the comic books of the time. That'll make a boy sit up and take notice.

 

Jesse Owens Olympic Games 1936?

 

The sobering thought is that in just a few hundred years, each of these events will only garner at most a paragraph in a history book.

They will all be conveniently placed inside larger trends. Everything that has happened since 2001 will be packaged together as our version of the Boer War.

The 1950s and 1960s, while we see them as starkly different will be smooshed together as one movement.

We've already seen historians splice together WWIand WWII while ignoring the interwar period for so long.

For as disparate as our political ideologies have been, every US President from Reagan to Obama will be melted into one mold, I'm convinced. They all end up enacting identical policies despite what they all said.

I don't know why, but that thought always seems to put things in perspective for me.

 

Hiroshima, Apollo 11 and 9/11 will still be considered major events 500 years from now.

The others, you'll have to look up in your history cyber-memory chip from your comfortable apartment orbiting Titan.

 

Working back from the present...

2010s – Spring 2011 weather
2000s – 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Indian Ocean tsunami
1990s – Balkan wars, Clinton impeachment
1980s – Fall of communism, Challenger
1970s – Watergate, Munich Olympics
1960s – Vietnam, U.S. civil rights movement, moon landing
1950s – Korean War, breakup of European colonial system
1940s – World War 2, Soviet Union becomes world power
1930s – Great Depression, rise of fascist movements
1920s – Jazz Age, Crash of '29
1910s – World War 1
1900s – Progressive age, emergence of stronger labor unions
1890s – Spanish-American War, European colonial grab
1880s – Height of Industrial Age
1870s – Unification of Germany and Italy, taming of American West
1860s – American Civil War
1850s – California gold rush, opening of Japan
1840s – US-Mexican War, Revolution in Europe
1830s – Rise of steam-powered industry, opening of American West and Russian Siberia
1820s – British gain control in India
1810s – End of Napoleonic wars
1800s – The age of Napoleon
1790s – French Revolution, establishment of American republic
1780s – America gains independence, British colonize Australia
1770s – American Revolution
1760s – British take Canada, Seven Years War

... and that's about as far back as I can go off the top of my head.