What's the First Big News Story You Were Aware Of As a Kid?

[Riptide]

This is a fun game, because you get to place almost to the year you became a sentient human being, and also become baffled that the young people around you literally don’t remember huge major world events.

Yeah, I ripped this off Deadspin. Not worth linking to, but a good topic to kick around here.

Mine was the JFK assassination, though I recall just bits and pieces of those days. Don't recall much after that until the Apollo 1 flash fire, and then the MLK and JFK assassinations after that. Vietnam War TV news clips interspersed along the way, but I had no real idea of what was going on except for Hey, Look: Soldiers!

The Sixties, man: TV in black and white, and three channels to watch.

 

[RickStain]

Baby Jessica in the well.

 

[BTExpress]

Apollo 8 circling the moon.

All the mess that was 1968 that came before that was just a jumbled mess in my brain.

 

[BrownScribe]

OJ or Columbine.

 

[MileHigh]

Americans taken hostage in Iran.

 

[Starman]

John Glenn, Feb. 20, 1962.

I was 3 1/2 years old. I knew exactly what was going on; my dad explained the whole thing; we were launching a man in a rocket that would go around the world.

That summer my parents bought me this trash basket (well, one just like it), which served as my first study guide for astronomy and space science. The front side had a map of the solar system, with stats on all the planets, etc etc. while the back side had diagrams of rockets and satellites, including Apollo, which was still completely on the drawing board. I still have the trash basket in my bedroom.

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis that October in bits and pieces; my parents kept turning off the teevee and hiding the newspapers so I couldn't see them.

There was some plan we were going to drive up to the north woods to my grandmother's cottage. This might not have been the brightest idea since Grandma's cottage was, at the time, located 10 miles from a SAC bomber base.

I remember 11/22/63 very well. My mother burst into my kindergarten classroom (two blocks from our house) and took me home. I remember my mother whispering something to my unsuspecting teacher, who nearly screamed out, "oh my god."

My mother explained on the way home: all that was known then was that JFK had been shot and "there might be a war."

We got home and within about 15 minutes, Walter Cronkite announced JFK was gone.

We watched the rest of it all on teevee.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Wow, Mz. Rosenberg probably never expected this when she tweeted.

First thing I can remember is Elvis' death. Was probably 6 or 8.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Elvis' death for me, too.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Carter/Ford election. I had just turned 5. My parents and neighbors were not amused by the results.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

The assassination attempt on Reagan.

 

[JackReacher]

Man. That's a good one. I have no idea. After doing some Googling, does ET count? I remember seeing that as a kid when it was in theaters. I was 3 or 4, I guess.

Aside from that, probably something involving Reagan.

 

[da man]

First thing that comes to mind is Ed White's spacewalk on Gemini 4 in 1965. I was 4. I became a giant space nerd -- I watched all the launches and all the pre-launch coverage and was glued to the TV whenever anything from any of the missions was on. I had the GI Joe space capsule and dressed Joe in his spacesuit to orbit around the house. I had an LP that featured the astronauts recreating their communications during key moments in their missions. Gordo Cooper and Pete Conrad are still my favorite astronauts -- they were hilarious!

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Vague remembrance of the hostages being released from Iran, because our teacher explained to us what happened and to listen carefully at noon for church bells to chime.

After that, if I'm remembering correctly, was Reagan's assassination attempt, because there was supposed to be a Peanuts special airing that night, but got pre-empted.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I have vague recollections of reports about Vietnam when I was little. I remember snippets from Watergate even better than that. My memories start to get really vivid around the time of the bicentennial celebration in 1976 and the election that November that Carter won.

 

[MileHigh]

I'll amend mine to the bicentennial. I vaguely remember Ford/Carter but Ragu's post jogged my memory and I definitely remember the bicentennial.

 

[Huggy]

Two from 1972:

News: the hostage taking at the Munich Olympics

Sports: the Canada-Russia Summit Series

 

[JackReacher]

*******, all you people are old!

 

[The Big Ragu]

*******, all you people are old!

Get off my lawn. ... you little pishah.

 

[Fly]

Detroit riots, summer of 1967. Park about a mile or so from our house in the hood was a staging area for National Guard troops and their heavy equipment. Remember the tanks and other armored vehicles.

 

[Riptide]

*******, all you people are old!

We're wily veterans, kid.