What's the first major news story you can remember living through as a child?

[froggie]

the Ash Wednesday bushfires and the great dust stoem in 1983 (i was born in 77). well it big news here. i was caught up in it coming home from school in prep grade

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-14/ash-wednesday-bushfires-1983-from-the-archives/4519214

 

[uncool2pillow]

Geez, that's apocalyptic!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[calvino]

Yeah that is - wow.

[John Smith]

Earlier I said y news story was the Apollo accident, which is the earliest specific story I can remember.  I remember the Vietnam war being ubiquitous, but not one specific incidence.  I do however remember watching the Jetsons and Flintstones on prime time.

[Sir Stewart]

Thinking my 6 year-old's answer in 20 years may be the 2016 RNC Convention.

[calvino]

I hope that's not the case for my 6 year old - e-gads!

 

Though over the last couple of weeks - there has been much worse stuff going than the  RNC Convention.

[Sir Stewart]

But, the convention hasn't happened yet.

[calvino]

But, the convention hasn't happened yet.

 

Very true...

[Lammycat]

When Alice felt unwanted after Mike and Carol married and said she was leaving.

[Blackberry Rust]

Born 1981 - most vividly the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Those grainy helicopter images on a our small television.

[Sir Stewart]

Lennon being killed didn't affect me in the moment, I guess due to being seven when I did not 100% know the Beatle names individually, which is a bit shocking to me - my kid has known the names for as long as I can recall and she's still not seven. My parents only had Sgt Pepper's in with their Pavarotti and Sinatra and Erroll Garner and the Mame soundtrack. Did everyone in the '60s just have Sgt Pepper's by default? By the time I was five Sgt Pepper's and its visuals were as important to me as Mister Rogers and my imaginary friends. But yeah still didn't for sure know all their names, which I only know today because of my memory of us kids huddled to the back of the classroom that morning after, a number of teachers at Mrs. MacNeil's front desk grieving reservedly but obviously, and us trying to figure out exactly what this death meant to the adults. I didn't think of John in his green regalia holding the French horn (he was always my favorite); I didn't think of Beatle John as dead because he was a Muppet, a Tom or Jerry. The Beatles were all from the same place as the Seven Dwarves or the village Popeye crashed upon, to me they were of that unique type of friends (or maybe they felt like family) whose connection to me even though not personal was born of love and its lessons. Oddly, that morning, when Brad Baherian announced to our small circle of boys what had happened he ended with "and I think his name was Peter" which I took as a hit, because he looked at me when he said it. I thought he was probably right and wished he hadn't looked at me. Fuck you Brad!

[Winston Legthigh]

Lennon being killed didn't affect me in the moment, I guess due to being seven when I did not 100% know the Beatle names individually, which is a bit shocking to me - my kid has known the names for as long as I can recall and she's still not seven. My parents only had Sgt Pepper's in with their Pavarotti and Sinatra and Erroll Garner and the Mame soundtrack. Did everyone in the '60s just have Sgt Pepper's by default? By the time I was five Sgt Pepper's and its visuals were as important to me as Mister Rogers and my imaginary friends. But yeah still didn't for sure know all their names, which I only know today because of my memory of us kids huddled to the back of the classroom that morning after, a number of teachers at Mrs. MacNeil's front desk grieving reservedly but obviously, and us trying to figure out exactly what this death meant to the adults. I didn't think of John in his green regalia holding the French horn (he was always my favorite); I didn't think of Beatle John as dead because he was a Muppet, a Tom or Jerry. The Beatles were all from the same place as the Seven Dwarves or the village Popeye crashed upon, to me they were of that unique type of friends (or maybe they felt like family) whose connection to me even though not personal was born of love and its lessons. Oddly, that morning, when Brad Baherian announced to our small circle of boys what had happened he ended with "and I think his name was Peter" which I took as a hit, because he looked at me when he said it. I thought he was probably right and wished he hadn't looked at me. Fuck you Brad!

I enjoyed this.

 

My parents also had their mandated/default Sgt. Pepper's LP. That and the White Album. Both of which surprise me now, since most of their other albums were Harry Belafonte, Simon & Garfunkel, Kingston Trio, and Nana Mouskouri. The two Beatles albums they had were the only pop/rock albums in their collection. The White Album is my favorite album to this day. I listened to it so so so much on my little crappy portable LP player when I was a kid. Those songs always seemed to me to come from some deeper place than anything else I was exposed to. 

 

I "do the Beatles" for my boys, like Louis CK below, but I do it better. Mine is the same as the intro to the Beatles at the BBC.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3o0PYfj_4k

[Sir Stewart]