moments in history....what were you doing when...?

[cheerypeabrain]

Many of us are...ahem...'mature' (in theory) so it occurred to me that most of us have witnessed/lived through significant events/times.

These days we witness events almost as they unflold via the internet and news channels. We didn't have a tv until I was 6 or 7 years old...the days of ...We are interrupting this programme to bring you a news flash....which would bring us hurrying into the room to find out what had happened...

The assassination of JFK, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the moon landings, the election of Barack Obama, the fall of the Berlin wall, Watergate, 9/11, the covid pandemic, the Capitol Hill riots and hundreds of other events all had an impact on our lives...however indirectly.

What is the first 'big' event that you can remember? Is there one that changed you? Can you remember what you were doing/who you were with when you heard...?

Sorry if this is a duplicate thread. I'm just interested (nosey:) )

[mickthecactus]

Hearing Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly for the first time. I was about 8 or 9 and with my sister at her friend Hilary’s. Music was never the same again.

[onlyMark]

I played truant from school saying I was ill to watch the moon landings. On the second or third day I got a knock on our door. It was a kid from my class saying the PE teacher had sent him to come and get me to play football that afternoon for the school because everyone knew I wasn't really ill.

I had driven a group on a three month journey back from Kathmandu and we were in Austria when one of the group told me to come and look at the TV in the campsite bar. Diana had just died.

I was with Mrs M on holiday island hopping in Greece when 9/11 occurred. Spent the next few days sitting in bars watching the TV.

Aberfan - living surrounded by coal tips as a small boy wondering if it would happen to me.

[bjd]

I was with my parents getting a new pair of iceskates at the Canadian Tire store (which does not only sell tires but lots of other stuff) when there was a radio broadcast that Kennedy had been shot.

And I was coming in from an evening with friends when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. I remember my mother watching TV and saying, "There is going to be another war."

Outside gardening and chatting with a neighbour on 9/11. I came in to have something to drink and turned the radio on and heard the news as it was happening. Given the 6 hour time difference with New York, the burning buildings and people trying to flee was described live.

Sorry, that's more than one event.

[mossie]

In 1939 the new wonder fighter the Spitfire was display father took me to an Empire Air Day at Hawkinge about 3 miles away. There the new wonder fighter the Spitfire was demonstrated, less than a year later we had the Battle of Britain fought over our heads

[cheerypeabrain]

Wow Mossie! That is so interesting.

Thank you all for indulging me


I had recently turned 7, lying on a home made red wool rug in front of the fire on a November evening in 1963. I was colouring in a picture of ducks with crayons (a colouring competition sheet). Not sure where my siblings were but they would've been in the house as it was almost bedtime for us younger ones. My big sister and our parents were in the dining room watching the television which had been delivered that week (rented). I heard them all gasping and talking about the shooting of President Kennedy as it was announced in a news flash. I remember crying, but not for JFK, I knew who he was of course, but didn't know much about him. It was because I was frightened.

The tv brought news into the house. I didn't read the newspapers that my parents had delivered (The Observer in the morning and the Leicester Mercury in the evening) until I was older and have always relied on the tv, sometimes the radio. It was always the BBC news which I thought was reliable..these days not so much.

During covid we watched CNN which was free at the time. We saw the election drama unfold when Trump refused to accept that he'd lost...watched the rioters storm Capitol Hill. CNN reporting was superb and I wish we still subscribed, but Jeff refuses to pay extra just for a news channel

[whatagain]

On 31 July 1993 we got married. The next day we went to Alsace for a pre honeymoon trip.
The radio was playing cool quiet music due to the circumstances.
Our king had passed away whilst we were dancing.

On 9/11 I was in Paris. When we heard the news the meeting turned to the actuality.
Our boss cancelled the dinner and we all went home or in my case to my hotel.
Close to Élysées rue des Saussaies (!).
I spent more than one hour on the phone with my wife.
Then we went my colleague and I in search of something as US as possible.
There were very few people on the street and everyone was greeting the ither - surrealist.
We ended up at Planet Hollywood on the Champs.

In 1996 we were watching the manhunt for Dutroux.

A last memorable moment for me was the day 39 (or more ?) soccer fans died at th stadium in Brussels.
We saw them die on tv. Awful.

[patricklondon]

I remember the announcement of King George VI's death. I doubt at the age of 4 I could have had awareness of who he was, but since it meant no radio for the rest of the day, it was enough for me to rush upstairs to tell my mother, who was polishing the bath taps at the time (why that detail should have stuck, I don't know).

And I was on a Eurostar train to Paris when, on 7 July 2005, just as we came out of the tunnel into France pretty well every mobile phone seemed to go off as people's friends and relatives wanted to check they hadn't been affected by the bombs that morning (including one at Kings Cross, not that far from the Eurostar terminal - we must have left London not long before it happened). That was a strange weekend.





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[bjd]

When the chemical factory in Toulouse blew up on September 21, 2001, cell phone service was down too because of people trying to check on friends and family. Our son had recently left to be a student in Grenoble and he and his friends from Toulouse spent hours trying to get through, especially since they knew how exactly where the factory was located.

[mossie]

Don't indulge me, I have meany memories of the 39-45 War, I started at a grammar school in Canterbury in Sept 1943. Canterbury had been blitzed in June 42, and our school stood one street back from the main shopping street. We had a clear view through to the cathedral which stood 3 streets away. The shops and houses in between had all been destroyed by the evil Germans. They had even manufactured a 3 ton bomb for the cathedral, which fell short tp add to the chaos. I well remember my mother taking us out to the back garden some 10 miles away to see the glow in the sky which was the Mediaevel heart of the city burning

[whatagain]

Of 39 45 my parents have memories.
My mother in law’s godfather was late for her baptism as the tram stopped several times when aircraft’s were seen flying low above.
Under their wings the Balkan Kreuz.
It was 10 mai 1940.

My father remembers the noise of the Lancasters bombing us at night.

My mother saw a man falling under the tracks of a Sherman the day the Americans liberated us.

My father in law went after an attack of P38 on a German column to see the results and came back with spent ammo cartridges.

[patricklondon]

Family war stories - maybe a bit off-topic, but my mother remembered being in a shop on the local High Street as a young teenager in WW1 when someone rushed in to say there was a Zeppelin overhead, and how disgruntled she was when a woman near her thrust her baby into her hands so that she (the mother) could join the rush to go out and see it.


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[mickthecactus]

In February 1978 I was working in the City of London.

I hadn’t long been in the office when there was the noise of numerous sirens, ambulance and fire. What had happened was a tube train had gone into Moorgate terminus but instead of stopping it had gone at full speed into the dead end wall. There were 300 people in the train and 43 died and over 70 seriously injured. The worst tube accident ever. It was so severe that the drivers cab which was 3’ wide was reduced to just 6” wide and a leading carriage reduced from 50’ long to 20’ long.

The reason was never found and there were no mechanical defects. Driver error was given as the cause.

[cheerypeabrain]

On 9/11 I took time owing and finished work before lunch, got home and immediately took the dog for a long walk on the golf course. I did notice on the way home that there weren't many cars on the usually busy roads. When we got home Jeff was there, his boss had sent everybody home early. The tv was on and I thought Jeff was watching a disaster movie. But no. As he told me what was happening the second plane flew into the tower. I just sat down with Jeff and watched the tv, appalled.

I remember ringing my Dad, my sisters, my children to tell them that I loved them. I even rang work to discover that my colleagues were all crowded into the Boss' office watching it on his computer. Even A&E and Maternity were quiet apparently. I think that the whole world was in shock.

[cheerypeabrain]

In 1967 I watched the Beatles perform 'Love Is All You Need' in a live satellite broadcast watched (allegedly) by 400 million in 25 countries. It was quite underwhelming tbh.

[kerouac2]

9/11 hit really hard at the office on the first day but it was far worse about 2 days later when we found out that about half of the terrorists were employees of our company.

[mich64]

Kerouac, that must have been shocking to say the least.

1972, huddled with my fellow grade 3 classmates watching a TV brought into the classroom to watch a game from the Canada/Russia Summit Hockey series. Also, that year we were doing bomb/terrorist drills where we were to cover our heads as we hid under our desks, which even for an 8 year old, did not make any sense. We are a NORAD Base and there were threats.

9/11 - Having seen the second plane hit the tower and then sitting at my desk in a daze for most of the day as I waited to hear if any of the planes were being diverted to our airport (2nd longest runway in the country) knowing my husband was on duty and worrying what he could encounter if planes landed here.

August 14th, 2003, eastern seaboard power outage. I was grocery shopping after work and was able to get my order through on back up power! My husband called and told me to go home (I was waiting to pick him up, he was on day-shift) he said it might be a long night and he was staying on overtime to help out. It was unnerving because for a while we had no idea what had happened and if it was terrorist related or not.

[kerouac2]

The day after the assassination of JFK (exactly 60 years ago, as we know), school was closed and there was nothing to do but watch television. So I saw Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination live on TV and never forgot it.

[bjd]

I saw Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby on TV too. What happened to Ruby?

[onlyMark]

She took her love to town.

[kerouac2]

Nov 22, 2023 15:51:03 GMT bjd said:

I saw Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby on TV too.

Everybody saw it, but very few people saw it live like I did. Jack Ruby was convicted, appealed, had more trials and died of cancer in 1967.

[mickthecactus]

Nov 22, 2023 18:21:27 GMT onlyMark said:

She took her love to town.

😂😂

[onlyMark]

At least somebody got it. Thanks Mick.

[cheerypeabrain]

[kerouac2]

Clearly something British.

[mickthecactus]

Clearly? American. Kenny Rogers.

[kerouac2]

That must be because the British don't have their own music.

[htmb]

When Kennedy was killed I was sitting in class at a very small, rural, Catholic school, and the Mother Superior/Principal came in and made the sad announcement. At the time, we didn’t know the president had died. I happened to have a (forbidden) transistor radio in my backpack, but was allowed to take it out so the class could listen to the news.

It was strange to me that my parents became glued to the television from just after the assassination. They never watched TV during the daytime, especially my father who was always working. Thus, my parents saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald, live on TV. I was out riding my horse, and rode up to the living room window to find out what all the yelling was about. I remember watching a replay of the event through the window, and wishing I hadn’t.

My mother, sister and brother had attended an event/parade in Tampa a few days or so before the Dallas trip, and had seen the Kennedys, so they’d felt a real connection. I had declined to go with them because, once again, I wanted to be out riding.

[bixaorellana]

I vividly remember hearing that Kennedy had been killed. I was in the school library in St. Francisville and felt complete shock that the leader of any country could be shot and killed just like that, particularly the leader of my own country.
That seems so naive now, but I was only 15 then.

The photograph of Oswald being shot is engraved in my brain & it seems I've seen it & the clip so many times that I honestly can't remember whether I saw the live footage or not.

The next shock tantamount to Kennedy's killing I remember was the Texas Tower sniper, although I just looked up the year & had not remembered it happened so soon after I graduated from high school. I do remember having the same reaction that I had when JFK was killed, though -- how can this happen?

1968 seemed as though everything happened -- In January there was the attack on Tan Son Nhut Air Base. I was at USL in Lafayette, La. & kind of flipped out because my father was at Tan Son Nhut. MLK and Bobby Kennedy were killed, and then there was the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Then, as now, it was getting so you didn't want to look at the news.

Of all those kinds of memories, the one that most plays like a movie over and over again is the fall of Saigon. I was driving down St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans with my little boy next to me in the front seat on an exceptionally beautiful Spring day. The news came on the radio and all I could feel was sadness and disgust for so many lives lost and for what?

[onlyMark]

"That must be because the British don't have their own music."
Certainly not Country and Western because we have very few heartbroken alcoholic cowboys with guns and trucks, but I like to listen to it when I'm feeling very happy. It always lowers my mood back to normal.