JFK shooting/assassination...I was 10 years old and in school and someone came in our class and informed the teacher and she started crying...class stopped in the entire school and we went into the small auditorium and watched TV for the rest of the day..when I got home we watched on our only TV which was a black and white with no sound so it took awhile to really figure out what happened.

Sputnik launch, 1957. I was 6 years old

quote:

Originally posted by Browndrake:

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:

quote:

Originally posted by qxsoup:
Challenger explosion. I was in the 4th grade and watched it live in the cafeteria along with the rest of my elementary school.

Same here. I was in 3rd I think.

This is my first major news memory. I also was in the 3rd grade.

Same here, was probably in 1st or 2nd grade. After that, nothing until Berlin wall.

I'd have to say the one I remember was the Moon landing, getting my parents to let us stay up and watch it on television, still can see the old Panasonic TV, wood paneled room, shag carpet and laying on the floor to see the landing...

Like V-Tail, Dec. 7, 1941, I was a month less than 10 years odd and obviously on the radio.

buckeye1

The space shuttle exploding. I was in elementary school and had just gotten my lunch. I was walking back to a table with my tray and the principal came over the loudspeaker to say what happened. I remember the scene like it was yesterday, everything stood still for me. I never ate my lunch.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
JFK's assassination and funeral.

Same here.

Reagan getting shot. Remember knowing it happened but not much else or how I knew.

The Challenger Explosion I can tell you where I was in school and distinctly remember it.

I remember watching the 1956 Republican convention, on TV with my Dad, when Eisenhower was going for his second term. I was very impressed by a man holding about a 1’ x 8’ sign on a pole. The face of the sign had four capital letters made with light bulbs that spelled out “LIKE”. The letters would flash: “I” – “LIKE” – “IKE”, Eisenhower’s slogan from his first campaign “I Like Ike.”

This simple slogan was a winner, but for me it was the four letters flashing the “I LIKE IKE” slogan.

They just don’t make presidential conventions like the used to.

.

Martin Luther King's assassination. I was in kindergarten.

My earliest memory was of great news of a personal nature. I went to a party with my father and came home with my mother.

Fall of Saigon...I was 5

my dad was in control of the black and white TV we had so we watched what he did when he was home...

I remember seeing the helicopters leaving the top of the building....and my dad saying that it was a shame all his classmates had gotten killed for a war the President wasn't prepared to win.

It wasn't till much later that I understood what he had been saying.

Given I was born about the time the Enola Gay was cooling down the engines after landing,
my radio awareness was circa 1949ish, with the flurry of concern about them Rooskies getting not just the 'atomic bomb' (whatever that was) but the HYDROGEN bomb' as well.

I heard a radio address by President (whatever that meant) Truman, and actually recognized the title if not the office etc.

The Rosenbergs, Sen McCarthy & not long thereafter Eisenhower & Adlai Stevenson were on the radio.

Most 'news events' were beyond my comprehension at that time

I grew far more interested in such as
>The Shadow (What evil lurks in the hearts of man?)

>Green Hornet (Kato his side-kick)
> Dick Tracy
>LUX Radio Theatre;
> Amos & Andy Show
> Gangbusters (Machine gun sounds opening up the broadcast)
>Inner sanctum (Squeeky door opening up the broadcast)
>>Fibber McGee and Molly

and a host of others. We didn't get TV until about 1956 or 57. I went down the block to a friends place once a week for 15 minutes of some cowboy show.

1973 Oil Embargo by OPEC. Dad had just purchased a new Olds Vista Cruiser with a 455. My grandpa used to swear you could see the gas gauge go down while it idled.

Then there was:

Ford, Ford, he's our man.
Carter belongs in a garbage can.

But I don't remember Watergate.

I was born in 85, I vaguely remember some stories from desert storm. I do remember watching the OJ case, and the verdict in class. Probably 3rd grade?

quote:

What is your earliest childhood memory of a 'news' event?

My younger brother died, at 2 y/o. I was 4. Still remember it vividly like it was yesterday.

For me it's Watergate. I remember the artist renditions of the hearings.

quote:

uban Missile crisis, and stupid duck and cover drills resulting from it.

That would be mine. Living just outside of NYC, i remember the air raid tests of the sirens. Running down to the basement of a school built in the 1930's and expecting it to survive a blast a few miles away?????

I have vague memories of MacArthur's return from Korea, ordered back to the US by Truman, but I couldn't understand why everybody was so concerned. Every adult I knew was a WWII Vet, they came home, why shouldn't MacArthur?

I was about 4 or 5 at the time.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: newtoSig765,

Reagan getting shot.