watershed events

[SLThomas]

What are the main news events that made the biggest impact on your life?

Mine would be when I watched the Berlin Wall falling, the end of the Soviet Union on that December evening in 1991 and the Sept.11 attacks.

A local (maybe national) event that really impacted me was the Montreal Polytechnical University shooting massacre on Dec.6 1989. Really made this 16 year-old realize that some men loathed women and would stop at nothing to murder them.

The other was the independance referendum of 1995.

[Mandy-Jane]

I would have to say that for me, the biggest impact has come from things that are a little closer to home. I remember reading a story in our local newspaper about three years ago about a little 10 month old baby girl who had been beaten to death by her stepfather. She was a twin and her little twin sister was still alive, but her beatings had caused her to go deaf. The reason it impacted me so was because my baby was the same age at that time.

Another time I saw a news report about a starving family trying to survive the Winter in - I think it was Afghanistan. A mother, father, two kids. The youngest one couldn't even open her eyes fully because she had some disease caused by malnutrition. And here they were, tramping along in the snow with no food and no shelter. Just awful.

Then I would also have to mention the Port Arthur Historical Site massacre in Tasmania. So many beautiful, innocent people, just having a family day out or going about their workday, and gunned down. Two of them, small girls.

There are so many more.

[MattW]

Challenger explosion. Watched it live on TV in 4th grade. I can still see the room and the reactions on the faces of the nuns.

Operation Desert Storm - televised war? I was in 9th grade, and it became my World History class.

9/11. I have crystal clarity around every minute of that day. The first news blips, the mad scramble for more info, breaking up meetings so people could call their families, the phone lines jammed with frantic calls to loved ones, the paralysis watching the first tower fall, watching the smoke rise from my window for the rest of the day. Even the few minutes before when I was flirting with a girl who was interviewing on the worst day.

[Mumut]

My first big news event was the relaxation of rationing after the second world war - when I was about 9yo. We could eat sweets again. Other foods were now available but as a youngster it was the sweet things were most important for me.

Kennedy and the Cuban missiles were heart stopping times. Our headmaster advised that students who wanted to, could assemble in the auditorium for prayers.

Independence in Papua New Guinea was a wonderful time. Some people were afraid and there were rumours that it would be 'the night of the long knives' but I stayed and enjoyed a few more years of adventure up there.

Otherwise it's personal matters. First parachute jump, first scuba dive, emigrating to Australia on my own etc.

[SHBueche]

Absolutely 9/11. I remember that I took one of my dogs to the vet's office after the first plane hit and before the second one hit, and we were all glued to the television. Very surreal. Also, I remember my son was home from school that day and we spent the day simultaneously watching the TV and checking out Internet forums.

[SLThomas]

Operation Desert Storm - televised war? I was in 9th grade, and it became my World History class.



Yeah that was one of mine as well. Looking back I really think that I came of age between 1989 and 1991; I remember so many events from that time. I was finishing my teenage rebellion also; kind people in my life made the difference. From 86 to early 89 I was on the verge of delinquency...Finding an interest in current events and how it related to history changed me for the better (and my parents breathed a huge sigh of relief! )

Seeing the hanshake on the White House lawn between Ytzak Rabin and Yasir Arafat was a huge one as well...I cried when Rabin was assassinated.

[Clair Dickson]

Biggest impact? Probably the second wave of massive layoffs from the auto industry back, maybe early 2000? I don't recall the exact timing, but every day since then has been bad news for Michigan economically as the state led the way into the recession. And even there I've been pretty well spared-- not great, because it's clear everyday just what condition the mitten-state is in.

As far as most jarring-- I have to admit Sept11, but I think it was more the unsualness of how the news spread. Hiding in the Reading Room on campus means that you don't hear news-- and people don't announce what they've just heard over their cell phone to the rest of the folks in the room. Then the day continued to unfold into the massive collection of surreal and unreal events.

[Higgins]

What are the main news events that made the biggest impact on your life?

Mine would be when I watched the Berlin Wall falling, the end of the Soviet Union on that December evening in 1991 and the Sept.11 attacks.

A local (maybe national) event that really impacted me was the Montreal Polytechnical University shooting massacre on Dec.6 1989. Really made this 16 year-old realize that some men loathed women and would stop at nothing to murder them.

The other was the independance referendum in 1995.

The massacre in San Salvador in 1980. Really horrible. There was one point where so many bodies were piled in front of a church door that the door was blocked and people had to stop and get hit by a few dozen bullets and fall in to the body pile which was also being hit by dozens of bullets a second.

[Don]

The biggest impact for me was the day I found out some people in DC who had never met me had decided the purpose of my life was to go to Southeast Asia and shoot at people I had no problem with, and if I chose not to go they were perfectly willing to put me in jail for refusing.

The draft began my examination of what constitutes just government, and led indirectly to every argument for restricted government and personal responsibility that I make today.

[Norman D Gutter]

What are the main news events that made the biggest impact on your life? [emphasis added
Specifically on my life, the first one is Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. I was a resident of Kuwait at the time (though out of the country on annual leave). The upheaval of that and the stress I and my family went through were immense. It could only have been worse had we been in the country at the time.

Other than that, the events of 9-11 would have to be next. This changed the world more than most momentous events.

Third would be the assassination of JFK, although a more horrifc related event was the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, which I watched on television. I was in sixth grade and in school when Kennedy was killed. It took a while for the Zapruder film to surface, so I had no visuals of the actual event. But to see a man murdered was something else. Both events together had a big impact on me.

NDG

[regdog]

The Bosnian War-I worked in a dental office that had a large group of patients who were refugees. It was heartbreaking listening to what they had lived through, and seeing their physical and emotional scars.

9/11 I was at working listening to it on the radio. At first the original news reports said it was a small private prop plane and then they said a larger plane and finally about ten to fifteen minutes later they said it was a large commerical jet. So we didn't even know how bad it was at first. Then we did.

It didn't seem possible that we were really listening to accounts of people jumping out of the top of those buildings, but it was. And by the time I got home even though I had listened to it on the radio I still wasn't prepared for what I saw on the news that night.

I worked about a forty minute drive from where I live. The route was pretty buisy with steady traffic except that night. There were only four other cars on the road the entire trip home, no one out on the streets. It was eerie.

[WendyNYC]

9/11 by a wide margin. I can remember every detail about living in the city on that day. Vividly. We had a few of my husband's business associates stay with us because they couldn't get home and we all just sat in my kitchen in a state of shock.

I was pregnant and my oldest was 2. Thank God for that distraction, or I probably would have been in a state of depression for much longer than I was.

[Ageless Stranger]

9/11 was pretty chilling. I remember class was cancelled and we were all ushered into the hall and shown what had happened on the news. When we'd walked in, the hall was buzzing with noise, afterwards, the room was silent.

The other one has to be;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/7316601.stm

So senseless.

[maestrowork]

A few came to mind:

- The Challenger disaster
- Tiananmen Square Massacre
- 9/11
- Operation Desert Storm: the day we went to war

A personal one:
- my friend got killed in a car accident

[blacbird]

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

(both of these happened to coincide with the exact day of a couple of memorable personal events, which only heightened the drama)

Kent State shootings in 1971.

9/11.

caw

[donroc]

Pearl Harbor
VE&VJ Days
Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe
Drafted
Assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK
An on it goes

[regdog]

A few came to mind:

- The Challenger disaster
- Tiananmen Square Massacre
- 9/11
- Operation Desert Storm: the day we went to war

A personal one:
- my friend got killed in a car accident

I don't know how I didn't mention Tiananmen Square.

Sorry about your friend

[dgiharris]

THe Britany Spears, Angelina Jolie, and Brad Pitt news coverage.

The fact that our news spends time on this dribble instead of the real events that impact our lives.

This is why so much stuff flies under the radar until it is too late.

Nonsensical bills that are added to legislation
Important Legislation that never sees the light of day
Red Herring energy policies that dupe the America Public (Enron anyone anyone?)
American Economy moving overseas
Inefficient government spending and 'Nice sounding' yet ridiculous policies (No child left behind)

All of the 'ills' that are destroying America owe a major amount of culpability to a media that is asleep at the wheel. Unless someone slams a plane into a building, our media no longer has the ability to detect a news worthy story or catch an injustice BEFORE it alters our lives.

Mel...

[kuwisdelu]

Honestly, I can't think of anything.

[Albedo]

The Tiananmen square massacre is the first major event that I can distinctly remember the television news coverage of. I was six. The first event that I had a vague understanding of was the first Gulf War. I remember thinking,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Demolished_vehicles_line_Highway_80_on_18_Apr_1991 .jpg/300px-Demolished_vehicles_line_Highway_80_on_18_Apr_1991 .jpg
we did this?

[Albedo]

Oh, and I nearly died in a car crash, someone close to me came out, and the space shuttle Columbia exploded all on the same day.

[Shadow_Ferret]

John Glenn's spacewalk
Neal Armstrong's First Step on the Moon
Woodstock
The Manson Killings
John and Bobby Kennedy and MLKing assassinations
Watergate
Death of Jimi Hendrix
Death of Janis Joplin
Death of Jim Croce
Deaths of members of Lynryd Skynrd

[blacbird]

Honestly, I can't think of anything.

You be way too young, then.

caw

[blacbird]

The Tiananmen square massacre is the first major event that I can distinctly remember the television news coverage of.

It's worth noting that the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred on what has to be the most extraordinary single news day of all time. We went into that day anticipating a free election in Poland, the first open and free election in any Iron Curtain nation, which was scheduled to happen that day (and did). News organizations worldwide were poised with that as their lead story.

Then the Ayatollah Khomeini died.

Then came the Tiananmen Square assault.

In retrospect, among those three coincident lead-story events, the Polish election might have been the most lastingly important, considering the domino it pushed over in eastern Europe, toppling a long meandering column leading all the way to Moscow.

caw

[Jersey Chick]

The Berlin Wall coming down and watching the Germans dancing atop it.

The first Gulf War - I was in college, and I watched almost the entire war on television - remember Arthur Kent, "The Scud Stud"...

The Challenger explosion - it was the first news event where I can recall exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was a freshman in high school, in metal shop class, when Mr. Bowman, the head of the shop dept., came in to tell us. No one believed him at first - then the room got eerie quiet as we realized that he wasn't making it up.

September 11, 2001 - My daughter was 8 months old. I'd just brought her downstairs to give her breakfast, flipped on the television to watch some talk show, and the first plane had just hit. The thought was that it was just a terrible accident and I remember saying to my daughter, "How do you not know that building is there? Everyone knows the Twin Towers are there." She was on the floor, on her blanket playing as I got her bottle ready and I was still muttering about idiots not realizing there were two gi-normous skyscrapers in NYC when the second plane appeared on the tv screen. It was like time stopped as I watched, and then all I could think about was where my FIL was, since he was in the financial district quite often.

To this day, that day stands out most clearly in my mind.

[kuwisdelu]

You be way too young, then.

caw

Well, I remember 9/11, the Columbia disaster, the Ivy Tech and other shootings, the first days of the war in Iraq. I'm just not sure they had a big impact on my life. The things that affected me most never made the news.

[Mumut]

Oh, and I nearly died in a car crash, .

Oh, I forgot. The day I died when I had a motorbike accident. A teacher at a nearby school gave me mouth-to-mouth. I was lucky, it was a dirt road through the jungle in PNG and in some areas there might be nobody passing for a day or two.

And there was the day I ran out of air 60 feet down on the wreck of the USS President Coolidge.

I think those are the main things.