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First is the Challenger explosion. I'd just come in through our kitchen door after high school, and it was on the TV.
Second was 9/11. I was at work in Spanish Harlem, and a coworker came into my office to tell me about the first plane hitting. I turned on the radio and listened in absolute shock as the second plane hit and we realized it wasn't an accident.
There's a secondary part to this event for me. The company I was working for decided to open the following day; attendance optional. My husband had been on the phone with someone in the south tower when it was hit. I've never seen him so shaken, and he was taking it out on everyone around him so I figured I may as well go to work and try to get my mind off things. With no subways running, I took my bike up the path along the Hudson. The HH Parkway being completely deserted was easily the most eerie things I've ever seen.
A few days later I had to travel for work, and flying back into LaGuardia our plane took a flight path up the Hudson river. Looking down at where the towers had been, seeing the debris - with smoke still rising from it - renewed every terrible memory of that day. The last bit was coming down with the first and only case of bronchitis I've ever had in my life, then months later hearing the government denying the illnesses of the first responders was due to working at the site. I still get choked up talking (and writing) about 9/11.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Moon landing, July 20, 1969, I was at Lake Tahoe, walking along the north shore and watched the coverage on a TV in a liquor store.
The Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, January 28, 1986, sitting in my home office watching TV
9/11, September 11, 2001, I was at my business working, and heard the coverage live as it happened though I was listening to sports radio. As soon as the news broke they went to a network news feed.
October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake - At home cooking dinner with the World Series pre-game on TV (until the quake hit an TV stations went down)
1991 Oakland Hills fire - we were on the way home from vacation when we saw the smoke ahead, before turning of toward home.
Top 40 radio had influence for nearly a decade after entering teenage life. Songs from these times can pinpoint family, hometown to regional, national and some worldwide happenings. DXing AM stations as cassette copying helped tremendously in this dedicated (hobby) pursuit. Little would I realize that in later life it bookmarked so much. Did not have the foresight to keep the postcards returned by these stations which confirmed my date and time receptions.
When something happened in 1966, was in 6th grade. 1970, 10th. Was easy to reference things in this manner.
Y2K (Dec. 31, 1999) - Had just turned 7 a week earlier. At home. Was running around the living room at ~11:20 pm when I tripped and fell on a model train that was under our Christmas tree. Hit half an inch above my eye. Half an inch farther and I would have been blinded in one eye. My dad put a bag of frozen peas on the bruise and I had recovered enough to watch the ball drop into the new millennium on TV. Looked at the computer afterward, to make sure nothing went wrong. My parents had told me nothing big was going to happen but I was 7 with an active imagination.
Dale Earnhardt's death (Feb. 18, 2001) - We had just moved into my current house. I was 8. I was upstairs playing with my toy cash register that I had gotten the past Christmas. I came down, the Daytona 500 had just finished, and they were memorializing Dale Earnhardt. The song "Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker was playing. It was then that I found out that Dale had died, they said he broke his neck.
9/11 (Sept. 11, 2001) - I was in my 3rd grade class. The other students were doing a reading assignment. I was a precocious reader so I was allowed to sit on the side of the classroom and draw. My teacher was on her iMac at the table next to me, about 4 feet away. She said "The World Trade Center fell down" to herself, fairly quietly. I believe she was reading an email or looking at the news. It was about 10:30, so it was 11:30 am in NYC. It stuck in my mind all day and I asked my dad "Did the WTC really fall down today?" as he drove me home. I remember exactly what road I was on in the passenger seat of his red 1994 Mitsubishi Eclipse. We got home and I was standing behind the living room couch looking at the TV and saw WTC 7 collapse live.
* Beatles on Ed Sullivan
* RFK assassination
* Watergate hearings
* Elvis death
* John Lennon death
* Space Shuttle - we were flying back from Florida on vacation and our pilot told us to look out and we could see the Challenger then a few seconds later...
* Red Sox 2004 WS
* Obama election
* Princess Diana wedding and death.
* September 11
There are several that I will always deeply remember:
Cuban Missile Crisis - I remember being glued to the television set as we watched the news. All the air raid warnings and hiding under our classroom desks during the 50s hadn't really prepared me to face how close we were coming to war with Russia. I remember hearing my dad say, "Don't back down Jack."
Integration of the late 1960s - While there were many protesters outside my high school, there wasn't any rioting. My high school class would be the first mixed race to graduate there. Later I would be glad that my school was integrated because I learned that the outside color of a person's skin didn't matter and that what was inside a person was what really mattered. The most militant girl on our first day of school became our valedictorian and someone I really admired.
Bobby Kennedy's assassination - A public high school friend asked me if I had heard the news yet as I was walking to my next class. When I reached the classroom, my teacher confirmed this news and asked for a minute of silence before we started the class.
Apollo Moon Landing - I was vacationing with neighbors on a dude ranch in Wyoming but we watched the landing on television. My neighbor kept trying to adjust the rabbit ears to get a clearer picture.
Apollo 13 - I spent my eighteenth birthday and the following day praying that the astronauts would be able to return home from the moon safely.
While I don't remember the Chicago Convention riots well, I do remember the 1970 Chicago riot when Sly and the Family Stone cancelled their Chicago concert. I had just started working in Chicago and was in a carpool with several other young women. The streets were thronged with rioters and traffic was so snarled that it was extremely hard to get out of the downtown area.
Kent State Killings - I was horrified as I watched as our government murdered our own people!
For the rest of the 1970s, I just remember the constant airplane hijackings and the return of some of the Viet Nam missing in action vets.
Wedding of Charles & Diana - What a spectacle of delight. I "ooohed" and "aahed" my way through their wedding.
Assassination Attempt on John Paul II - Though by this time I no longer considered myself Catholic, I was horrified at this act of terrorism and found myself glued to the tv set as I watched this over and over.
Other events that will always stick with me: Diana's death and the Oklahoma Bombings.
9/11 - I always had on the news as I got ready for work in the morning. I left the bathroom and went into the living room to turn up the volume as they reported that a plane had been flown into the first tower. The news station had a big glass window and I watched, horrified, as I saw another plane bank then turn towards the tower. I just could not believe my eyes. I called my daughter who was at Butler College and left a message on her cell phone for her to watch the news before she went out and to stay safe in Indianapolis. I was almost late leaving for work and couldn't believe that my co-workers hadn't heard the news when I got to work.
Cubs Wins! Cubs Win! I will always remember the Cubs finally winning the world series as I had waited my whole lifetime for this to happen
I was at a black tie banquet where a much older member was being honored for long and meritorious service to our pharmacy organization
He was in his late 80s at the time.
He started his speech rambling about events getting him to enlist after Pearl Harbor. He tried to enlist but was told to finish pharmacy then enlist in the Navy as a corpsman which he did.
Then he got serious and started talking about slogging from island to island as a Navy Corpsman with the Marines. Almost as an afterthought he said he was loading bodies on boats at Iwo Jima when someone said look up. He dis and saw the iconic flag raising on Mt Suribachi. And he kept on talking
There was a loud gasp from the several hundred of us in attendance. "What? You saw he Flag raising.?? We wouldn't let him stop talking about his experiences
I knew him for over 25 years and he never spoke about WWll before, or after
There are many, but one comes out to hit me. The night of my engagement in 1962 or so at LaMont Restaurant in PGH, PA...got a nice diamond and my FIRST glass of wine. I was 23. My EX ordered a bottle of wine and I was in shock. Turned out he drank too much too.
My grandfather owned a bar, and dad drank like a fish, so I avoided all alcohol until that night.
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