What was the first major news story...

furmonster mom

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Sooo…. A little background first. I was raised in a very conservative home, we only listened to gospel or classical music, did not have a tv, and the radio was played very rarely.

So, when the girl a couple houses down was crying hysterically because Elvis had died, my response was “Who’s Elvis?”. 😜

So that would be the first “headline”, even though I heard about it in an odd way.

The second big one that is on the fringes of my memory would probably be the Iran Hostage Crisis during the last of the Jimmy Carter years.
 

Margret

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When I was 4 going on 5 ("going on" is very important at that age), my father took me out in the back yard late one night (must have been at least 9 p.m.) to show me the stars. The Milky Way. Orion. The Big and Little Dippers. How to find the North Star. And then he pointed out a star that seemed to be moving. It was Sputnik. He wanted me to be able to tell my children and grandchildren that I was there at the beginning of the space age.

I never had the children and grandchildren, so I tell other people's children about it.

Margret
 

misty8723

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Ditto, I was in elementary school but I'll never forget it. I can still remember being in gym class when I heard it. My parents took the news very badly and I remember how sad they were. 😥
My mother had a framed picture of him on the wall. We all took it badly. I remember watching the funeral procession while I was ironing and the riderless horse is what got me, even more so than John John.
 

fionasmom

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Marilyn Monroe's death. I still remember being a little girl in the market with my mom and looking wide eyed at the headlines. Next would be the assassination of Kennedy. The principal announced it over the PA and my teacher put her head in her hands and started crying. Riderless horses always get to me, even Prince Philips empty carriage pulled by the two Fell ponies with his cap and gloves on the empty seat.
 

lizzie

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I can remember being so afraid during the Cuban missile crisis...had lots of nightmares during that time.I believe I was in the 5th grade when Kennedy was assasinated,and our teacher left the room,came back in crying and told us.They sent us home from school early that day.No school the day of his funeral.I remember sitting at home watching it on tv.
 

DreamerRose

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I'm as old as dirt. My father was a copyeditor in the newsroom of a Washington, DC, newspaper and he always brought the last edition home with him. I remember him coming in the door one day and calling to my mother that some Puerto Rican partisans had sprayed the House of Representatives with bullets. This was during the Eisenhower presidency, and I was about 11 at the time. Shooting in the Capitol

I was a teenager when Sputnik went up and an adult for all of the other events mentioned.
 

vansX2

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Kennedy's Assasination thinking back was probably the 2nd news story that I remember . The 1st was attending Kennedy's Inauguration parade with my father. I never saw the President but the PT109 Float that traveled along the parade route stands out best in my memory .
 
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Neko-chan's mama

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Challenger Explosion, space shuttle with the teacher on board, Christa McAuliffe.

The baby who fell in the well was Jessica McClure.
Same here! I was in first grade and actually admired Christa McAuliffe because I saw her as the two things I wanted be, a teacher and an astronaut.
 

Margret

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Same here! I was in first grade and actually admired Christa McAuliffe because I saw her as the two things I wanted be, a teacher and an astronaut.
I was fully adult when the Challenger exploded, but everyone I knew wanted to be Christa McAuliffe, even the men. Challenger and her crew were a great loss. I still blame Reagan for pushing them to launch, regardless of the danger, so he could put it in his State of the Union address.

Margret
 

doomsdave

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Hmm. Way back in the mists of time.

Mommy and daddy kept the TV turned off so I didn't hear about the Kennedy assassination until I was in school. They were very worried about the bad influence that TV could be on my baby brother and me. Mom was really freaked out, that the country would sink into anarchy. (Funny how they got addicted to TV themselves in their last years!)

But there were space flights that enthralled them and I remember watching those. ". . . we have liftoff!" I remember the news reports of the LA riots, though we were in Ohio at the time. Later on, in 1967, we had our very own riot in Cleveland, in Hough. You could see the smoke in the distance. Then there was Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy. And the Apollo 1 disaster.
 

kashmir64

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Putting people on the moon. I remember watching the news leading up to the landing (a week or more while they were in space?) and then watching the moon landing with my dad.
 

GoldyCat

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President Kennedy was assassinated. My teacher was called out of the room to take a phone call from her husband with the news.

Second major news story I remember was my mother telling me Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Being a typical totally self-centered teenager, my first question was "who is Martin Luther King?" :paperbag:
 
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