What were the main events where you know exactly where you were when you heard?

[BrizzleMint]

Mine were the space shuttle explosion, Princess Diana dying and 9/11 plus the explosion at Mill Hill barracks and the Harrods bombing.

I was curious what they were for older/younger people so what events do you really remember.

Dunblane:
I was a young student at the time and I remember talking about it to a woman who worked at my uni who must have been in her 40s. She said ‘I only hope his mother isn’t alive to see what he did’. I thought it was an odd comment at the time but I understand it now.

9/11
I was working in a shop then and we were getting bits of new through. The PM was in the building next door to the shopping centre so security searched every inch!

Princess Diana:
I switched on the radio at just past the hour to hear ‘Prince Charles will accompany her body.....’ and I assume it was the Queen who died.

Princess Diana,Michael Jackson and the Twin Towers

9/11, on my parents sofa with my BF from uni who was visiting. Everyone else was out and we watched in horror at what was happening, and unfortunately my estimate that the towers would collapse came true

Diana, again the same sofa but this time just me, again everyone else was out. I turned on the tv, news. Switched channel, news. Switched channel, news. At this point I stopped switching and started watching.

DH rememberers 9/11 very vividly.
He worked in a faults call centre for a cable tv company. They had one massive wall of tv screens showing every channel they had.
He effectively spent the whole day watching it over and over again.

Windsor Castle fire
Princess Diana dying
9/11
Stuart Cable dying

I'm late 30s

Hillsborough disaster
Lockerbie
Dunblane
Princess Diana's death
9/11

9/11
I had come back from an Accountancy exam in London. I sat, stunned in my lounge.

Showing my age.
Kennedy assasination-we were in the migrant hostel in Australia and everyone came and watched the news on our tv.
Moon landing, well we had a TV set up in the hall at school to watch it, but it was delayed, so watched it at home.
Elvis dying, I was in hospital and my bestf came in crying.
Diana, dh came in from night shift and told me.
9/11 at the dentist, everyone came out to watch the news.

Oh yeah of course 7/7. It was the first important event I had run and loads of my delegates needed to fly back home that day. That was an interesting experience I went to the loo on a break and cane bank to find them all watching the news in the lobby. We had to end the day early so that various delegates could get on 9+ hr trains home because they couldn't fly, and had children to get back to; and some were going back to London and the roads were becoming increasingly jammed. And frankly, we were in a major city and a bit worried it would be next. I remember the news just getting worse and worse. Another tube, another bus. And I remember my boss, who had been in an office in a place totally unaffected, telling me she thought it was a "bit of an over reaction" to end early so people could try to get home. It was one of those things that you couldn't get your head around immediately.

John Lennon being shot
Diana
9/11
George Michael dying

Shuttle explosion I remember being at school but not where I was.
Princess Diana - I was at home on the Sunday morning and turned the tv on to hear Blair and I thought initially he was talking about the Queen Mother.
9/11 - working from home. Turned TV on at lunchtime and thought ‘what idiot crashes into the wtc, then reality dawned.’ I was glued to TV for the rest of the day.
7/7 I was in car driving e DS in car seat (he was about a year old) and they were reporting problems on the underground. By the time I’d got to the shops it was deemed to be terrorists and further bombs had exploded. Dh was working in London so I spent ages trying to get through on the mobile.

Surprised more people haven't said 7/7. I was at work for both 7/7 and 9/11. For 9/11 a colleague told me and I literally though he was making an awful joke it took ages for me to believe him.

I also remember Diana as I was away at a conference and at breakfast there was a newspaper with a photo of the Queen looking upset. But the headline was in Dutch and the people around us didn't speak English so it took a while for us to understand & find someone who could translate.

I wonder why we all remember Diana so clearly it wasn't a threat to security like the others. I don't think I remember at other well known people

Early thirties. For me it’s princess Diana dying, 9/11, and Michael Jackson dying.

Oh I also remember the gulf war starting. I was doing my homework with the radio on.

Aberfan - standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room watching my mum and her friend watching it unfold on tv.

Dunblane - My daughter was a few weeks old and I had severe PND. My usual routine was to sit down and watch the news with my lunch at 1 o'clock and a friend phoned just before I turned the tv on to tell me not to because the news that was breaking was so horrendous.

The death of Princess Diana - I was up early with one of the children and put the news on.

09/11 - my gt aunt was with me for the day - she came once a week - and the highlight of her day was to sit on the sofa with the two youngest children to watch CBeebies. They snuggled together and I put the tv on just as it all started to break.

Hillsborough - I was listening to the sport on the radio
9/11 - at work, my dsis text me, she worked for an American company at the time.
7/7 - again at work. We had a London office very close to Euston and I worked there one day a week but fortunately not that day. But as the mobile networks were struggling to cope, spent a lot of the day trying to track down colleagues to reassure their spouses/partners.
Princess Diana - at a friend's wedding, we went to bed as the news was coming in, not realising and wondering why lots of staff were hanging around. Worked it out when turned on tv next morning.
A very random one - Kylie being diagnosed with breast cancer, we were in Venice. No idea why that has stayed with me.

My earliest one was Elvis dying. I'd gone for the paper for my Mum.

Then the Yorkshire Ripper (Peter Sutcliff) murders/capture etc.

The bombing in Blackpool, although we were all gutted that Thatcher didn't die.

The Zeebrugge ferry disaster. I was in Pioneer (now Iceland).

The IRA explosion in Warrington that killed Tim Parry and Jonathan Ball. I was shopping, in Liverpool and the call had gone through about there being a bomb outside Boots, so evacuation started. Tragically it was Boots, Warrington. On the day before Mothers Day.

I can remember the four days after Hillsborough. I'm in Liverpool.

I was in a now-no-longer there, Clarks shop when it came on the radio that John Smith (Labour Leader) had died, what a loss he was.

Then Dunblane (Kwiksave).

I'm not surprised they stopped playing the radio in shops.

My DH woke me up in the early hours of the morning to tell me Diana had died, I was seven months pregnant, struggling to sleep and not happy.

The next main one was James Bulger.

wishingforalotterywin I think Princess Diana sticks with people as it was so shocking and out of the blue.

Oh yes, John Smith. I was at work and was gutted. I often wonder what would’ve happened if he hadn’t died.

Also in my 30s

Princess Diana's death
9/11

The raising of The Mary Rose (We watched it at infant school), death of Princess Diana ( got woken from a drunken stupor by my friend's boyfriend after an all night party), death of Michael.Jackson ( on radio on our alarm clock and asked my husband if I was dreaming) and Tony Blair winning the general election (again an alarm clock but in my freezing cold room in our student house in Leeds). Oh and if course 9/11. I was at home ill and had turned on the tv to watch Watercolour Challenge.

I'm 40 and remember where I was for Princess Diana, 9/11 and 7/7.

The last two were truly horrific.

Posted too soon

Dunblane
7/7
Columbine Massacre

In my 30s, Diana, 9/11 and death of the queen mum. Also Michael Jackson

Freddie Mercury’s death.
Nelson Mandela’s release.
Diana
9/11.