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.

Diana.
9/11

9/11. I was at school. I was 11. I was sent to the nurses office to have my knee sorted (id fallen in some glass) and I knew my best mate would be coming to grab our afternoon register. I was waiting and waiting and then the nurse came in. I saw she was crying and asked what had happened. She said something really horrible had taken place and asked if I would mind if she put the news on to watch while she sorted my knee. I didn’t mind and I remember seeing the buildings coming down. (I got sent home with my best mate - we both have dads in the military and my knee needed a&e)
I also remember where I was when the London Underground was bombed. I was in year 11, over exam time and I went to stay with my Aunty. Lunchtime and we’d just bought some lovely crusty rolls when my mum phoned me and screamed “turn the news on” those rolls turned to dust in my mouth.

Zeebrugge
Hillsborough
Lockerbie
M1 plane crash
Dunblane
Princess Diana
9/11

I remember a lot of those mentioned,including Hillsborough but the twin towers mainly.
I had come home from work and put the TV on,something I never do.The first plane had just hit the first tower and so the no main cameras had got there.I remember just watching it unfold.My exh then came in and we both watched in silence really,watching the second plane hit,seeing people jumping.

9/11, 7/7, Dunblane, Fred&Rose West, Lockerbie, Chernobyl, Hillsborough, Waco, Challenger, Hungerford, Kirsty McColl, Freddie Mercury and River Phoenix passing, Zeebrugge, Boxing Day tsunami, LA earthquake, LA riots, London riots, Barcelona/Cambrils terrorist attacks (up the road from me!).

I'm 43.

The exploding space shuttle (on newsround)
Dunblane
The Berlin Wall coming down
Terry Waite bring released
Princess Diana
9/11
7/7

9/11 - I was on holiday in Croatia. I worked for a travel firm and they contacted me and pleaded with me to come home as we had 26,000 customers affected in the US who were on numerous tours and 2000 stuck in places they shouldn’t be. It was a logistical nightmare getting them all home...eventually.

Diana - woke up to my mum calling out from her bedroom ‘Diana and Dodi are dead’...she’d just heard it on the 8am news.

Dunblane - I was a holiday rep in Goa. A hotel manager took me to one side in a hotel I was visiting guests at and showed me the Times of India front page, all those little faces.

There's an iconic image of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down in Baghdad- I was at home resting after an amniocentesis test for ds. Princess Di - I'd woken up with a hangover and was channel hopping for crappy tv to watch. 9/11 I was in Hemel Hempstead on a training course with work and I was on the A1 on the way home when my brain remembered that my cousin was in NY and visiting the wtc was on his agenda.

Remember watching Newsround when we found out about the Challenger disaster.

Lockerbie, Dunblane, princess Di death, 9/11, Piper Alpha, Bradford football fire, Brighton Bombing - I was an 80s teenager - the decade of disasters...

JFK
Dunblane
Diana
9/11
Elvis
John Lennon
John Peel
Michael Jackson
Boxing Day tsunami
7/7

9/11, Diana, 7/7, grenfell

So many. The IRA bombings; Piper Alpha; space shuttle, 7/7, 9/11, Diana's death, which I thought was a hoax right up until the funeral, Freddie Mercury's death, The Queen Mother, Dunblane, which was my DD's 5th birthday. So many.

Freddie Mercury died the night before my maths GCSE mock, I could take you to the exact spot where I found out. Also remember watching Mandela's release from prison. We had fish fingers for tea as we watched it live

9/11 is probably the first big event I remember. I was only 9, and remember walking home and finding my mum sitting on the sofa open mouthed staring at the tv. She shushed me and I sat down and it took a while for my 9 year old brain to figure out exactly what was going on (seems unbelievably innocent now, but initially I thought it was a horrible accident, before the penny dropped and I realised it was deliberate).

Diana
9/11
Hungerford
Dunblane

9/11- in the office. No TV access. Just bits of hearsay. Horrible.

Diana - TV came on at 6 and should have been vintage cartoons. It was the news. We had SIL staying and went out to the garden centre down the road, which was just about the only place open.

7/7 - standing in an office at work. DH was on a train to London. I can remember every single step I took from there to the staff room, listening to his phone not ring, with ice sweeping down my spine. Took four goes to get through and find out he was ok. His experience was bizarre - train stopped about ten minutes out of Kings Cross and they were told there had been a power surge. Sat still for about ten minutes and then everyone's phone rang at almost exactly the same time as it had hit the news. He says it was like a weird domino effect.

We then travelled down to Cambridge later that month. Driving out to Newmarket when the news of 21/7 came through - we were going to London the next day. We still went, but spent a fortune on taxis - did one journey on the tube of four stops and it was the strangest experience ever. I love London and love the Underground but you could feel the atmosphere and it was awful

I mistakenly remember the Hungerford shootings as being when I was younger than I actually was, I wonder if it was because teenagers then grew up later than they do now. That said, I also thought Lockerbie and Dunblane happened earlier than they did, if pressed I'd have said I was a child rather than a teenager.

JFK’s assassination - I saw it on the tv news and went into the kitchen to tell my parents
The first moon landing - stayed up all night to see it, fell asleep in the chemistry lab at school the next afternoon!
The start of the Falklands War - I was on holiday in Holland and struggled to understand the news bulletin in Dutch, but I remember seeing footage of our soldiers boarding a troop transport to sail down there, to the tune of their military band playing “Don’t cry for me, Argentina”!
Charles and Diana’s wedding - I was a junior doctor, and the daft catering manager had arranged “steak diane” for the patients as a treat. None of them could chew it with their loose dentures! The nurses all wore papier-mâché vomit bowls upside down on their heads, decorated with red white and blue ribbons.

I'm early 20's..

Michael Jackson's death
When they found Bin Laden
Grenfell

First moon landing 1969 - I was a small child on holiday in Jersey
Elvis died - teenager listening to music in my bedroom
Princess Diane - woke up to the news, at home
Twin towers - in prison ! ( Work there )
Death of Michael Jackson - once again whilst on holiday

Man on the moon
Entebbe rescue
Concorde ceremonial first take off
Elvis death

And the more recent one which is crystal clear: Lockerbie

9/11
Princess Diana
John Lennon

Dumblane massacre, twin towers, Princess Diana and David Bowie.

Hillsborough - I usually got in from my Saturday job to watch Final Score. I had cream cakes that day (worked in a bakers and we would take home stuff that was to be binned) so in a good mood. Just remember watching it and thinking oh my God...

Sent home from work in a call centre on 9/11. People we were calling were watching TV, some affected.
Watching an outdoor movie when Michael Jackson died - was it a hoax was going round?
In a bar in Africa on 2005 London bombings, friend I was with, her mum took that bus, but wasn't affected - very surreal and we got the Olympics the day after