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's funeral.
9/11
Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Charles and Diana's wedding.

Dunblain.

John Lennon’s Murder
Space shuttle explosion
9/11

Some Dm used to come up and tell us at bedtime if there was something she was particularly shocked by: Hillsborough, Kings Cross Fire, Jamie Bulger

Guaranteed to help you get a good night's sleep!

Like a PP, I thought that 9/11 was a tasteless joke when I first heard about it. A colleague arriving at work for the day told me about it.

'I also remember being on the loo(!) when news came on the radio that our local Labour mp had got in, ousting a tory who'd been there 40 years. I thought dh had stubbed his toe he yelled so loud.'

That reminds me of being woken at 2 a.m. on the night of the 1997 election by my mother's excited phone call from her home in Wimbledon, which had been Tory since the early 50s: 'Ddl1! Wimbledon has gone Labour!'

Dunblane, Diana, 9/11

Diana's death
9/11
The July London bombings

Very old so a long list, highlights being,
Kennedy assassination, wept buckets, can't imagine anyone weeping about the death of a politician now
Dunblane
Diana's death, our daughter barged into our bedroom to tell us "dianandodirdead', took a while to register
Charles and Diana's wedding, hideous frock,
Challenger, saw it on the news first
Herald of Free Enterprise capsizing, I'd travelled on it the Friday before.
Lockerbie, we had just booked our flights to the US that day for the following year and the children were so excited.

Late 50s so I can remember plenty of the events but not where I was at the time. The few I do remember where I was are -

Dunblane: I wasn't working and went to the shops; the lollipop lady told me about it.

9/11: I'd been to the gym and just got back to work. We spent the afternoon sitting around the meeting table in shock, getting updates from the BBC website.

Princess Diana: woke up with the radio news as I was getting a train for a training course.

Queen Mother: at the checkout in Tesco when then DP called me. Checkout operator said she knew immediately what I was told from my reaction.

Princess Grace: newsflash on the TV in my shared bedroom in a student flat.

Robert Kennedy: I remember clearly seeing his photo on the cover of a magazine in our house in the Middle East.

Chilean miners rescue: I wasn't working so stayed up all night to watch it.

Oh, and Lockerbie - I was on NATO exercise at the time.

Jill Dando my mum's friend told us in the car on the way home from school.

When Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane I was in Tesco with my mum, we were printing out photos, I got a text from DH (Spurs fan) to say he thought a Bolton player had just died on the pitch. How they kept him alive was incredible.

Bataclan, I was on MN and there was a poster who could see all the emergency services vehicles from her window.

Manchester Arena bombing, I was also on MN.

Christchurch earthquake, I was heavily pregnant with DS1 and had the early morning news on as DH had gone to work. I rang my parents landline in a panic at 6am and told them to ring my auntie to check that my cousin was safe, she was living there at the time. She was fine, her partner was in the square when the clock tower fell and he was on BBC news running away from it as it fell.

John Lennon shooting
9/11
Princess Diana car crash

Brighton bombing
Herald of Free Enterprise
Lockerbie
Hillsborough
Berlin Wall
Fun lane
Diana
Queen Mother
Mandela’s release
9/11
7/7

Queen Mother's death, we were in Egypt and went out for a dawn hot air balloon ride, all the Egyptian crew told us how sorry they were.
George VI dying, said I was old! I can still 'see' the neighbour telling my mother as she got coal at the side of the house. My Mother always insisted it never happened, my father told her before he went to work. Since then I've discovered that the news wasn't given out til mid morning so he couldn't have told her!

Man on the moon
Elvis's death
John Lennon's assassination
Zeebrugge
Hillsborough
Princess Diana's death
9/11
I have a very strong association of time and place with all of the above.of course I can remember many others eg Berlin Wall, release of Mandela, Dunblane horror, Hungerford, Lockerbie, Grenfell etc but the first few have imprinted themselves slightly differently.

Dunblane
9/11

Oh and Diana

Dunblane I was in high school in the school hall rehearsing for a show.
9/11 I was watching neighbours in my flat and it was interrupted by news alert to say small aircraft had hit one tower. I was watching thinking that isn’t a small fucking aircraft!! Then the second one hit.

I will always remember Diana's death because she died on my birthday. I was only a child but I remember it vividly.

The day Trump became president. I was on holiday abroad and following the elections, I was horrified.

Manchester bombing, I was following the news on Twitter.

Princes Di - was decorating my flat so had the tv in my bedroom. Put it on and thought, how odd having a doc on Princess Di, flicked to BBC1 - same thing, out ceefax on and there it was.

Dunblane - at work in Edinburgh. Called a friend who worked in education and after dealing with the issue at hand said ‘what’s up with you today?’ because he sounded so sad. He told me. On the way home I remember they were selling special evening editions of the daily papers at the station. So awful.

9/11 - at work. The very primitive (at the time) internet went down so we were getting updates from a pal in the press office because they had a telly.

7/7 - much better internet by now and someone noticed the BBC were reporting a ‘power surge’ at a tube station. Quickly updated to bombs - spent the rest of the day liasing with colleagues in our London office to make sure (a) they were all safe and (b) could get home safely

SAS storming the Iranian Embassy (in a holiday cottage on the Isle of Man)
Lockerbie (in the car with my mum and sister on the way back from late night Christmas shopping)
Margaret Thatcher resigning (cookery lesson at school)
9/11 (in the lab I did my PhD in)
Queen Mother’s death (in New York)
The tragic end of the Beslan Seige (I was on maternity leave, and watched it unfold live)

Plus loads where I was in the living room at home and watching the news before going to school or watching the 6 o’clock news after school. I watched the news a lot growing up.

9/11. I remember not understanding why everyone was so shocked about it, to me it seemed like yet another violent conflict somewhere far away. I was a very childish teenager though. I'm just glad I wasn't anyone important and nobody except some colleagues heard me.

Princess Diana dying. I woke up to Radio 1 playing some dirge and was very confused; thought my radio had somehow tuned itself to some miserable classical station.

9/11. I was at work. Can only really remember a general sense of numbness.

July 7 tube bombings. Was at work (having got there via a bus of the same number and route of the one that was blown up, and only a few stops on from where it happened...). I remember initial discussions with colleagues, when people were still thinking it might have been a fire scare.

Heath Ledger dying. I had the radio on and was in-between the hallway cupboard and the kitchen, carrying a jar of muesli or grains. I remember stopping dead in the hallway clutching my jar, and standing there for what seemed like a long time.

Margaret Thatcher resigning

Oh God, yes, that's taken me right back! I was at secondary school. I have a vivid memory of my geography teacher striding down the corridor grinning from ear to ear