I'm American so I remember where I was during events such as:
The inauguration of President Reagan as I was 10 and we were watching it at school and also learned of the release of the American hostages in Iran only minutes after Reagan was sworn in.
The Mexico City earthquake in 1985. My family are Mexican and my godparents lived in a high rise in Mexico City. My father and I were listening to a Mexican radio station (I grew up on the US/Mexico border) and heard that there was an earthquake as it was happening. It turned out to be an 8.0 tremor. My godparents were thankfully okay but they lost their livelihoods and their home.
Many schools across the nation, including mine, were watching the Challenger Space Shuttle launch as it was transporting a civilian, a teacher, into space in 1986. We saw it explode on our television screens live.
I remember driving home from work and listening to the radio to hear President Bush address the Nation on the invasion of Iraq in January 1991. I remember that many people on the road, stopped and got off the shoulder to listen to the broadcast. I remember feeling frightened.
The Waco Siege in 1993. I'm in Texas and for over 50 days, my office would have the radio on and we'd listen to the details of the standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians. One day, the government ended the siege and we heard it as it was happening due to the heavy media presence. It was truly shocking. 80 people died on that day.
The Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. Again, back in the office with the radio on and we heard about the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. Again, it was horrific to learn that 168 people, including many young children, died in that terrorist attack.
I married an Englishman and moved to England in late 1995. I had a four-year-old son and we were watching tv when it was interrupted and I learned about the tragedy. It was sobering to think that something like that could happen in your country. Strangely, school shootings were not common in the US back then. That changed in 1999 with Columbine.
The Death of Diana in 1997. I was heavily pregnant with my son and it was the first time I had managed to sleep comfortably and a friend from Texas phoned me in England to ask me if she was okay since it was news in the US that she had an accident. I had no idea so I turned on the tv to hear the BBC journalist announce her death.
9/11 in 2001. I was home with my baby daughter and was watching tv while she napped. It was a horrible day, that I have written about on MN on several different threads about the day. In a nutshell, my cousin, aunt and uncle were in the buildings on that day. I didn't know if they had lived or died because I couldn't reach them for several days. Thankfully, they survived but my cousin's wife did not.
7/7/2005. My family relocated to Texas and my father worked until 2am and always put on Mexican tv news when he got home. He called us and woke us up and told us to "get on the computer" about news in England. Again, horrible, horrible news.
Financial Crisis September 2008. My adopted city of Houston had a devastating hurricane in September 2008. Many areas had high water and no electricity for days. We were somewhat cut off from the world for a while and when we did get news, it was not national but local. We had no idea Lehman Brothers failed or much about the financial crash because we were hit by a hurricane that day. On the day we finally got national and international news, we saw President George W Bush's Address to the Nation about the financial crisis and how he was proposing a $770 Billion bail-out. It was a bad month!
There have been so much more but those are the highlights.
What a world!