What was a big news story when you were growing up that young people today wouldn't have heard of?

[Brettthepei]

the queens mother passing

The winter of discontent
Falklands war.
Circa 79 and 82.
History!

The cod war.

Aberfan

Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games
In fact, a number of the plane hijackings

Inflation, Food shortages, strikes, 3 day week, Winter of discontent - all the stuff people like to forget whilst loving to criticise Margaret Thatcher without bothering to study any of why she was elected in the first place, as the first woman PM.

The kidnapping of Lesley Whittle

The demise of Concorde

Dingo baby

Turkey invading Cyprus, 1974.

The Cold War and the Bay of Pigs

I have never forgotten Lesley Whittle. It terrified me at the time because she was taken from her bedroom.
I’m 54, I still think of her.

The Herald of Free Enterprise disaster. Horrific; I was about ten and had nightmares for weeks. I don’t think people shielded young kids from the news in those days as much as they do today. Your parents would sit down to watch the news at 6pm and 9pm and you had to be quiet while it was on.

I remember this well

The Mormon and the naked skiing with a rose between her teeth woman - Joyce McKinney if I recall without googling!
Such salacious coverage when I was a kid.

Surrey aircrash in 1972, plane crashed just after take-off from Heathrow and, barring terrorist attacks, is Britain's worst air crash. I remember our form teacher talking about it and asking if we had seen it on the news.

Oh and I was also terrified by the King’s Cross fire. So many disasters in the 1980s. 😞

Terry Waite being released
The IRA bombings
Berlin Wall coming down
Ash clouds
Tsunami
Some major earthquakes
Chernobyl

John Smith died when I was 15. Teenagers will not have heard of him in all likelihood.

Fall of Berlin Wall 1989

The development of the contraceptive pill.
I overheard my parents whispering in scandalised tones in the front of the car about “that schoolgirl who lives over there is on the pill”
As a young girl, pre-teen, knowing nothing, I assumed for myself in future that babies would keep automatically just arriving on their own - unless you took this special magic pill

1980's
The famine in Africa/Live Aid
Charles and Diana Wedding
Aids

Yes, the Herald of Free Enterprise and Kings Cross and what seemed like plane crash after plane crash. And Hillsborough of course.
I was trying to explain this is how I remembered the 80s to my kids and they just couldn’t compute, nowadays whenever disasters like this are on the news they seem to be in countries far far way.
I worry the push for deregulation will put us backwards, like the Grenfell tragedy.

agree with previous posters that kids weren’t sheltered from this stuff. I know details about Zeebrugge and Lockerbie that I’d no way want my DC knowing at such a young age

First "test tube" baby.
Iranian embassy hostage siege.

The Cold War, Living in Germany on a military posting, we had loads of RAF and ARMY bases there, thousands of UK personnel, the enemy at the time being Russia, military exercises to practice various scenarios, various raised alert states….
We all got posted back home, peace reigned - and now what’s happened…

Acid rain - are we still supposed to be worried about that?

Hole in the Ozone layer

I was in London the night of the Kings Cross fire ..my parents had the most unimaginable 24hrs not knowing if I was ok ! My poor Dad who ironically was the editor for a national newspaper was so bloody relieved when I came home the next day !! Obviously mobile phones didn’t exist then !