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

Came on to say this. I was the same age. He felt like a breath of fresh air and was highly respected by all political parties.

I often wonder what the country/world would be like if he had been PM.

Huh? Are you saying that todays youth have never heard of AIDS, Live Aid or Charles and Diana?!

I mean one of them is the King!

Anyone remember the concern about mobile phones being dangerous because of possibly causing brain cancer if you held it to your head ?

Yes, the Leslie Whittle story scared me when I was little, I was about 10.
I'm 58 now.
I used to wake up in the night petrified and go and sit on our landing, where the night light was on.
It would always be on the early evening news, about the Black Panther and I remember hearing he'd been seen in Nottingham (where we lived) he was eventually caught.

Various over a period of time;

Mad cow disease - the slaughter of so many animals.

The murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. I can still picture the newspaper photos of them in matching Man united shirts.

Yugoslavian war.

Bill and Monica.

Eric Cantonas kick.

I had never heard of this, and just looked it up on Wikipedia - the strangest line in the article being "In 2008, it was learned that she made five clones of her pet pit bull in South Korea"!!

The girl who couldn't stop sneezing 🤧

I’m always amazed at the number you young people who’ve never heard of 9/11 😵.
the Iraq/ Afghanistan war.
7/7.
The murders of Holly and Jessica.
The murder of Jamie Bulger.
The Hillsborough enquiry (I’m slightly too young to remember the actual event but DH was supposed to go with his dad and didn’t at the last minute for so reason).

Suzy Lamplugh
Jill Dando
The Hungerford Massacre

Lighthearted - Edwina Currie’s Eggs

The building and opening of the Humber Bridge.

Piper alpha
King’s Cross fire
Lockerby
Death of John Smith

The first gulf war,
the falklands war
various highjackings
fall of the Berlin wall
25 Cromwell street and the search for Fred and Rose West’s victims.
Harold Shipman
In fact I remember the first news story about Harold shipman and them saying that he was being investigated over the death of a patient and wondering whether it was that he had helped a patient to die who was terminally ill. And the horror of what he had done gradually unfolded.

Dunblane, Louise Woodward trial, Leah Betts, Billie-Jo Jenkins, Monica Lewinsky, Princess Diana, the war in Kosovo. As PP said, we weren't sheltered from any of this. My parents had the news on every single night at 6 and we were always discussing stories, even from a very young age.

Me too, the day before I was born ☹️

The Moorgate tube crash in 1975. I found tonnes of newspaper clippings I'd cut out and put in a scrapbook about this for some strange reason.

Watergate, I was very young and didn't understand what was going on. Interesting how 'gate' has come into the language and added to any word to describe scandal eg partygate

Victoria climbe 😭

This for me too.

Millennium bug
CJD

How stupid do you think young people are? Some of these suggestions of events that "young people wouldn't have heard of' is ridiculous!

My teens have certainly heard of the moon landings and the gulf War and dozens of others mentioned.

Stop being weird.

Dunblane and mad cow disease

I had to explain the IRA bombings to my 10yo recently. She thought bombs were something that happened in wartime. She couldn't believe that my brother and I had that concern growing up in London in the 90s and that her grandfather had been caught up in such things.

Why would people suggest they’re being called stupid, or weird? Bit harsh 🤷‍♀️

The news moves on and people might not hear of older stories. The thread too has moved on and people are talking about past big news stories not just those that younger people might not have heard of.

Summer land disaster in Isle of Man in August 1973 - 50 people killed and 80 people seriously injured in a fire likened to the Blitz.

I was camping with a youth group in Southend and an adult was reading out loud from the newspaper about it - very gory and scary.

Absurd response.

Ok. Backing slowly away… 🤣