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

Assassination of JFK.

I was only two in 1972 but my parents took me to a drive-in movie in 1976 to see a Mexican dramatization of the Uruguayan Flight 571. It was the flight carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their friends to Chile but crashed in the Andes. They had to resort to cannibalism to survive and two young passengers trekked the Andes until they reached a farmer and later helped to rescue their fellow passengers. It is a story that has stuck with me since age six.

Lesley Whittle, that poor girl.

Also, around about age 7/8 I was terrified of Idi Amin. Newspapers were always accessible and never any censorship in our house.

I read a fascinating book on this written by the senior police officer involved in the case.

This one?

(It was my local scout group)

Incredible that the same toxic culture of nobody wanting to mention bad news led to two shuttles being lost with all hands.

Battersea fairground disaster. As a child I was terrified that going to a fair would kill me

I thought he went from two jags Prescott to two shags Prescott ....

Concorde maiden flight (I used to live about half a mile from the runway at Filton.

My first active memory of "something important" happening is of people on TV being actively euphoric and banging against a concrete wall with sledgehammers. And all the adults also watching seemed really off.

I was four.

It was at least a decade later when I realised that I had vague, disjointed childhood memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

@MrsMoastyToasty i grew up in the same area as you but I wasn’t alive in 1969 😄

Greenham Common used to be on the news a lot
Hugh Grant’s sex scandal
Liz Hurley in what now seems like a very tame dress!

Dolly the clone sheep is one of my earliest news memories when I was a child. And I remember seeing the patio shots on the news with the Fred West thing and not understanding what was happening.

If the moon landing doesn't come up in conversation at some point with a child, then then I am shocked. I definitely wasn't alive for the first moon landing

I'm now waiting for someone to say 9/11

I thought he went from two jags Prescott to two shags Prescott ....

Yes, I'd forgotten there was a third one!

Michael Fagan. In the end, he seemed harmless enough; but if he'd been minded to do so, he could have so easily killed the Queen with nobody to stop him.

The grand hotel in Brighton being bombed with Margaret Thatcher in residence

Bomb in the ideal home show everyone thought it was a house collapse.

This! It had an absolutely profound effect on me. I still remember reading the stories of every passenger. It absolutely shook me.

People nowadays won’t have heard of Chernobyl, the moon landing, or the assassination of JFK? Really? 🙄

I remember when I was in primary school, around 93/94, a newborn baby was kidnapped from a hospital by a woman pretending to be a nurse and it resulted in a several day search for the baby. Fortunately they found her and all was well. I still remember the baby’s name - Abbie Humphreys. I was around 8 at the time and felt so sad that someone had taken a tiny baby from her mum.

The water shortage, having standpipes on the street, I’m guessing 1976.
Power cuts.
Miners strike.

Ones that affected me as a child and young teen were the Yorkshire ripper and the IRA bomb threats in England. Both scared me and stopped me playing out and then going into our city centre with friends.

Aids in the 80s, it felt like it could kill everybody. I don’t know if todays teenagers are really aware of it? I guess mine are because of Freddy Mercury if nothing else but I doubt they know much.

@OublietteBravo perhaps, I don't remember enough about it but the year was probably about right..I'm sorry it was so local to you, I hope you weren't personally affected?

@OublietteBravo although it looks like the law was changed in 93 so I don't know. Surely there weren't two tragedies like this though?