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News
Original poster

what news stories happened in your lifetime but you were too young to remember them?

55 replies

CheeseChe · 03/12/2023 23:45

the Wests being caught

OP posts:
sprigatito · 08/12/2023 16:01

I didn't appreciate the meaning of it at all, but one of my earliest memories is my mother sobbing her heart out. I asked what was wrong and she asked me who the Prime Minister was and I said "Michael Foot" which made her cry even more. It was the day Thatcher got in, so I would have been 2yo.

ohtowinthelottery · 08/12/2023 16:08

Martin Luther King being assassinated. I was 4

PuttingDownRoots · 08/12/2023 16:12

Fall of the Berlin Wall
Thatcher being Prime Minister

Topseyt123 · 08/12/2023 16:12

The moon landings. I was born in 1966, so still too young to remember them.

DPotter · 08/12/2023 16:46

I can't remember the JFK (1963) or Martin Luther King (1968) assassinations, but I can remember my Mum crying watching Winston Churchill's funeral (1965).

Reading some of the events you can't recall is making me feeling very old

WellThisIsFun1 · 08/12/2023 16:48

The three day week and the oil crisis on the early to mid 70s

I was only a toddler!

MarleyandMarleyWoo · 08/12/2023 16:49

The Dunblane massacre is probably the biggest one. Awful.

Also the Rwanda genocide was going on around the time I was born.
Aryton Senna’s death.
Mandela becoming SA’s President.

WellThisIsFun1 · 08/12/2023 16:50

LoveTheDarts · 04/12/2023 00:00

Watergate
3 day week
Flixborough- my favourite conspiracy theory
Man U being relegated 😜
Moorgate tube crash

I'm just able to remember the summer of 76 though and queuing for water from a stand pipe.

What conspiracy theory is there about Flixborough?

MrsMoastyToasty · 08/12/2023 17:49

Aberfan. I was born the same week.

theDudesmummy · 11/12/2023 10:40

Assassination of JFK (I was 3 months old!).

theDudesmummy · 11/12/2023 10:54

I think I possibly remember the moon landing (I was nearly 6) but as we didn't have television, I would only have seen pictures in the newspaper, and so it probably would not have made as much of an impression on me as on people who watched it live. So I may be remembering wrongly, back-projecting the pictures everyone knows now and imagining I remember them from the actual time.

Jewelanemone · 11/12/2023 11:03

Aberfan, the day after I was born.

No newspapers allowed in the maternity ward, so mum didn't find out until much later.

enchantedsquirrelwood · 21/12/2023 17:58

HoobleDooble · 04/12/2023 00:35

I was born in 1973, I remember Concord being on the news, don't remember Elvis dying and the first big news story I remember actually sitting and paying attention to was John Lennon being murdered in 1980, shortly followed by the Yorkshire Ripper being caught.

Similar here, and the Iran embassy siege.

LeoDiCapricorn · 21/12/2023 18:00

Death of Elvis Presley

NoraLuka · 21/12/2023 18:10

The Hyde park bombing, I was a baby.

I don’t remember the fall of the Berlin Wall but do remember Hillsborough very clearly and that was earlier. I was 6.

ShoesoftheWorld · 21/12/2023 18:31

Elvis dying
Thatcher becoming PM

The Mary Rose and the Falklands were the first news stories I was aware of. And Charles and Diana's wedding, I suppose.

piglet81 · 21/12/2023 18:42

Falklands war

littleburn · 21/12/2023 19:04

I was born in 1975 and don't have very clear memories of news reports before the age of 12 or so. I guess because there was no rolling news coverage or social media and by that age I was more likely to be watching the 6 o'clock news or to pick up the paper. So Chernobyl happened when I was 10 but completely passed me by, but I have very clear memories of Zeebrugge, Hillsborough, Lockerbie and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe a few years later.

Having said that, I was very aware of the royal weddings and the Ethiopian famine, but that's because they were more than 'just' news reports - they'd be talked about by your teachers and also on Blue Peter!

MabelMoo23 · 21/12/2023 20:21

Lockerbie is my earliest memory of news. I remember it very clearly - sat watching it on the news. I was 12.

I vaguely knew of Chernobyl, but I was only 10, and of course we didn’t have rolling news channels like we do now.

Tigresswoods · 26/01/2024 03:39

I remember Harold shipman but a lot of the 30y olds I work with haven't a clue.

We work in a medical related field.

sashh · 26/01/2024 04:05

I was born on the day HMQ visited Aberfan. Strange that I'm not the only one born around then.

I vaguely remember bloody Sunday, I can remember my mum sitting me on her knee and telling me why there was a priest waving a white handkerchief.

I don't think we (kids) watched much TV news after that, well that and my brother, when someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said, "An IRA sniper"! I think he thought it sounded cool but had no idea what it was.

I also have a memory of being woken up in the night to watch TV. I think this might have been Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.

I asked my dad about it recently but he couldn't remember.

alongtimeagoandfaraway · 26/01/2024 04:59

Lizzieregina · 03/12/2023 23:52

JFK being assasinated. I was alive, but a baby.

Me too!

garlictwist · 26/01/2024 05:32

I was amazed to learn about the Cold War and nuclear threat that had been going on when I was a kid. I had no idea.

Butchyrestingface · 26/01/2024 17:51

I do not remember John Lennon's death, as I was just turned 2. However, I do remember a year later, my mum telling me about a "pretty actress lady" who'd just drowned after falling off a boat. 💔

Butchyrestingface · 26/01/2024 17:54

PuttingDownRoots · 08/12/2023 16:12

Fall of the Berlin Wall
Thatcher being Prime Minister

Ah, so you missed The Hoff claiming his moosic had galvanised the East Germans to rise up against their evil oppressors? Grin