What was your earliest national/international memory?

I vividly remember Challenger. I was a little over 3. As I recall I got bored with the preflight stuff and went into another room, and my dad followed me and missed the launch. What I remember most is my mom screaming. We went back in to see the smoke trails streaking through the sky. I didn't understand what was going on at the time, but it's kind of chilling looking back on it.
 
Apollo 11 launch and then the moon landing a few days later. Watched it with our neighbors on one of the few TV sets in the neighnorhood. I wasn't quite 3 years old yet. My Dad tested rocket engines in Tullahoma , TN, and he tested a lot of the ones in the Apollo program, so I knew that he was involved somehow in what I was seeing. I didn't really realize the impact at the time, but I knew something important was happening.


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For me it was the election of Margaret Thatcher. I remember my Mum telling me she was the first female Prime Minister, and that that was kind of a big thing. I think I was almost six years old.
 
Brad Z said:
I was freaked out by the series "The day after" too. Even though I was 10 when it aired, I still vividly remember the scene of people getting vaporized by the blast. I always thought we'd be the last generation to be born in fear of nuclear war, but I guess not.
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When I was about 13 we had to watch 'Threads' in school, which makes really grim watching. They warned us beforehand that some people might throw up. You can watch it online:

Looking back we used to talk at school about what we reckoned our chances of making it to 50 were - would we make it, or get destroyed in a nuclear war? I remember thinking it was about 50/50.

I grew up not that far from RAF Mildenhall, so we figured if nukes were going to land in Britain, we'd probably have one land fairly close.
 
We had no worries at all about nuclear holocaust. Bert the Turtle taught us how to be safe.
 
EdFred said:
....The earliest big event I remember was the Lake Placid Olympics, followed by Mt St Helen's eruption.
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Yup, you're right. Makes me feel old! I was deployed in the Arabian Sea during the Lake Placid Olympics. And, On I-5 north bound and stuck in traffic at Jantzen Beach (Portland, OR) when the Mount St. Helen's eruption shut down the interstate.

I was in 2nd grade during the spring of '68. I remember the MLK and RFK
assassinations.
 
CaptainXap said:
Looking back we used to talk at school about what we reckoned our chances of making it to 50 were - would we make it, or get destroyed in a nuclear war? I remember thinking it was about 50/50.
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I had the same feeling (although I didn't actually estimate the odds).
 
Earliest would have to be Chernobyl for me… we lived in Germany so it was a big controversy (once the details were out). I remember not being allowed to drink milk for a while. It’s odd, I don’t have any first hand accounts of Challenger at the time, until learning about it in school a couple years later.
 
Vietnam body counts on the news
 
The death of Winston Churchill in 1965. I was nine and a half and was annoyed that TV programming was pre-empted on BOTH channels, ITV and BBC.
 
Eisenhower's Farewell Address, follow by Yuri Gagarin, followed by the Cuban Missie Crisis.. this one hit home as there was a Nike Missile site right down the road from us.
 
Nike of Samothrace. Winged Victory. Cool headless statue in the Louvre.

Cheers
 
Zeldman said:
I was 4 when JFK was killed. Mom was upset, my sister came home from school early and my dad came home early, visibly upset.

I did not understand what was going on at the time, but I was crying because even though I did not know why everyone was upset, I was pretty sure it was going to lead to getting the seat of my pants warmed up.... (a paddling for those who are too young to understand that phrase...)

Plus Captain Kangaroo wasn't on. We only got 3 channels, and when mom's stories came on, I would be banished to the back yard...
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My sister and I watched the JFK funeral on TV. We wanted to watch cartoons that normally were on. We only got 3 channels and it was on all three, so we watched it for a while. I was almost 5 and she was almost 3. We didn't know what it was all about, and had no idea we were watching a piece of history unfold.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
My sister and I watched the JFK funeral on TV. We wanted to watch cartoons that normally were on. We only got 3 channels and it was on all three, so we watched it for a while. I was almost 5 and she was almost 3. We didn't know what it was all about, and had no idea we were watching a piece of history unfold.
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My uncle was in his residency at the local hospital and would stay with us when he wasn't on duty.. We were watching them bring Oswald down when Ruby shot him.... First time I head the phrase "its a _____ conspiracy.." when my uncle shouted it out. I remember asking my dad what ____ meant, he told me to go ask my mother... :p
 
I was exactly one year old when this happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tiger_Line_Flight_282

There is some connection between one of the pilots and my dad but I don't exactly know what it was, but for years I have hiked Sweeney Ridge in search of the little trinkets of plastic flown from China, or parts from the plane. It's too overgrown these days to find anything but it is reported that pieces of the airplane are still there.
 
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