i made a post like this before but I can't find it now. so. I'll just redo it.
What's the first "big news story" you remember from when you were a kid?
It's something I love to ask mixed-aged groups sometimes because I think it's really interesting to see the responses. I've gotten answers from the Olympics of [whatever year] to Watergate to more recent stuff from my niblings.
My first news thing I remember is the OJ Simpson trial. I vaguely remember watching the news with my grandparents before that, but that's the first story I remember, in part because my second grade teacher had us go play so she could watch the verdict 😂
Something about the weapons being used in Destert Storm in 1990/91. I don't remember the actual broadcast but I remember being in the second grade and talking to other kids in my class about whether or not the missiles would be able to hit us. We lived in Atlantic Canada. My teacher actually got out a globe and showed us where Iraq was and how far away and tried to assure us that we were safe. Then we started asking if it was so far away, why were we at war with them in the first place.
Ok so y'all aren't going to believe this one.
I was not quite 2 (like I would have been 2 in a couple months, January), and we had these 2 little German Tole-painted, rush-seat chairs near the TV at my grandmother's house, near the TV.
I remember one day my grandmother was sitting perched on one of those chairs, near the TV, and she was crying... and I remember the same scene going across the TV screen over and over: a dark car and people waving.
It took me until just a few years ago to realize what it was: the assassination of JFK (November 1963).
