I am a child of the 80s - the Challenger disaster and Halley's Comet were the two biggest things I remember from my early years.
I was 22 when the Challenger disaster happened. I remember that I was in bed asleep and my grandmother woke me up and insisted I come downstairs and watch the newscast. She knew I was interested in the space program, and I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day. It was such a shamefully preventable tragedy.
Halley's Comet was a huge disappointment. I'd looked forward to seeing it for over a decade, and when it finally did get here it was so faint that I couldn't see it.
I doubt I'll live long enough to see it next time, so I'm even more glad to have seen Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp.
I had to laugh at my grandmother, who insisted she'd seen Halley's Comet the last time it was here. I told her she couldn't possibly have, since the comet came around in 1910 and my grandmother wasn't born until 1911.
My earliest "global" memory was 9/11. It happened while I was at school and my dad got me out early. I'm not sure why. I ended up listening to it on the car radio as he went to get my mother.
Speculation was rife that day as to whether there were any more attacks planned. We just didn't know, so it was prudent to keep families together.
I was asleep when 9/11 started. A friend phoned and told me to turn on the TV and explain to her what was going on. Once I found the right channel, it was just after the first tower had been hit. At that point it was still uncertain as to whether it was a tragic accident or deliberate.
I still remember who the news anchor was. At that time of the morning, Ben Chin was the usual news reader, and he was doing his best to keep up with all the conflicting reports. I told my friend on the phone that if this was anything but an accident, they'd haul Peter Mansbridge into the CBC studios to take over - which they did, of course.
I saw the second plane hit the second tower as it happened. At that point nobody was in any doubt whatsoever that it was a terrorist attack. Later on we heard about the Pentagon and the fourth plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
I don't recall at what point the American air space was closed. But reports started coming in that the U.S.-bound planes from overseas were being diverted to Canada - Gander, Newfoundland on the east coast and Vancouver on the west coast. The people of Gander did a herculean job of taking care of all those stranded passengers who couldn't get across the border - they provided places to sleep, provided food, and arranged for phone and internet service so the passengers could contact their families.
I can't imagine what it was like to be in New York that day. I was thousands of miles away in another country and didn't know anyone who died, but that repeated coverage of the planes hitting the towers gave me the shivers every time I saw pictures of skyscrapers. I can't explain it - I actually had nightmares about it, and was very glad that at that time the tallest building in the downtown area of Red Deer was only 7 storeys high.
Another memory I have of that time was watching the Larry King Live show on CNN. Enya was one of his guests, and she sang "Only Time"... it was very calming, and that song was played fairly often on CNN during those early weeks. Somebody posted that segment on YouTube:
I don't remember the WTC bombing of 92'.
That's because it happened in 1993.
I remember my parents and grandmother (in one of her rare visits to our place) watching the liberal federal convention the next year that would elect Jean Chrétien as federal leader. And, the year after that, I still have a vivid memory of Canada joining the Iraq war and of understanding what that meant (I promptly turned the jetlined from my new lego airport set into a stealth bomber. Of course.)
My first memory of a Canadian political event was the Centennial. I was 4 years old, and my grandmother took my picture standing in front of a giant cake in City Hall Park (not a real cake, of course, to my intense disappointment; it was actually a series of raised flower beds in the shape of a multi-tiered cake).
My second memory of a Canadian political event was Trudeaumania. My grandmother really liked Pierre Trudeau. I still have the button she got at one of his rallies.
Wait Halley's comet was a dissapointment,?
Let's just say that if we'd had to pay to see it, I'd have wanted my money back. I looked up at the proper time, in the proper direction, did everything the astronomy articles and newscasts said to do... and never saw a thing.
I wasn't born yet the last time it came around but Hale-Bopp in the 90s was spectacular....and then there was Heavens Gate.
I don't use this word very often... but Hale-Bopp was AWESOME!
I was taking an astronomy course at the time in college, and the morning after I saw the comet, I couldn't wait to tell the instructor. He was pleased that I'd seen it, and also pleased that I was on the proverbial Cloud 9 because of it.
In terms of cultural events, I also have a dim memory of my mother and her friends gathering to watch the premier of Roots on television. I don't know it at the time, of course, but it was watched by more than half of Americans - 140m out of 220m, according to Wikipedia. The significance of the show sailed way over my head; I think I got bored and went to play with my toys.
Roots ushered in the era of the TV miniseries - the kind that played over the course of several nights in the same week, as opposed to one episode for several weeks. I saw the whole thing, and discovered that I enjoyed historical dramas (I don't remember if I'd seen I, Claudius yet on PBS; that came out the year before Roots did). My grandfather was given the paperback for Christmas that year, and I still have it somewhere.
The earliest national news story I remember clearly, that I was aware of as it happened, was the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington. The murder of John Lennon was later that year.
My mother's second set of in-laws were in Washington around that time. They collected some of the ash and gave me some of it for Christmas later, when they found out I collected rocks. It caused a bit of confusion during one of the reorganization sessions around here - my helper found it and was worried that it was actually my grandmother's ashes. She was very relieved when I told her that my grandmother's ashes were safely tucked away in a properly labeled container from the funeral home, and what she was holding had been thrown up by Mt. St. Helens.
Also the first episode of ALF I saw I thought I was in heaven
Was that the first American TV show you'd seen?
Personally, my earliest memories date to when I was 2, and various things happened around home, with the family. I have vague recollections of the neighbor's cat, my grandfather's dog, and getting hit by my swingset (that was the day that I learned about the physics of pendulums, and why you should never push a two-seater swing away from you and not get out of the way when it swings back).
