Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission: Impossible! music), is:
(1) What are the major news events that happened during your life that you remember where you were when you heard about them?
(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in comments to this post, or in comments on Facebook. As always, please leave a link to your work in Comments.
Okay, here are mine.
• The first major news event that I remember where I was when it happened was the Moon landing on July 20, 1969. As I wrote last year for the 50th anniversary of that, I remember my mother having us three kids sit and watch the Moon landing on TV, but I don't actually remember seeing the landing itself.
• The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle on January 28, 1986 happened during the day while I was at work in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California. I don't recall now how we heard that it had happened, but when we got the news we found a TV set somewhere and set it up so everyone could watch the reports. I remember that the office supervisor was extremely annoyed that people wanted to learn what had happened, and we had to turn off the TV after a short while.
• I had been living in Berkeley, California for only a few weeks when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck on October 17, 1989. This became a major news event because it occurred just as a World Series game between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants was beginning, and a lot of people call it the World Series earthquake. The film footage that was seen the most in other parts of the country was the liquefaction in the Marina District in San Francisco, the collapse of the double-decker Cyrpress freeway structure, and the part of the Bay Bridge that fell, although the most damage and devastation were actually in downtown Santa Cruz. I was in the house in Berkeley when the shaking started, and I could tell it was significant. In the living room, three of the four tall bookcases collapsed into the center of the room and all the books spilled out. We lost power and I couldn't make outgoing phone calls.
• On September 11, 2001, I was working at the Seismological Society of America. Someone called to let us know about the collapse of the Twin Towers, and then we followed the news online. I don't recall that we were allowed to leave work early. I remember when I got home and turned on the TV, all the channels but two were showing the same CNN footage over and over. The Food Network had a static slide expressing sympathy, and Comedy Central was running its regular schedule. I watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the guests were They Might Be Giants. Then I gave up on TV for the evening.
You had a lot more damage in Berkeley, being closer to the epicenter.
ReplyDeleteI particularly remember the gas station in north Berkeley that caught fire and burned for hours. They were lucky that it didn't spread to other buildings.
DeleteSix months after Loma Prieta, So. Cal had its big earthquake that collapsed part of the 10 freeway. I still remember after it was repaired, news reporters commented that the So. Cal damage was fully repaired before the Bay area because officials were much easier to work with in the southern part of the state!
ReplyDeleteI think it was five years after Loma Prieta, because that was the Northridge earthquake, which was in 1994. But you're right about the repairs. In Southern California, it was, "Haven't you finished fixing it yet?" In the Bay Area, it was, "I don't want it there." "But I don't want it there!" It went on for years before they decided what to do. And then Bay Area locals had the audacity (and trust me, that is not the first word that came to my mind) to complain that the Southern California repairs were finished first!
DeleteI think I've seen Challenger and 9/11 on most people's lists...I also remember the earthquake and worrying about my cousin and her family who live in SF and are huge baseball fans. Fortunately, they were ok.
ReplyDeleteI think the majority of people doing genealogy currently are old enough to remember those two events in particular. Some, like me, are still young enough not to remember most events of the 1960's.
DeleteI was born in 65 and don't remember any of the events of the 60s, though I have memories of family visits etc from 1969...I always get excited when I see younger people (under 50!) who are into researching their ancestors...I've been at it since my late 20s...
DeleteI was born in 1962, and as I noted just barely remember anything about the Moon landing. I got into genealogy when I was 13, but 20's is still pretty young for this hobby.
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