i was a spritely minus 2 when Elvis pegged it.

So it made me wonder what was the first major news event that people remember seeing?

I had to google which was earlier, out of the Challenger disaster and Chernobyl. It was the Challenger. I remember watching the endless replays on the 6 o clock news. Didn’t really understand what it meant though.

I didn’t understand the significance of Chernobyl, either, but i do remember Dad making us take showers every day after school. We didn’t eat lamb for a couple of years after that, either 😐

Princes Diana, Labour coming into power, Ayrton Senna

First major world news story I have memories of everyone talking about/constantly seeing on television was 9/11. I would have been 6.

Aberfan disaster,I was off sick from school,with mumps,and my mum let me watch the tv.

it would be the Elvis one for me

Labour coming into power, Ayrton Senna

they were over 3 years apart!

Death of Churchill

Aberfan disaster

was my first guess but then I checked the date. I was then going to go with the 1966 World Cup but

Death of Churchill

was earlier and I remember the funeral being on TV.

Falklands.

I remember Mum being careful about the Yorkshire Ripper (we lived between Leeds and Bradford).

Piper Alpha about 9 years old I think.

Senna for me.

Challenger I think – I remember doing something about it in primary school.

england 4-2 west germany

Last moon landings, Apollo/ Soyuz link-up, Bloody Sunday, Wolves losing against Spurs, the Lancaster-Penrith section of the M6 being opened, the end of the Vietnam War, UDI in Rhodesia… all a bit confused…

World Cup 1966 – watched on a Black & White TV outside at a Scout Camp & Aberfan in the papers as we didn’t have TV at home!

Assassination of Kennedy, Churchill, Aberfan. I remember those quite vividly.

Death of Churchill. I also remember the funeral being on TV. We didn’t have one so we went to someone else’s house to watch it.

Churchill funeral for me too. Strange how embedded those tv images are.

moon landing

Ethiopian famine, bits of the miners strike.

Elvis.

Apart from Thatcher’s election, it would be the Falklands War I think. I remember lots of stuff from 1980 but nothing newsworthy. I remember there being a recession and 3m unemployed but I think that was later.

Apollo 11 , my granddad was fascinated by all the Apollo missions , spent many hours watching it on their tiny tv.

Cuban missile crisis.

In terms of when breaking news really was breaking and you’d get that cold chill as the schedule changed it’s probably Challenger followed by Herald of Free Enterprise. I certainly remember news stories from long before that like Falklands, Ethiopia, but only through conversation, watching the news etc. As a kid it was the breaking news that was ‘remember where you were’ defining – usually in front of the TV 😉

Falklands war I think.

I remember in my childish mind it didn’t seem that ‘good’ a war, same with the first Gulf War, I’d grown up hearing about World War 2 all hundreds of thousands of men being shipped from here to there and bombs falling.

Princess Di.
I can remember everything about it vividly, getting up at about 5am and sneaking downstairs to watch Ulysses cartoons and eventually the news started reporting on it. Woke my parents up to tell them, they didn’t believe me but when they came down to see what was going on the tv stayed on the news all day.. I couldn’t watch my cartoons!

It’s bizarre I can remember everything about it, even can picture the footage etc, and it’s probably my earliest big memory despite being 12 at the time. I can remember some of the events above I.e. Senna but not with any real coherency.

Gulf war one

Aberfan.

Gulf War for me I think. My other early memories are of my dad being in hospital but I would have been 7 when the Gulf War started.

I’m not sure if I remember it or I remember being told about it and so have false memories but Churchill’s funeral is likely to be the earliest. Then it’s the World Cup then Aberfan both of which I definitely remember.

My earliest definite memory of any kind was my brother being born – July 1963.

Joe Cocker’s death 🙁

thatcher becoming PM probably.

although I do remember being bored every evening when my parents watched the news daily before that, and also remember there being lots of sport on the telly one week and wondering why my parents were not watching the news like they normally did. that was the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Falklands was the first news story I can remember, I would have been nine so perhaps a late starter.

Was never hugely interested in the news, despite later working as a news journo for years.

Yorkshire Ripper for me too, back in the 1970s we lived in a quiet village called Simister in one of the small blocks of flats down Simister Green I think… How things change over the decades! 😯

Funnily enough I was telling a class about mine today (I’m a Geography teacher). It was the eruption of Mount St Helens. Remember being quite affected by the story of the old boy that wouldn’t leave his cabin.

First moon landing.

I was 2 days old when Churchill died – my dad wanted to name me Winston…

Challenger for me I think. Was playing Lego in the lounge and it was on the TV. Ran through to my mum to say the rocket had crashed.

End of Vietnam war