Patty Hearst:
Although at the time I had no idea what she’d done.
The explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.
I remember the moon landings, but I most clearly remember being called into the auditorium at school to watch the splashdown and recovery of Apollo 13 on tv.
The '76 presidential election.
I watched a moon landing at the age of five. After that, the next I recall was Watergate hearings – I was really pissed because they bumped Gilligan’s Island and I Dream of Jeannie.
The drowning of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt in 1967 - live tv coverage of a wild windswept beach and Holt’s widow pacing the shore.
[quote=“Taffy”]
The explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.[/quote]
Does yer Mum know yer in Taiwan? 
Yeah, yeah, but she keeps calling me to ask if I’ve started shaving yet.
Actually, I was six at the time and really in to space technology, which is the only reason I remember it. The first event not connected with an interest of mine that I remember was actually the fall of the Berlin wall.
The kidnapping of James Cross, and murder of Pierre Laporte, and the October Crisis that ensued.
???
Don’t you have any American news? :s
???
Don’t you have any American news? :s
[/quote]
WTF? The country next door declared martial law, and sent freakin’ tanks onto the streets. I should think that would be news in the States. Any other country would have noticed had their neighbour done the same. Were y’all too busy shagging goats? 
Wow, that happened just yesterday it seems. I was teaching in Jiay and getting all my news from Newsweek and TIME - the TV stations weren’t very interested in international news back then, and there was no cable. The China Post and the China News (Taiwan News now) were useless as sources of information. Sigh. Plus ca change…
The first news items I remember was a DJ talking about the Beatles possibly getting back together in 1971. This was right after he played Strawberry Fields and I remember thinking how much I liked strawberries. I also remember Vietnam and Watergate because my family vacationed in the States in those days, and I heard the news reports in the car…
News footage of a 'Derry bloke getting hit in the face by a rubber bullet in the battle of the Bogside in 1969.
We got fish fingers for tea that night, too.
I got three, cos in my mind they all swirl around together:
Watching the Vietnam war with my father from 1968 -1975.
The gore fest which was the Malaysian television footage of the KL race riots in 1969.
Moon landing. It was hot as blazes and we were all crammed in a tiny school room. I thought it was all bullshit.
HG
[quote=“jdsmith”][quote=“Taffy”]
The explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.[/quote]
Does yer Mum know yer in Taiwan? [/quote]
That was the moment I was going to say too.
I remember a lot of boring stuff about some place called “Vietnam” day after day on the TV, but I wanted to watch cartoons. Apparently I watched the moon landing with my parents, but I have no memory of it.
But the first news item I was truly aware of as a kid was the “peach-mint” of Nixon.
My parents had just bought me a radio walkman.
I was coming home from school when I heard on the news that John Lennon had been killed.
I got home and asked my Mom “Who is John Lennon?”
First remember something about South African troop movements to do with Operation Savannah in Angola in the early eighties. Can’t remember what year, but I was in grade one or two so around 1981 or 1982.
Also particularly remember Charles and Diana’s wedding as our school teacher had the TV on in our classroom and had us all watch it. I was dead bored and remember thinking, “She’s not that pretty for a princess.”
Challenger… But we weren’t allowed to watch TV so I didn’t get to see most of them.
The bombing of the Hilton hotel in Sydney in 1978. I would have been about 4 years old.
My mother once told me that when I was about 3 or 4, I told her that I’d rather go to jail than join the military, so I guess I’d seen something about war on TV that led me to form that opinion. I don’t remember that though (although I still hold the same opinion).