What event in your lifetime caught you by surprise?

[IronWing]

snu snu

 

[SKORPI0]

Assassination of MLK Jr., then RFK 2 months later.
Death of Bruce Lee, then Elvis Presley 4 years later.
O.J. Simpson verdict
Challenger and Columbia disasters
9/11
D.Trump winning as the 45th U.S.President.

 

[zinfamous]

Walking in on Dad with the neighbor lady.

you mean "mom," right?

 

[Zeze]

9/11
Trump winning election
I remember getting a stimulus check from Obama LOL. Ex and I went to Vegas with it.

 

[BoomerD]

Assassination of MLK Jr., then RFK 2 months later.
Death of Bruce Lee, then Elvis Presley 4 years later.
O.J. Simpson verdict
Challenger and Columbia disasters
9/11
D.Trump winning as the 45th U.S.President.

All of those, plus the JFK assassination and the tearing down of the Berlin wall.

But the thing that surprised me the most was Mayne posting outside his “2 posts per day” thread...and getting away with it.

 

[realibrad]

you mean "mom," right?

Bold of you to assume mom and not sister.

 

[zinfamous]

Bold of you to assume mom and not sister.

well, he did say neighbor. ...a secret mom makes more sense. Yes, secret sister is easier to believe, but then that would infer that Carson walked in on his dad porking his own daughter. That's really messed-up.

....wait, in which state did Carson grow up?

 

[frozentundra123456]

911 the top one.
Death of Elvis. MLK and Bobby Kennedy assinations. Those were almost more of a surprise than JFK, because I thought it couldnt happen again so soon and so often.
Trump getting elected was a surprise, but the bigger surprise to me is how strong his base is and how unwavering they are in support, no matter how outrageous his behavior.
By extension, that means I am surprised how much racism still exists in our country.

 

[pmv]

Argentina invading the Falklands....and then it turning into a real, serious conflict with a substantial casualty list on both sides. At the very start it was oddly hard to take it seriously. Most people didn't' even know where the Falklands were and nothing seemed to happen for an eternity. Then it got very nasty.

The Berlin Wall coming down...and the fact it ultimately led to Putin. Not really the outcome one might have hoped for. The Republicans ending up being seen as the pro-Russian party is not something I'd have predicted when younger.

 

[pmv]

Assassination of MLK Jr., then RFK 2 months later.
Death of Bruce Lee, then Elvis Presley 4 years later.
O.J. Simpson verdict
Challenger and Columbia disasters
9/11
D.Trump winning as the 45th U.S.President.

This thread feels like it's about to turn into a Billy Joel song at any moment.

 

[eng2d2]

bruce lee

 

[highland145]

..

 

[IronWing]

The fact that some of my brothers from different Mothers have so completely different political views. Men that I've known for 45+ years.

Like the current state, one side is talking 1, 2, 3s and the other is A, B, Cs.

I do not see how the 2 can meet...ever.

Example: Kavenaugh. You're on the side that thought it was disgraceful by the left/dems or you're comfortable with the attacks by the left/media. The last senate report turned out to show that K should be cleared. I hope liars go to jail but ... politics.

These politics is what will tear us apart.

The Republicans would clear a Republican hack, who knew?

 

[UglyCasanova]

The weird thing was, I was traveling at the time & was fairly disconnected, technology-wise, for a long period, so I pretty much missed that whole news cycle. Plus at that time, the Internet still wasn't huge like it was today, where everyone was on it all the time...I didn't even join the forums here until over a year later. I didn't really learn about the 2003 disaster until a thread here on ATOT earlier this year. It was extremely jarring to learn that we lost another shuttle & all of the astronauts onboard...15 years after the fact

That’s pretty crazy

 

[Kaido]

That’s pretty crazy

tbh I felt like I had been neuralized by the MIB..."What are you talking about...we never lost a shuttle on re-entry...whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat"

I mean, this was before smartphones were a thing, before the Internet was really huge, pre-Facebook, etc. I was traveling and, for the most part, was disconnected from network news, newspapers, etc. for a long period of time.

 

[Avalon]

Probably the twin towers on 9/11, and the Pulse shootings. Native Orlando resident here. That one hit us hard.

 

[Darwin333]

Oddly enough, the death of Michael Jackson. It hit me hard. I'm not like a super fan or anything, but he was an iconic part of the 80's & 90's and it was just kind of a shock to my childhood when I heard he had died on the radio. I mean, who hasn't done the Moonwalk in their socks or sung along to Billie Jean on the radio?

Bah, I was just thinking about how many fewer kids would get the "Michael" treatment. Won't you please think of the kids!?!

Edit: Oh yeah, the dude showed up to court wearing freaking pajamas! Who the hell does that and gets away with it? That's just plain cray cray.

 

[gorcorps]

Trump getting elected was a surprise, but the bigger surprise to me is how strong his base is and how unwavering they are in support, no matter how outrageous his behavior.

Good, bad or indifferent... him getting elected was definitely a shocker to me. I'm not surprised at the support of any politician's backers, I'm just shocked he got elected. Him getting elected in the first place will be the 2nd most surprising thing if he ends up getting a 2nd term.

Broncos signing Peyton Manning was a shocker to me, also shocking how well he could still play for most of his remaining career.

Recent medial issues have caught the wife and I by surprise

 

[dabuddha]

Bah, I was just thinking about how many fewer kids would get the "Michael" treatment. Won't you please think of the kids!?!

Edit: Oh yeah, the dude showed up to court wearing freaking pajamas! Who the hell does that and gets away with it? That's just plain cray cray.

Honestly, I don't think he did anything untoward towards the kids. Given that, I'll be god damned if I would have ever left my kids alone with him

 

[Darwin333]

Argentina invading the Falklands....and then it turning into a real, serious conflict with a substantial casualty list on both sides. At the very start it was oddly hard to take it seriously. Most people didn't' even know where the Falklands were and nothing seemed to happen for an eternity. Then it got very nasty.

The Berlin Wall coming down...and the fact it ultimately led to Putin. Not really the outcome one might have hoped for. The Republicans ending up being seen as the pro-Russian party is not something I'd have predicted when younger.

Hell most people in the US still can't find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map and we have been at war with them for over a decade.

 

[TXHokie]

Bruce Lee
How the Vietnam conflict ended
Challenger disaster
9/11 - watching it live when the second plane hit and when the tower came down

On a personal level - the birth of my first child when it hit me my priority in life in no longer myself

 

[frozentundra123456]

Good, bad or indifferent... him getting elected was definitely a shocker to me. I'm not surprised at the support of any politician's backers, I'm just shocked he got elected. Him getting elected in the first place will be the 2nd most surprising thing if he ends up getting a 2nd term.

Broncos signing Peyton Manning was a shocker to me, also shocking how well he could still play for most of his remaining career.

Recent medial issues have caught the wife and I by surprise

I wasnt really worried that much when he got elected. I though by the end of the first few months he would have an approval rating of <20 %, there would be people marching in the streets to get him out of office, and there was absolutely no way he would get elected to a second term. Now, I think it is more than likely he *will* get re-elected, unless the economy goes into the toilet.

 

[Mayne]

The more I think about this thread the more I realize that losing my mother in the span of 1 month to cancer really caught me by surprise.

 

[deadlyapp]

9/11 and Diana's death both register on the surprise factor, but neither of them really put an emotional toll on me, most things that aren't personal don't. There's been a few natural disasters that have echoed a bit more for me (Northridge quake, a quake in WA in 2001) but none that affected me greatly.

 

[ultimatebob]

To be honest, we should have seen 9-11 coming. It certainly wasn’t the first time that Bin Laden attacked Americans.

Same thing with the election of Trump. While the media basically saw Clinton winning in a landslide, my neighborhood (in hard blue Connecticut of all places) had Trump signs outnumbering Clinton ones two to one. I personally thought that it was a tossup.