Where were you when...

[MotF Bane]

Just 9/11. Sixth grade, in Latin, the headmaster came on the PA and announced that planes had hit New York City and the Pentagon. That was all, I didn't realize what really happened until I got home. My parents wouldn't let me watch the news of it, and took the Time magazines for the next couple weeks.

 

[Murloc]

I don't remember what I was doing on 11/9, I was at elementary school, given the difference in timezones I was probably sleeping.
discovered what happened when I got to school and the teacher was explaining what happened. Didn't have a clue

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Challenger - I was in 3rd or 4th grade. We were all watching since there was a teacher on board and there was a lesson plan and everything. We all know how that turned out

9/11 - I was at work, Nellis, AFB in the USAF. We have a big screen TV in our ready room and were watching the Today show while waiting for our morning briefing. First plane hit and we were like oh dang that sucks. Bad pilot. @nd one hit and everyone knew what was up. We went to threatcon delta and the base got locked down. I was there for about 36 hours or so. After that obviously a lot of things changed in the military.

 

[Linflas]

I don't remember what I was doing on 11/9, I was at elementary school, given the difference in timezones I was probably sleeping.
discovered what happened when I got to school and the teacher was explaining what happened. Didn't have a clue

Would have been around 4 in the afternoon in Switzerland. you guys hit the sack early.

 

[Carmen813]

OK this is intended as a fun and perhaps apolitical thread. The topic is which historical events had enough impact on you that you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when it happened. Most people who were alive seem to remember where they were when they heard that Kennedy was assassinated. 9/11 strikes me as our generation's Kennedy assassination. But it isn't the only event that left a sufficient imprint on me to cause me to remember my circumstance at the time.

These are the events I remember. Your own may be different.

1. When Reagan was shot by Hinkley. I was in Cairo, Egypt, on a trip to the Middle East with my parents. We were in a cafe at the Sheraton Hotel and we heard the news on a BBC broadcast over a radio on at a nearby table. The gentlemen with the radio, who seemed to realize we were American, turned to us and said in a thick, German accent, "you Americans are such a violent people." My dad, who BTW is Jewish, then said "look whose talking" in reply.

2. The Challenger disaster. I was in college, crossing over the quad and heading to my bio-psych class where we were doing a lab dissecting a human brain. I heard the news over my walkman radio. I was upset by the incident in part because I was a big supporter of the space program. I skipped class.

3. 9/11. I was asleep when my wife's aunt in Cleveland called, woke us up, and told my wife that planes had hit the World Trade Center and we should turn on the TV. We turned on the TV and the towers had been hit but were still standing. We watched them drop on live TV. We went in to work late. We didn't discuss the event until that evening because there wasn't anything to say at the time. It was just too horrible for words.

Any takers?

- wolf

1. I didn't exist.
2. I was a year old, so probably with my mother.
3. I was in class a high school senior. An announcement over the PA announced that terrorists had attacked NYC (or something like that, I don't actually remember). I do recall joking to our new foreign exchange student --> "Welcome to America." I didn't actually have much information about what was going on. Spent most of the day on the internet looking for information with various teachers, eventually went home.

 

[Bowfinger]

JFK -- Parents' home, they started talking about it. Just old enough to understand without really understanding, but I could feel how shocked they were.

Apollo 11- - Watching it live, still remember the tremendous thrill at Armstrong's words. I was a big fan of the space program, and watched every launch and major event live well into the 70's.

Challenger -- Working at a client site on a satellite networking project, watching from my office on a TV in the office across the hall

Harry Chapin dying in a traffic accident -- Pulling into a grocery store parking lot with my fiance/wife (don't remember timing) and I heard it on the radio. Remember it clearly, mostly because she had just given me tickets for a concert the following week.

Oklahoma City -- Again at a client site, this time leading an applications development project. Found out as the buzz in the office started rising.

9/11 -- Getting ready to leave for work when they broke in on the Today show. Watched the second plane hit. Immediately checked in with my office since our corporate HQ and a data center were in Tower 1. Spent the day in emergency meetings and waiting to learn whether one of my peers (VP of our Telecomm group) was OK since he was there for meetings. Later learned he was killed when the Mariott collapsed.

 

[Fern]

Oh, I remember hearing of Stevie Ray Vaughan's death (helicopter accident IIRC). He was one of my favorite musicians (saw him live in Miami some years before). I was vacationing in what was then Yugoslavia. I was on a beach (rocks really) on some island, Korcula I believe.

Fern

 

[Thump553]

Thump, I'm jealous of you seeing the moon landing. I was only 2 at the time. My parents both remember it vividly. I often think if I could go back in time to witness any historical event, that would be the one. And it's one of the few that people remember vividly that wasn't some sort of disaster.

- wolf

Yeah, I forgot to mention Armstrong leaving the capsule was timed to be primetime US East Coast. In Portugal it was the middle of the night-I was both tremendously exicted and barely able to stay awake. Definately a goosebump moment.

It's funny what you remember and what you don't. MLK assignation, RFK, two attempted Ford shootings, Reagan shooting, the Berlin Wall coming down-I remember the events but no personal details at all. US beating USSR in the 1980 Olympic hockey game-I remember almost everything and I'm not a sports fan at all. I didn't know who OJ was when the news of those murders broke.

 

[Linflas]

Oklahoma City -- Again at a client site, this time leading an applications development project. Found out as the buzz in the office started rising.

I remember that one well. I was traveling around installing some boundry routers for a client in western Pennsylvania and was sitting at the counter of a diner outside Pittsburgh when the news of that came across the TV they had hanging there.

 

[Zedtom]

I remember the Challenger news when the NASA spokesman said, "We've experienced a major malfunction." No kidding! I still can't get the horror on the faces of the teacher's parents out of my mind.

The day that O.J. Simpson was riding around in the Ford Bronco my neighbor and I were sitting on the front porch drinking beer. We could hear people in the neighborhood carrying on, but we thought they were watching sports on tv.

Finally somebody came over and asked what we thought about OJ's adventure. We didn't have a clue.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

1) don't remember where I was, but in high school

2) don't remember where I was

3) In my apt, I had a feeling about it being a terrorist attack after the 1st plane, after the 2nd plane I was just stunned for the rest of the day.

I remember exactly where I was, who told me and what my reaction was to John Lennon's assassination. I hesitate to bring that up here due to the amount of asshole's who like to cheer that murder, or try to goad people into fights over it. That murder was my JFK, my MLK.

 

[waggy]

1) can't remember. to young to understand.

2) in school watching it LIVE ON TV

3) laying in bed with my wife. we both were working night shift.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

When President Kennedy was shot, I was in school and all of us were called out of class to watch the news coverage.

When the World Trade Center was attacked, I was in school and all the TV's were turned off and the news sites blocked on the schools computers.

 

[Fern]

When President Kennedy was shot, I was in school and all of us were called out of class to watch the news coverage.

When the World Trade Center was attacked, I was in school and all the TV's were turned off and the news sites blocked on the schools computers.

You've been in school for 40 years?

Fern

 

[NoCreativity]

9/11 - Woke up just after the first plane hit. Walked out into our living room to find my mom watching it on TV, than the second plane hit. Had a 10AM class so I went to that. All we talked about was the crashes so prof let us go early and I spent the remainder of the day watching coverage while playing comp games.

OIF - standing in our small conf room at work watching CNN. Funny thing I remember was watching them film a column of Bradleys and watching some nutjob fly past them about 5 feet away in a yugo.

Challenger - don't remember much although I believe we watched it live while in school.

OJ the chase - watched it while playing comp games, don't remember which game.

OJ the Verdict - sitting in some social studies class, live announcment came over the PA. We had one black kid in our class and he was the only person who cheered. Everyone else had the "that's bullshit" look on their face. The teacher tried to make some talking points about it but couldn't really get the class under control after the announcment.

Halley's Comet - was on vacation with my family. Stood outside the hotel to watch it.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

JFK - 3rd grade at Clive Elementary. They announced it over the loudspeaker...omg...

 

[GuitarDaddy]

There are three events I will never forget

1. The JFK assasination, I was 7 years old and my folks took me down to dealey plaza to see the Presidents motorcade. We were just at the entrance to the plaza and saw JFK and the first lady wave and smile as they drove by, and just after the car passed out of sight I heard the shots so loud they made my ears ring and the whole place went crazy, people running and screaming everywhere. I was to young to grasp what had happened and didn't even know the president was shot until we got home and my parents explained it to me.

2. 9/11, I was pulling into the parking lot at my contract job at the airport. By the time I got out of my car the second plane had hit and I knew it was a terrorist attack. When I got into work everybody was gathered around tv's at different locations throughout the building. My boss at the time was a woman who's husband was a DOD contractor and he was in a meeting that day in the Pentagon, when it came over the news that the Pentagon had been hit she let out a wail like I have never heard We all went running to try and console her but she was unconsolable for about an hour until she got word he was OK.

3. Was the day the shuttle broke up upon re-entry over Texas. I had read the day before that it would be visable during re-entry just after dawn so I set my alarm a little early and made me a nice cup of coffee and went out on the front porch to watch. Just after I got set up in the chase lounge and had a few sips of coffee I saw the thick vapor trail begin streaking across the sky and about 15sec later the vapor trail splintered into a fan that looked like the reminants of a fireworks ordinant and it hit me like a brick that all those people were dead , I went running in the house and flipped on the TV only to have my worst nightmare confirmed.

 

[desertdweller]

1. Reagan getting shot... Was too young to remember.

2. Challenger Explosion... Was in 6th grade and watched the lift off on TV. I think the only reason I remember it was that we were watching it in class and watched it explode in real time.

3. Towers.... Heard about it on the radio heading to work that morning.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

You've been in school for 40 years?

Fern

On and off, yes. I also watched the moon landing with my grandfather who was born in 1886 and went from the steam era to man on the moon and was excited about it as I was.

 

[FalseChristian]

Where were you when Bob the bum shit his pants?

 

[Brainonska511]

First 2 I wasn't alive yet.

9/11: in 8th grade. No one said anything to us except there was a weird announcement early in the day about the school being in lockdown. My mom came in later in the day to tell me that my dad was okay and that the two towers were gone; I had no idea what she was talking about and kind of walked back to class shocked. I didn't really understand what had happened until I got home and saw the tv. Up until '92, my father worked on the 101st floor of one of the towers and then from '92 to about 2003, he worked across the street in the World Financial Center. That day, he was in the WTC subway station just after the 1st plane hit. He couldn't go up the stairs there, so he walked down to the Chambers street exit and walked out just in time to see the 2nd plane hit.

 

[jackschmittusa]

JFK shot......school

MLK....Chicago - amazing riots and spectacular fires

Moon landing.....on liberty (USN) at aunt's house outside of Philly

Challenger....finish carpentry in a new restaurant

9-11.....my living room - watched live after the first hit

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Heh your username reminded me of another important one, March 29, 1984 when I heard on the radio on the way into work that Irsay had backed up a bunch of Mayflower Moving Vans to the Baltimore Colts practice facility at 2AM and loaded up all the team property for a trip to Indianapolis.

A good day that was for us -- had Indy not gotten the Colts, Phoenix would have and Indy would have likely ended up with the Cardinals.

 

[Zebo]

1. Reagan assassination attempt- 5th grade Mrs. Hargis' class or as liked to call her Mrs. Walrus.



2. The Challenger disaster. 9th grade in school again. Held hands with Angie as we watched in class on PBS.

3. 9/11. At Nevada Test Site where I worked for Lockheed. Needless to say place was on lockdown that day.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

US beating USSR in the 1980 Olympic hockey game-I remember almost everything and I'm not a sports fan at all.

I was a 9 year-old kid when the game occurred and while I don't remember all the details of the game, I do remember Jim Craig mania sweeping the country.