On this anniversary, remembering my top 10 breaking events as they happened. Yours?

[Faygo Kid]

I'm very much a sports junkie, and could also include stuff like Hendrix, Joplin, Elvis, Michael and Morrison - and especially John Lennon - but will stay with other news. Reflective on this Sunday, and welcome your memories. This isn't written in stone, but these are vivid, real memories for me.

10. Diana. Visiting an old friend in Georgia. We had been out to dinner. Then returned, and for some reason, turned on the TV.

9. Cronkite tells the nation on CBS that it's time to end the Vietnam war.

8. Lyndon Johnson: "I shall not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

7. JFK addresses the nation about the Cuban missile crisis. This kid was, like everyone else, very scared.

6. RFK assassination. Home eating breakfast and watching Today and his victory speech from the California primary on tape, and being bummed because I supported McCarthy. And then. . .

5. MLK assassination. Training for a summer job as a softball umpire at 16 in East Detroit in the basement of the civic center.

4. Challenger. At work, in a training session. The training became a worthless blur.

3. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Stockboy at Federal's department store. We gathered to watch it on all the TVs in that section of the store.

2. 9/11. Newly unemployed, I had gotten up to watch the Today show at 7 a.m. Since nothing remarkable was going on, I went back to bed. Then the phone rang.

1. JFK. I was a seventh grader in Mrs. Burgoyne's history class. I remember every moment of that and the next three days.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. 9/11 was the top for me (born in 1965)...

...but I can name other events in which I can "remember were I was when I heard the news" (not in chron order):

-space shuttle Challenger (my mother called and told me to turn on CNN)
-Reagan assassination attempt (I was heading home from school and heard it on the radio)
-Nixon resigns (they broke into Good Times with the report)
-Vietnam War ends (all the church bells in town rang at once - this happened again today @ 8:46 am)
-Jonestown mass suicide (they broke in right before SNL's cold open)
-American Embassy takeover in Tehran (also breaking news right before SNL open)

There's more, but lunch awaits... ;-)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

2. Everyone always seems to forget about the OKC Bombing.

I was 15, but it was probably my #1, 9-11 being number 2 just because we lived so close by and we lost family in the bombing. I realize it was domestic terrorism, but considering where it hit, it was HUGE.
Duckie

[Dennis Donovan]

3. I was sitting at my desk at work when my girlfriend called...

...and told me about it.

[Faygo Kid]

5. Very good point. I could have added Waco, Columbine and Virginia Tech, too.

I went with this off the top. No offense intended in a list like this.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Nixon resigns caused our crew at the Post Office to literally dance in the aisles.

[Faygo Kid]

6. Wish I was there. That almost made the list, but was anticlimactic at that point.

[Catlover827]

7. In no particular order

1. 9/11. At home in Oakmont, PA when my husband called at 9:30 and asked what I knew about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. My sister in Texas, who had breast cancer, called me in hysterics when she heard about the plane crash near Pittsburgh. She died a month later on the day the Patriot Act was signed.

2. Oklahoma City bombing. At home in Wichita and learned about it when I turned on the news.

3. Diana. We had been out and about that day in Wichita. I bought a fake Dooney & Bourke purse on a street in west Wichita. We walked around Sheplers just for fun, then went to see "Out To Sea" at the movies. When we got home I was upstairs at the computer and my husband called me downstairs, saying, "Princess Diana died!"

4. Challenger explosion. I was at work at a Wichita hospital when my friend Debbie hung up the phone and said, "The Challenger blew up!"

5. Columbia shuttle disaster. I was at the kitchen table in PA when I learned about it.

6. Elvis dying. We were at my aunt's house in El Dorado, KS when my dad called from work to tell us the news.

7. Karen Carpenter dying. I got home from school and my mom was waiting on the porch to tell me.

8. John Lennon's murder. I was lying on the couch and we were all watching football when Howard Cosell broke the news.

9. Moon landing. At home in El Dorado, aged almost 7, when we watched it on TV.

10. JFK/MLK/RFK. Only 1 year old for JFK and almost 6 for MLK/RFK, but am certain I was at home in El Dorado, doing kid things. :(

[Faygo Kid]

9. I'm older, obviously. Yours are so heartfelt. Thanks for posting.

I know exactly where I was for so many singers/actors, including Elvis, but I left them out. Thank you so much for that list.

[justabob]

8. September 11, and Challenger

are the most vivid memories.

I was in Algebra II class watching live TV when Challenger exploded. Our teacher had applied to be the teacher on that flight, and we had been following the mission in class.

September 11, I saw /heard about the planes crashing into the Towers on the Today Show getting ready for work. I couldn't skip work, and listened to it progress on the radio until the bosses brought in a tv.


Other big things have happened but they are not so vivid..... Diana wedding/death/funeral, Berlin Wall, OKC, Waco...Columbine, and others.

[Faygo Kid]

10. Berlin Wall, of course. And I forgot Tienanmen Square, and the Iran hostage attempted rescue.

This wasn't easy.

[justabob]

11. I forgot Tienamen Square too

and Iran.... It is definitely not easy to remember everything, especially if you have been around for a while and lived through a lot.

On edit: the levees breaching during Katrina was another big one that brings tears to my eyes even typing about it.

[jwirr]

12. I would have to add the funeral of FDR somewhere in there. That

was my first historical memory.

[Louisiana1976]

13. #1 would be Katrina--

and I mean not only the breaching of the levees in New Orleans but when the storm itself pulverized villages on the Mississippi coast. Katrina affected an area the size of Great Britain.

#2 would be 9/11

#3 would be the Oklahoma City bombing.

[11 Bravo]

14. I would probably substitute John Lennon's murder for the death of Princess Diana, and ...

also LBJ after the Tonkin Gulf saying, "That reply is being given as I speak to you tonight" would replace Cronkite for me; because I knew that it meant that my Dad was going back to war.
(Little did I know that the war would last long enough that I would wind up right in the middle of it myself.) Everything else is right in line with my recollections. And we must be about the same age. I was in 8th grade, in Mrs. Harris's English class. And like you, I remember every minute of the next three days. We lived in Northern VA, and drove into DC to see the funeral cortege, and just as Dad was getting ready to park the car, we heard, live, over the radio, Ike Pappas report: "He's been shot! Lee Harvey Oswald has been shot!" One Hell of a weekend.

All in all, a great list.