Most life changing moments you ever saw on TV

jimh0220

jimh0220

Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
3,010
Here are mine:

9/11 live
Knocking down of the Berlin Wall
First nights of Desert Storm over Bagdhad - REAL WAR live at night
SF Earthquake 1989

Yours?
 
One of my earliest memories is of the entire family gathered around our old black-and-white Zenith watching the Apollo 11 moon landing. I was four or five and didn't really understand what was going on, but I knew it was something very important.

I remember coming into the place I was living in college and seeing that my roommate had the TV on. "The Shuttle is going to launch in just a moment."

"Oh, that is today, isn't it? Well, I guess that is worth watching." And I will never forget the words, "Roger. Go at throttle-up...."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I got up as usual and tried CNN.com to check the morning news. It wouldn't load. So, I tried foxnews.com and it wouldn't load either. What are the odds of that? Two major news sites both having server problems? So, I surfed over to bladeforums and it was here that I read some posts about an attack in NYC. I tried yahoo news and found that they had done a smart thing: they had ditched all of the fancy graphics that slow websites down and just had the plain text if the story. I was shocked. I owned no TV set, hadn't in probably eight years (still don't). On the way to work, listening to the radio, I finally stopped at a large retail store that I new sold TV sets and went inside to see the pictures. I will never forget that.
 
9/11/01

LA riots of 1992

Financial Crisis of 2008

Challenger Diasaster

Hurricane Katrina
 
I also remember a TV event that happened every weekday night. Walter Cronkite would declare, "That's the way it is." And you know what? I was. He had just told you the way it was. That, sadly, doesn't happen anymore.
 
-I remember sitting in middle school and watching the O.J. Simpson verdict.
-I remember sitting in middle school and watching Bill Clinton say "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
-I remember sitting in high school and watching 9/11 unfold.
 
The Kennedy brothers' assasinations, the King Assasination. John Glen's launch and landing. Eisenhower and Kruzchev on TV, the scenes from Vietnam on TV. Watergate hearings. Reagan assasination attempt. Reagan's humorous "off-mike" announcement about the Soviet Union, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Many more since those.
 
The Reagan assassination attempt was probably one of the first moments of that magnitude that I was old enough to fully comprehend what was happening. Then the Challenger accident, the LA riots, Desert Storm...I missed initial 9/11/01 coverage as I was on a plane that had departed Logan earlier that morning. Didn't know anything about it until I checked my voice mail and it was full when I landed in Aruba four hours later.
 
9-11

Space shuttle Challenger

And although it wasn't life changing, the White Bronco chase being televised on every station...
 
I remember Iranian hostages coming home. Wasn't life-changing, but to a 6-yo, that much hoopla over the news was a big thing.

Challenger

That white Ford Bronco doing a slow run seemed like the most wasteful use of news media I'd ever seen.

Desert Storm was a major thing during my senior year. We'd just gotten in-class TVs and a student-focused news broadcast. Every day in World History we sat mesmerized. No matter how many times we saw it, those precision strikes blew me away.

Impeachment hearings we something that I knew were making history.

Of course, 9-11 is most likely the biggest event in modern US History. I was home recovering from major surgery, so was able to watch the whole thing unfold, from the second strike through the downing of the plane that never made it to it's intended target. I don't think I left the house for 2-days. I did send my wife out to get gas for the car around noon, though, as I could forsee a problem. Luckily the price gouging and lines hadn't happened yet.
 
The biggest TV event for me was the 1st moon landing. The next biggest one up here was the FLQ crisis when the War-Measures act was invoked. I was too young to understand the impact of either one of these but I remember them being the whole conversation for a long spell.
 
Footage from an abandoned building of a brick lifting up from a pile of debris and flying across a room.
The film was scrutinized by leading Physics and Movie Affects Specialists and they were unable to debunk or offer any worldly explanation.
 
When the those Mop Top Lads from Liverpool first played on the The Ed Sullivan Show.
 
I can think of four that effected me in some way.

By far 9/11 effected me the most.
Like many, I was sitting here watching TV and saw the second plane hit on live TV. I'll always remember a lot that happened that day, but the second plane hitting(when I first knew for sure it was no accident), the people jumping out of the windows, and the building's falling are the things I still think of the most.

Gulf War 1991.
I was watching TV when the first report's of bombs falling over Baghdad aired. I got physically sick to my stomach, and I'll never forget the awful feeling I had.

Vietnam war coverage.
I'm 52 and my brother is 12 years older than I. When I was a kid I can remember watching it on TV nightly. My parents were very worried about by brother being drafted. My father was badly injured in WWII, and when my brother got his draft notice I was for sure he would be injured just as badly, or killed. He was born with this odd looking indention over his spine in lower back. It didn't affect him, but they wouldn't take him because of it. I was glad.

Callenger explosion in 1986.
I was out of work sick that day and saw it live. I remember how happy the schoolteacher looked walking out to the flight with the others. To see it explode was very surreal. I thought about how many kids must have just witnessed it on live TV since most all school's were watching it because of the teacher onboard.
 
Along with many listed above.

[video=youtube;-p5X1FjyD_g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p5X1FjyD_g[/video]
 
I was about 4 when JFK was shot and when the footage of Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby on TV aired. My mother screamed as Jack Ruby fired into Oswald. I asked her and my auntie, didn't that man just kill the president? Yes! my aunt replied?
I then proclaimed, Good! Now we are even! and dusted off my hands and ran off to play in another room.


RFK and then King. The 67 six day war, The Moon landing,The VN war. Saigon falling. Challenger, DS1 and of course 9/11.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top