Most momentous International event in your lifetime?

[Snape]

I was at university during the O.J. Simpson white Bronco car chase and following trial. It was wall to wall media and it was all that we watched and talked about. It was the first time that we had rolling 24 hour news.

 

[horlock_was_super]

The Miners strike (it's taught as fucking history in schools now!)
Diana
93:20
The Queen
First (and so far only) time I followed through - I was in Tenerife so that's classed as International.

 

[The Stockport Iniesta]

For me it was being at York away.

The scenes were of biblical proportions.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

I'm so surprised no one has mentioned the dramatic event much closer to our homes that changed our local landscape. The bombing of the Mcr Arndale centre. I recall placing my ITV 7 on that Saturday morning and being in a local bookies when that bomb went off. Though I was about a couple of miles away the sound of the blast always remained with me.

I think had folk been killed by the bomb - as in the MEN Arena bombing - then it would have been more in people's memories.
I personally think that because it was an IRA bomb, we (those of us growing up in the 70's / 80's) had just become accustomed to such events. Watching the news back then bombings were headline news but then became 2nd or 3rd item.... some barely receiving a passing comment at the end. We had (in most cases) become immune to being shocked anymore at what was happening on our doorstep.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

First Gulf war in 1990 was the most memorable event for me. I think it was the first time they covered a war in depth with actual boots on the ground film crews etc. It was riveting late night Tv coming in from the pub…

I was well fucked off the night it started.
I was watching the highlights of an FA Cup game on TV. Everton v someone.
Halfway through the programme was cut and CNN replaced it showing the shelling of Baghdad. I turned on the other 3 channels and all of them were showing the same footage.
I went back to ITV in the hope the game would come back on - they could have said "for continued viewing of this please turn to C4" but they didn't.
An hour later I gave up and went to bed pissed off.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

Elvis dying

Wait! what? When?

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

9/11. Watching it in real time was horrific.

 

[ancoats]

Strangeways rooftop riots 1990,1st April and 25 days later the whole story began to be uncovered

 

[Dogtanian]

Live Aid and the falling of the Berlin Wall are ones I remember the most from being young

 

[BLUEYESTU]

Invention of the internet for me - I’d never have a got a woman without internet dating ;)

 

[kaz7]

9/11. Watching it in real time was horrific.

It really was , when the penny dropped for the news chanels it was a stunned silence for a min , couldnt take my eyes off the telly for that day and the following few days . I watched all the progs on the aniversary every year till a couple of years ago when i spent the day watching them and just found i couldnt watch them anymore , still cried every year

 

[domalino]

9/11. Watching it in real time was horrific.

9/11 is probably the "right" answer, as much as there can be one, for most people under 45-50 if you consider just how far reaching the cultural, political and international fallout was, and continues to be, and how much it effects our daily lives today.

 

[BongoBlue]

9/11. Watching it in real time was horrific.

Yup. I had just got to work and was feeling a bit sorry for myself after having my vasectomy the weekend before so I was a little uncomfortable. Well there was an ice-pack down my pants...

As I watched the horror unfold on the work cafeteria TV, I totally forgot my momentary discomfort. And then we were evacuated as it was a defence contractor building and management were afraid that we would be targeted. So I raced home just in time to see the towers fall.

I will never forget the utter shocked silence and incredulity that day. And the guilt that I felt for my newborn daughter. How could I have brought her and her siblings into this kind of a terrible world...?

 

[normskih]

It really was , when the penny dropped for the news chanels it was a stunned silence for a min , couldnt take my eyes off the telly for that day and the following few days . I watched all the progs on the aniversary every year till a couple of years ago when i spent the day watching them and just found i couldnt watch them anymore , still cried every year

I was in work and a young fella came up to me and said a plane has flown into the World Trade Centre, at that time no one knew what sort of plane it was,he was listening to the news on his headphones. Things kept coming on over the news, so we put a telly on in work. For days after, I have no idea what the productivity in work was, probably not much.

 

[Legal Alien]

9/11. The world changed forever that day. Just very surreal watching it live for 9 hours. Remember all TV feeds switching to New York after the first plane hit and pretty much everyone thinking it was a terrible accident but then watching the second plane slam into the second tower I knew it was much more serious than that. Then the reports came in about the pentagon and fiight 93 it was just unreal. Really couldn't process it.

This...
I was in the U.S. and was watching live when the second plane hit and news from the Pentagon came through. Panic broke out after that, people didn't know what was happening and what to do. It was a horrible day.
That fucker Bin Laden said it would change the world and disrupt western economies and he was bang on, the world still hasn't recovered from that.

Living through the pandemic lockdown was very surreal and something i'd never imagined.

Finally on a happy note, seeing our club become a footballing powerhouse whose name is known all over the world and i'm fucking loving it!

 

[Bluesince1979]

9/11

 

[hampshireblue]

9/11 for me.

We spent the morning training for the opening of the new Air Traffic Control Centre in Hampshire. Me and my partner for the day had finished the main exercises and spent a couple of hours on the simulator doing exactly what our job was not about and that was getting the "blips" as close to each other as we could. We actually managed to get a few to get into what would have been mid air collision scenarios and then reverted to type to get the phraseology and actions right to get them to miss-you never knew when you may meet that situation in earnest. AA11 crashed into the north tower about 30 minutes after we had finished on the simulator.

We had a very sobering evening with our thoughts of the irony of our morning's fun!

 

[abu13]

1. Twin Towers.
2. Princess Diana Death.
3. Queens death.
4. Glauber Berti appearance as a sub.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

It really was , when the penny dropped for the news chanels it was a stunned silence for a min , couldnt take my eyes off the telly for that day and the following few days . I watched all the progs on the aniversary every year till a couple of years ago when i spent the day watching them and just found i couldnt watch them anymore , still cried every year

I remember the commentary as I saw the second place come in to view out of the corner of my screen.

I was watching it and thinking is that another plane I can see, but the commentators didn't mention it and then I knew the world would never be the same again seconds later.

I went to pay my respects in 2004 when I was there for my 30th and shocked by the quiet and the huge crater in the ground which still existed after three years had passed.

I went back for my 40th, the Freedom Tower was opening and the museum that weekend.

The memorial and everything there is a fitting tribute and will never forget where I was when it happened.

 

[Scaley]

1 - Coleraine bombing 1973 which murdered 6 pensioners - 1st time being aware of terrorism. Aged 11 watching both bombs explode out school window.
2 - Soldier's caught up in the IRA funeral
3 - Ballykelly bombing - my friend Valerie got murdered
4 - 9/11
5 - Covid

Ballykelly really struck home as the Cheshire’s were our local regiment, also one of the reasons I joined up. Sorry about your friend.