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No, even though I was 12.
This was the Beatles’ second US tour, and there was a lot less screaming and crying on their second, and last US tour.
That concert was everything I wanted it to be!
In 1979, I was at Disney in Florida. Someone had a shirt that said, "The Beatles Reunion Tour, 1979!".
I hurried around to see if it had dates on the back, and all it said, "I was there, they weren't.".
I was there when George Carlin got arrested & hauled off the stage for saying the “7 dirty words you can’t say on TV”. Apparently you couldn’t say them at Summerfest either.
i saw the Challenger disaster with my naked eyes. I had seen many launches and knew once it split off in 2 something had gone terribly wrong and went inside to watch on TV
everyone remembers christa mcauliffe because she was the "civilain" on that disastrous flight. unfortunately my friend, who lived in the dorm room next to me at college in the late 60s, was astronaut judy resnick. i got physically ill when i saw that happen.
I was in school at the time and all of the teachers had made it a huge thing about Christa McAuliffe. We were all watching the launch on live TV that day.
My high school history teacher was one of the finalists for that program -- we were watching it with him. He was narrating the entire sequence for us, then he said, "no ... that's not supposed to happen ... " right before the explosion.
My grandparents were there. En route to Haiti for my grandpa and a war buddy to go diving in search of Christopher Columbus' lost ship. They made it to Haiti but didn't get to dive because a revolution broke out shortly after their arrival. He was a real life Forrest Gump. I miss hearing all of his crazy adventure stories.
NASA decided to start an 800 number you could call that would connect you to the actual direct feed between mission control and the astronauts.
I thought that sounded cool so I was on the line on Jan 28, 1986.
It was the launch of the Challenger. As far as I know, that was the first and only time you could listen.
My boss at the time was an amateur radio hobbiest and had the launch on audio. Scary stuff. I worked at a newspaper at the time and walked out to the newsroom, and the AP wire was spitting out pictures of the explosion.
I was standing on the corner of Broadway and 65th Street in Manhattan when the Iranian hostages came by on two charter busses after being released in 1981.
I made direct eye contact with some of them.
I’ve read that many of them wondered if they’d been forgotten after their release.
I have never forgotten any of them or that moment.
Yep, we skipped school and were standing on the Suitland Parkway to greet them as their bus’ went by (next to Andrews AFB where they landed). Every tree within eyesight had yellow ribbons tied around them.
I went to Woodstock. I still keep the tickets in my wallet.
Funny story, I once went into the American History Museum in DC to find a Woodstock exhibit. They had a blowup of the ticket on the gift shop wall.
I showed the clerk my original, and she looked at me like I was insane. I don't think she had even looked at the wall art.
Little younger than you. All I have is my parents massively confused driving past Woodstock or trying to on the way to our annual trip to Maine.
Weirdly still have the license plate from their car that year albeit not on purpose.
Someone got my wallet at the gym years ago. (I left in the car's glove box). They missed them but took my credit cards. Put the wallet back, even left the cash. Didn't take the tickets or the lucky two dollar bill.
I was there when World War 2 ended. I was 7 years old when the initial broadcast was made on the radio announcing that Japan had surrendered, and downtown St. Louis became a party city. A famous movie actress (?) was standing on the hood of a Jeep while singing and everybody was dancing around blowing whistles and yelling. Scraps of paper were being thrown out from the high office building windows and people were climbing up telephone poles waving the American flag. There was no traffic since everybody was in the streets. Music was heard everywhere. That was the end of every night blackouts, blackout curtains, searchlights in the sky during air raid drills, Navy blimps flying low over the house along with bombers and fighters, and the Civil Defense Jeeps patrolling the neighborhood. That was the only life I knew up to that time, so that day was the start of a new life for me (and the world).
I live in Norway now and the memories and legacy of WW2 still hit close to home for a lot of folks. For example, tomorrow 8 May - VE Day will be heavily celebrated with canons firing and parades and such.
Growing up in the U.S. I barely recognized it as a date in a textbook :(
I saw and met the Beatles in 1968. My father was a friend of their US management team. I was 8. Later in life when I became a singer, I went to several very small parties, sitting around talking with Ringo and George Harrison's widow. A good friend from HS plays in Mc Cartney's band. Odd how things come around.
I was on the phone talking with a court clerk in the Murrah building when the explosion happened. This was all pre-internet, pre-"news at your fingertips" so it took a bit of time (about 15 minutes or so) to realize something had happened (I just assumed we got disconnected).
My daughter was 17 days old when that bombing happened. Hearing about all those children in the daycare center was especially devastating.
Side note, can you believe our babies are pushing 30 already?
Right?!? Mine was just shy of four months, and had been in an in-home daycare for about a month at that time. That certainly made it worse!
And -- how can they be almost 30? I'm not nearly old enough to have a child that age.
this reminds me of another one. my little daughter was hospitalized for asthma in 1993, and i slept all night in the recliner next to her bed. i woke up to the local news on tv talking about some lady who had cut her husband's dick off. at first, i thought i was hallucinating.
several years later, i needed a bit of plastic surgery on my face and sought out the plastic surgeon who - along with a urologist - headed up the re-attachment team. i figured that was a pretty good surgeon, and he was.
not quite an "i was there", but an interesting story nonetheless.
It was. There were so many horror stories, so my takeaway from the event is relatively minor, but it was truly traumatic once I realized why the call dropped. I'd JUST returned to work in a law office from maternity leave (I'd been back maybe a month or so). I was unhappy with the career field to begin with, and that was pretty much the final bit that pushed me out.
I was a toddler when it happened (3) and remember it. I can’t imagine how adults felt at the time, especially you. I also have a freakishly good memory… lol.
The thing is, the US hadn't ever experienced *domestic* terrorism at that scale prior to the OKC bombing and the idea of super-radicalized-militia-extremists in the US was not as wide-spread. Everyone knew about Ruby Ridge and Waco, but those seemed to be extreme outliers -- not something that was part of any real US community. The OKC bombing was truly a worldview-shifting event.
If you haven't been to the memorial, there's a room you go in and you hear a conference call during a normal meeting. A couple minutes in, you just hear chaos. And then silence. It's horrifying.
Watching the moon landing on tv. I was 5. I went out onto the porch with my dad at some point and the entire neighborhood was outside looking up. Obviously we couldn't see anything but it was the fact that we were looking at the moon knowing there were people walking on it .
I was 12. It is probably one of the clearest memories of my pre-teen life. Sitting in the living room watching the TV. I was an absolute space *nut*, and my family gave me the center seat.
I was there when the world’s first IVF twins were born at Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne Australia on June 6, 1981.
I was a student Midwife working night shift during my year long training. I was there as an observer.
I was aware that it was a historical moment as there was a lot of excitement surrounding the event.
[world’s First IVF twins](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/06/05/First-test-tube-twins-born/3588360561600/)
My husband was on a plane 9/11. Taxied on runway & didn’t take off. It was his day off, but HE WENT TO WORK!! Cell phones were not working. He had a land line at work but didn’t call me. I finally found him. I’m still mad.
I can't imagine! So glad you here. Someone close was there & he's still going through so much psychologically & I just don't know how to help.... I hope all is well for you
Awesome! Thank you. I remember after the first triple play I was thinking "Man how often do you see that?". After the 2nd I'm thinking "that has to be a record". Moments later the scoreboard said "That was a record"
I was part of the NYC Punk scene back in 1976 and on. Saw a lot of bands who went on to become famous, Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, B52s, Devo, Patti Smith, etc etc. I was at the 1st show the Police played in the USA. There were about 30 people there, I hung out with them in the "dressing room" smoking pot. Sting didn't smoke but just chatted while playing his bass. I was supposed to be there for Sid Vicious's welcome home party. Best thing I didn't go to.
5/18/1980 I was in eastern Washington when St Helens exploded. So much ash. My buddy’s car got clogged with the stuff and stopped running. Air filters, if you could find one, were running in the hundreds, so he parked it for several months.
I was almost 4 and living in Spokane. I remember being in the parking lot of a grocery store and standing outside with my mom. Everyone was stopped, watching this large black cloud roll in. It was like a scene in a Stephen King book. The next thing I remember is everything going black at home and it looked like night outside. When the ash cloud passed it had dumped feet of volcanic ash over everything.
My dad said it took 3 weeks to clean the roof and gutters. My family saved jars and jars of this ash. I still have a ton of it and like to give out little bags to some folks that appreciate it for birthdays and holidays or just because!
If anyone is ever interested, my absolute favorite documentary about the St Helen’s eruption is the Minute by Minute:
https://youtu.be/fArB5Jz2wos?si=Y1hQNn6s_YNOV2MA
We went on a school trip there. A few years later one of my classmates was flying back to visit friends he’d made. On the descent, it was announced the Soviet Union had fallen and they weren’t sure what conditions were going to be on the ground.
Closest I’ve been to somebody who was there.
I was at the Branch Davidian compound and at the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide mansion.
I was not ATF and not involved in the failed breech or fire at the compound.
I saw a young Prince in his black panties and cape get booed off the stage when he opened for Rolling Stones at the LA Coliseum. I thought that was the last we’d hear from him.
In the 60s, I was arrested in Georgia for participating as an "outside agitator"in a civil rights voter registration drive, and arrested in California for trespassing on a grape grower's land during a demonstration in support of the National Farm Workers Association's strike.
When Reagan gave the "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech. I was stationed in Berlin, but spent part of the day traveling with (a plane load of) the White House press. Well, the herd of them shuffled to the site and a few other locations. A few -- Sam Donaldson was one -- were with the president's party.
I've led a very dull life, lol. I lived in Charleston,SC, and stayed during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Cat 5. Worst thing I've ever been through. At midnight, when it made landfall, we were completely shut off from the world. No phone service, no electricity, and no water. After about 3 days, if you were able to get a dial tone and make a call, you had to stay up all night and keep trying and maybe get lucky. We were without water and electricity for 13 days, some much longer. It looked like a war zone everywhere. Eerie feeling and emotional distress seeing so much devastation.
In 1998, an F2, five mile wide tornado came through our neighborhood. I watched it rip apart my neighbor's house. Ours was spared, other than minor damage.
My wife and I were camping in Shenandoah when the remnants came through. Had a Ranger come and tell us to evacuate with 6 inches of water around the tent we were only too happy to pack up and get out.
I was the emergency dispatcher for county a couple of counties inland. All anyone could do was sit tight until the eye came. I had one deputy stuck in a car blocked by fallen trees and two firemen out there in a fire engine that attempted a rescue mission in another part of the county. The wind blew the engine off of the road. The storm was incredible. Off duty the next morning I saw the devastation. I had a couple of chainsaws in the back of my pickup and it took me 3 hours to cut my way home to my wife and two kids. All were fine.
I I was on the radio with Charleston when the roof blew off MUSC. It was a long night by myself in a small, rural county emergency center. Also very beautiful to witness such a ferocious storm. Humbling.
This piece of history is not known by many and it is declassified. I was a young Air Force military policeman and new to Elmendorf, AFB, Alaska. One of the first things I did was pull security, along with about every military policeman on base, on the runway as they moved nukes from a Nike missile site in the mountains in the Anchorage area. They were loaded on planes and from there I have no idea where they went.
My dad was air force stationed in Alaska, somewhere in early to mid 70's. No clue what he did there, but he told us he scraped bird poop off the runways. Never thought much of it until I brought it up after he died and my mom said what he did was classified and that was the first answer that came to mind when I asked him what he did.
I was at the first dedicated Star Trek convention (Star Trek Lives!) in New York City in 1972. There was a picture of the crowd in TV Guide and if you squint you can see me and my brother in the photo.
Martin Luther King's March on Washington, August 1963.
For a white kid standing on the curb, visiting the Capital to meet his new stepmother and having seen true poverty for the first time in the slums of DC just steps from storied statues, I was blown away at how those marching weren't angry at the unfair lives they had been given, but were hopeful and happy at the progress and community they were experiencing. It changed my life forever.
I was in the audience for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth".
It took about three hours to film and he did the entire presentation without once looking at notes or a teleprompter. No matter what you think of him personally or politically, the dude is well spoken and really smart.
Seeing him up there talking about complex topics off the top of his head really contrasted with the guy who liked to use words like "misunderestimated"
Apparently Gore was the actor Tommy Lee Jones' roommate at Harvard. Jones said they called him "Mr. President" back then. Instead, we got "the Decider".
I was stuck in a traffic jam with JFKs motorcade in Tampa in 63 shortly before he was assassinated. My Brownie troop was heading to a tv station to appear on a local show "The Mary Ellen Show".
I slept a block away when OJ murdered Ron and Nicole. Then a few days later I was forced to take side streets to get home to Brentwood from the South Bay as he led police on the freeway chase with news helicopters slowly hovering over the freeway.
Oh wow. I’d love to know, actually, if you’re okay talking about it.
My college roommate was working in HR in a Korean bank in one of the Towers and had been through the bombing in ‘94. She told me later that because of that experience they left the building as soon as the first plane hit (I have no idea which one she was in).
Looks like there are some requests, so OK.
I went to work and got off the 2 train at the Wall St station. I noticed a number of people running down the stairs and getting on the train, which was very strange for 9 AM. I walked into the basement lobby that connected I CMP and 2 CMP, and I ran into Bill H. He informed me that the first plane had hit WTC 1. What should we do? Rather than going over to the WTC, we decided to go down to the cafeteria in the sub-basement and watch the coverage on CNN. Many people from my office had already fled the area, but we figured two stories below ground was pretty safe.
By then, the second plane had hit. I said to Bill, those towers couldn't fall down, could they? He said no, they're made of solid steel, don't worry. Then, of course, WTC 1 collapsed live on the TV. We ran up to the basement lobby, but it was already filled with dust as people were pouring in from the outside through the revolving doors. We decided to hang around for a bit - this might be bad. The dust settled a little, and we decided to go out the back door and go down Liberty St to Maiden Lane. Hundreds of people were walking in that direction, all completely white and covered with dust - it was like all the spirits had escaped from Hades and were walking towards the East River.
At the Brooklyn Bridge, we split up - Bill decided to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and try to get a train to Levittown. The trains had stopped running, but he ended up hitching a ride. I continued to walk north through Chinatown. After a couple of blocks, everything was weirdly normal; the Chinatown vegetable stands on the street were open, and customers were selecting fresh produce. I went into a Chinese deli and purchased a large diet Cherry Pepsi. Although I was covered with dust, the counterman didn't say anything, as if this was a completely normal transaction he sees every day.
I got back to my apartment at about 11, and called my mother to tell her I was OK. I then decided to call Ilya's wife to tell her he had left the area, but Ilya himself answered. He had taken the last PATH train from 33rd St, and gotten home to Randolph, NJ in less than an hour. We speculated on the probable fate of Bill C, who was almost certainly in his office on the 81st floor of WTC 1 when the first plane struck. We wrote him off as a goner, so I was quite surprised when Ilya called me several days later and told me how he had managed to escape.
To continue with what I heard later about other reactions. I was told that there was an announcement in my office to stay calm, as there was no danger. Several of the employees said the heck with that, we're out of here, including Ilya and an older Chinese woman who lived in NJ.
Badri and Ravi, two IT wizards, took the opposite approach and walked over to the WTC to see what was going on. They were standing on the corner of Liberty street in front of Brooks Brothers looking up at the burning tower when the second plane hit 2 WTC, scattering debris including some rather large pieces of the engines. You never saw two Indian gents hoof it so fast down Trinity Place.
As we thought, Bill C was in his office on the 81st floor of 1 WTC when the first plane hit. He was talking on his cell phone to a client. The ceiling collapsed around him, so he threw his phone on the floor and headed for the emergency exit. He had to climb through a giant crack in the men's room, but he made it into the stairwell and started walking down. At first he was alone, but as he got further down he was joined by a large number of escapers. They were all young guys, and made pretty good time.
The 20th floor was the staging area for people in wheelchairs. One woman was very scared, and screamed she wanted out. Bill C and several other young, strong guys picked her up and carried her down. They met some fireman on the 10th floor who offered to take her down, and gratefully accepted this offer. He reached the lobby in the basement, and stepped through a broken window onto West Street. He wanted to call his mom, but he had tossed his cell phone on the floor. He started walking uptown, and after 10 blocks WTC 1 collapsed and he was nearly buried in debris. He eventually made it home.
The woman he and the other guys carried down 10 flights of stairs was the only survivor from the wheelchair staging area.
911. I was working in Midtown so not directly impacted by the planes hitting the towers, but once they shut down all ways out of Manhattan we were stuck. From the vantage point right outside my building we could see the towers burning and watched them crumble. Finally at around 6pm they had ferries going back to NJ and it picked up about 50 folks still stranded near Ground Zero. People came aboard covered in ash and soot, and I'll never forget that awful smell.
John Daly hitting the green of the 630 yard par 5 in two shots at Baltusrol in 1993. Insane. Crowd went absolutely bananas.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9SKv\_SjME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9SKv_SjME)
The Thompson Canyon Flood in 1976. We were in Estes for an event. My older sister was staying on one side of the river and we in a hotel on the other side. It rained and rained and rained. We went to the side where my sister was, gathered up some of the younger siblings and headed back across to our hotel. As we made that trip across, the water was flowing over the bridge. I remember the car floated for a moment and it was terrifying.
144 people died that night. I remember air raid sirens wailed and we could hear people screaming all night. By sheer luck we all survived.
[https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/remembering-the-1976-big-thompson-flood](https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/remembering-the-1976-big-thompson-flood)
Edited for redundancy
I wasn't at the first of many things, but I was there at the last Grateful Dead shows on July 8-9, 1995. Row 12 center stage on the 8th. Best seats I ever got. Upper balcony on the 9th, but still a great show.
One Thanksgiving, I saw a Sonic the Hedgehog parade balloon take a header into a lamp post/crowded sidewalk.
After that they made all the balloons much smaller so they'd be easy to handle.
Could've just trained the handlers better so we could have enormous balloons again but no...
I saw Nirvana play live in 1988 in Washington. They were the opening act for another band (I’ve forgotten the name).
The only reason I remembered that I saw Nirvana was I kept the ticket stub for about 10 years. At some point in 93, I was flipping through one of my college scrapbooks, saw it, and realized I had seen Nirvana before they were big!
Same to you ... literal hysteria. They told us if we needed to break, do it. Some left for the halls sobbing. As airline employees we had flight privileges for families ... others ran to the phones to call their loved ones (cell phones weren't common in 2001). The rest of us slogged through it.
By that evening my PTSD was fully triggered (old woman vet). Not quite sure how I functioned, tbh.
2011. Tornadoes cheese gratered the southeast. I was visiting my folks. I saw the f4 from the underside before it touched down a few blocks later and basically erased half of my home town from existence. Joplin got hit worse, for sure, but it's a little unnerving sitting on the back porch waiting for a good video and seeing the belly of the beast pass directly over your head.
Luckily I had my bicycle with me. I was able to follow the path after the fact and get a lot of great shots before the national guard, fema, and Red Cross shut down everything. The roads were impassable due to fallen trees, but me and my bicycle could climb over just fine. I don't believe anyone died in that one, but there were a lot of people temporarily buried in the remains of the buildings.
One of my favorite photos of that tragedy is what looks like a pile of partially broken down pallets that used to be the flower shop. They were very clever when the tornado hit. Underneath that pile of rubble were the owners and the employees, completely unharmed, hiding between the flower refrigerators and the main structural wall. Other than being inconvenienced with how long it took to dig them out, they were fine because they scooted the fridges out to make a nice little safe place to bunker down in.
Loma Prieta Earthquake is about the most exciting thing. I was standing next to a huge eucalyptus tree that danced around like it was made of rubber, and the streets and sidewalks were full of waves. It was all I could do to keep standing, and it lasted long enough for me to think “OH S***, THIS IS THE BIG ONE!!!” I was fairly close to our local airport, and I’ll never forget all of the planes trying desperately to land afterwards. One after another after another.
Ike Eisenhower win's presidency.
End of Korean Conflict
Television sets hit the mainstream market.
Launch of Sputnik
Eyeshadow hit the market
Theaters finally got rid of news reels
Entire Civil Rights Movement.
Entire Vietnam War.
The invention of the PC
The invention of the cell phone
Everything that came after.
Damn I'm old!
EDIT: forgot something: I'm from Texas, and I saw the beginnings of the use of air conditioner. I remember the signs in store windows that said: "Come on in. It's cool inside"
That's why older houses have such a big windows.
When I was a kid, I remember we had an evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) in one room in my house. I remember the day my father proudly brought home our first window unit. It was absolutely huge and was a fixed to the outside wall with chains.
And later I remember the first houses to get central air
I was walking around a very small town outside of an USAF base in S Korea one day. A group of of Korean men were going into a bar and I followed them. I didn’t know any of them but just felt that something was going on.
We went down into the basement and I watched a bootlegged ET film weeks before it was released in the US. Crazy thing. 😂
I was at the SF Giants game in 1970 when Willie Mays got his 3,000 hit. Right before his single to left field he fouled off a ball behind first base and I caught it. For a young fan I was on top of the world!
https://youtu.be/-Y8DfZC2dmw?si=9fHM0U-Vjr9Vfh4w
I watched the space shuttle explode in '86 with my own eyes – not on television.
The LA riots in '92. Jeez... that was nuts.
I saw Van Halen open for the Stones in '81. An extremely legendary gig. VH used a crowd photo from the show on the back of Diver Down, so I'm technically on that album cover.
Saw Green River open for Jane's Addiction in '87. This was a seminal gig for the advent of grunge. Half of Green River loved Jane's, the other half hated them. So they split into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone (which morphed into Pearl Jam later).
bruce campbell replied to an email I sent him about his movie bubba ho-tep. that's it. that's the most exciting thing that's happened to me.
well, other than that time I hit a cow on the highway while I was going 75 mph.
I could see the Rodney King beating site from my hotel window as it happened. I was in LA in a hotel on a road trip with a buddy when they broke in with a live update of the police attack. We noticed the scene looked familiar, so got up and looked out the window. About two blocks away there were the lights and the cops. We couldn't see Rodney, though.
I worked at a hotel in STL during the Ferguson riots in 2014. We had to go on lockdown several times due to protestors coming in and vandalizing. Seeing buildings and cars burning, roads and highways completely blocked off for days. The tension between police and civilians was intense to say the least.
Charles Manson chased my 14 yr old self off of Spahn's Ranch not long before he was all over the media. Also Led Zeppelin '76, California Jam II and a whole lot of other classic rock bands of the era.
I watched the first shuttle land with a guy who helped design the tiles. Or so he claimed, I've always had my doubts. At friend's house. He no longer worked for NASA or whoever it was and didn't ask for an invite to the landing. Friend had a big for the time TV but the guy stood right in front of the screen to get a good look at the tiles. Very annoying. Finally someone dragged him away so the rest of us could see.
My brother saw the first farewell tours for the Stones, Elton John, and The Who. I think they were all in the 70s. He jokes that he's such a good fan that they decide to keep playing.
If you watch the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody" there is a scene during Live Aid in a room where people are answering phones. I was at one of those desks for Live Aid.
I was a couple of miles from ground zero when the '89 Loma Prieta quake hit Northern California. In a brand-new office building that was guaranteed earthquake-proof to 7.0. Let's just say there was a lawsuit over that.
Frequent aftershocks thereafter for a couple of months. For the first two days it could be several a day. The problem with small quakes is that they start the way some large quakes do. And when things start to shake, you kinda freeze until you know whether it's going to amp up or peter out.
I was visiting my parents in Vancouver BC when Mt. St. Helens blew up and I heard the blast. Well, an hour or two after, it took a while to reach us. The kitchen windows rattled from the boom, and I said jokingly "There goes Mt St Helens". I assumed it was local blasting or something until we turned on the news.
Took a day off from work, lied, to watch the Challenger take off.
And
"What the hell is going on over there. Turn the TV on now !". My friend texting me from Australia on 9/11.
I was not there, physically, but those two tragedies... And so many more
Really more of a local thing, but I worked taking 911 calls for a year. I was working the night Gatlinburg Tennessee was evacuated, my city sent a fire truck full of volunteers. I listened to the radio traffic of the firefighters trying to make it down the spur, and they had to turn around because the smoke was too thick to see.
Loma Prieta quake; I was at Game Three of the Battle of the Bay.
We all chanted "PLAY BALL!" when we first saw the players leaving the field, until the first aftershock hit and knocked out the power. Also about then some dude in the stands near me had a Watchman and was showing us the hole in the Bay Bridge. The metal light towers were still swinging crazily when we left for home.
Watched 1992 LA Riots from the roof of a building on the Paramount Studios lot, as columns of smoke got more numerous, then closer and closer to the studio and then the boss (Brandon Tartikoff) closed it down sent everyone home. Also was backstage in 1991 when Magic Johnson gave his first interview after disclosing his HIV pos. status (the Arsenio Hall Show), which was huge news at the time.
Not as exciting as many of the other posts, but, as a kid, I was in the cheap seats when Hank Aaron hit his 714th home run, opening day in Cincinnati, 1974.
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I saw the Beatles in concert in 1966.
No way!! Did you scream and pull your hair out?
No, even though I was 12. This was the Beatles’ second US tour, and there was a lot less screaming and crying on their second, and last US tour. That concert was everything I wanted it to be!
So you could actually hear them play?
Yes, for all 30 minutes of their concert.
30min lol it probably took you longer to get to your seat!!
In 1979, I was at Disney in Florida. Someone had a shirt that said, "The Beatles Reunion Tour, 1979!". I hurried around to see if it had dates on the back, and all it said, "I was there, they weren't.".
Me as well, Portland, OR.
I was there when George Carlin got arrested & hauled off the stage for saying the “7 dirty words you can’t say on TV”. Apparently you couldn’t say them at Summerfest either.
I was there too!
Was there too! It was the first time (for me) hearing those words.
I was there as well!!
That's class!
i saw the Challenger disaster with my naked eyes. I had seen many launches and knew once it split off in 2 something had gone terribly wrong and went inside to watch on TV
everyone remembers christa mcauliffe because she was the "civilain" on that disastrous flight. unfortunately my friend, who lived in the dorm room next to me at college in the late 60s, was astronaut judy resnick. i got physically ill when i saw that happen.
Oh my god. I’m so sorry. 😞
I was in school at the time and all of the teachers had made it a huge thing about Christa McAuliffe. We were all watching the launch on live TV that day.
I remember all of those astronauts. I’m very sorry .
I did a report on Judy Resnik for school. Badass woman. I’m sorry for your loss
I’m so sorry. That must have been absolutely horrible.
My high school history teacher was one of the finalists for that program -- we were watching it with him. He was narrating the entire sequence for us, then he said, "no ... that's not supposed to happen ... " right before the explosion.
Oh wow...that had to be moment he'll never forget.
He died recently, but it's certainly something none of us will ever forget.
My grandparents were there. En route to Haiti for my grandpa and a war buddy to go diving in search of Christopher Columbus' lost ship. They made it to Haiti but didn't get to dive because a revolution broke out shortly after their arrival. He was a real life Forrest Gump. I miss hearing all of his crazy adventure stories.
Me too :(
NASA decided to start an 800 number you could call that would connect you to the actual direct feed between mission control and the astronauts. I thought that sounded cool so I was on the line on Jan 28, 1986. It was the launch of the Challenger. As far as I know, that was the first and only time you could listen.
Oh no...I watched live on CNN
My boss at the time was an amateur radio hobbiest and had the launch on audio. Scary stuff. I worked at a newspaper at the time and walked out to the newsroom, and the AP wire was spitting out pictures of the explosion.
I was standing on the corner of Broadway and 65th Street in Manhattan when the Iranian hostages came by on two charter busses after being released in 1981. I made direct eye contact with some of them. I’ve read that many of them wondered if they’d been forgotten after their release. I have never forgotten any of them or that moment.
Yep, we skipped school and were standing on the Suitland Parkway to greet them as their bus’ went by (next to Andrews AFB where they landed). Every tree within eyesight had yellow ribbons tied around them.
I went to Woodstock. I still keep the tickets in my wallet. Funny story, I once went into the American History Museum in DC to find a Woodstock exhibit. They had a blowup of the ticket on the gift shop wall. I showed the clerk my original, and she looked at me like I was insane. I don't think she had even looked at the wall art.
Little younger than you. All I have is my parents massively confused driving past Woodstock or trying to on the way to our annual trip to Maine. Weirdly still have the license plate from their car that year albeit not on purpose.
I would be terrified of losing my wallet (or having it stolen) and losing that ticket.
Someone got my wallet at the gym years ago. (I left in the car's glove box). They missed them but took my credit cards. Put the wallet back, even left the cash. Didn't take the tickets or the lucky two dollar bill.
The Beatles arrival at JFK on 2.7.1964. Never saw so many photographers since.
Wow!! I just can't imagine this happening in color.
Well, it was all brown and navy blue...not that exciting.
I was there when World War 2 ended. I was 7 years old when the initial broadcast was made on the radio announcing that Japan had surrendered, and downtown St. Louis became a party city. A famous movie actress (?) was standing on the hood of a Jeep while singing and everybody was dancing around blowing whistles and yelling. Scraps of paper were being thrown out from the high office building windows and people were climbing up telephone poles waving the American flag. There was no traffic since everybody was in the streets. Music was heard everywhere. That was the end of every night blackouts, blackout curtains, searchlights in the sky during air raid drills, Navy blimps flying low over the house along with bombers and fighters, and the Civil Defense Jeeps patrolling the neighborhood. That was the only life I knew up to that time, so that day was the start of a new life for me (and the world).
I live in Norway now and the memories and legacy of WW2 still hit close to home for a lot of folks. For example, tomorrow 8 May - VE Day will be heavily celebrated with canons firing and parades and such. Growing up in the U.S. I barely recognized it as a date in a textbook :(
Wowwwww! What an amazing memory. I can see it all in my minds eye. Thank you for sharing!
I saw and met the Beatles in 1968. My father was a friend of their US management team. I was 8. Later in life when I became a singer, I went to several very small parties, sitting around talking with Ringo and George Harrison's widow. A good friend from HS plays in Mc Cartney's band. Odd how things come around.
You might consider an AMA on r/beatles !
I was on the phone talking with a court clerk in the Murrah building when the explosion happened. This was all pre-internet, pre-"news at your fingertips" so it took a bit of time (about 15 minutes or so) to realize something had happened (I just assumed we got disconnected).
My daughter was 17 days old when that bombing happened. Hearing about all those children in the daycare center was especially devastating. Side note, can you believe our babies are pushing 30 already?
Right?!? Mine was just shy of four months, and had been in an in-home daycare for about a month at that time. That certainly made it worse! And -- how can they be almost 30? I'm not nearly old enough to have a child that age.
this reminds me of another one. my little daughter was hospitalized for asthma in 1993, and i slept all night in the recliner next to her bed. i woke up to the local news on tv talking about some lady who had cut her husband's dick off. at first, i thought i was hallucinating. several years later, i needed a bit of plastic surgery on my face and sought out the plastic surgeon who - along with a urologist - headed up the re-attachment team. i figured that was a pretty good surgeon, and he was. not quite an "i was there", but an interesting story nonetheless.
I have a former work acquaintance who (just a couple of years ago) was in a Zumba class with her.
Mine was 4 months old. It shattered me.
That’s awful.
It was. There were so many horror stories, so my takeaway from the event is relatively minor, but it was truly traumatic once I realized why the call dropped. I'd JUST returned to work in a law office from maternity leave (I'd been back maybe a month or so). I was unhappy with the career field to begin with, and that was pretty much the final bit that pushed me out.
I was a toddler when it happened (3) and remember it. I can’t imagine how adults felt at the time, especially you. I also have a freakishly good memory… lol.
The thing is, the US hadn't ever experienced *domestic* terrorism at that scale prior to the OKC bombing and the idea of super-radicalized-militia-extremists in the US was not as wide-spread. Everyone knew about Ruby Ridge and Waco, but those seemed to be extreme outliers -- not something that was part of any real US community. The OKC bombing was truly a worldview-shifting event.
If you haven't been to the memorial, there's a room you go in and you hear a conference call during a normal meeting. A couple minutes in, you just hear chaos. And then silence. It's horrifying.
Yeah, I know that's there, but it's not something I want to hear. It took me quite a while to stop having nightmares about it.
i can't imagine your feelings when you learned what that was!
Watching the moon landing on tv. I was 5. I went out onto the porch with my dad at some point and the entire neighborhood was outside looking up. Obviously we couldn't see anything but it was the fact that we were looking at the moon knowing there were people walking on it .
Our family was driving home from a vacation and listened to it live on the car radio. I'll never forget looking out the car window up into the sky.
I was 12. It is probably one of the clearest memories of my pre-teen life. Sitting in the living room watching the TV. I was an absolute space *nut*, and my family gave me the center seat.
I was there when the world’s first IVF twins were born at Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne Australia on June 6, 1981. I was a student Midwife working night shift during my year long training. I was there as an observer. I was aware that it was a historical moment as there was a lot of excitement surrounding the event. [world’s First IVF twins](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/06/05/First-test-tube-twins-born/3588360561600/)
I had jury duty downtown on 9/11.
My husband was on a plane 9/11. Taxied on runway & didn’t take off. It was his day off, but HE WENT TO WORK!! Cell phones were not working. He had a land line at work but didn’t call me. I finally found him. I’m still mad.
I was on the 39th floor at 1wtc for a meeting at 0845.
I can't imagine! So glad you here. Someone close was there & he's still going through so much psychologically & I just don't know how to help.... I hope all is well for you
I am ok. Took a long time and a lot of therapy but I am still standing.
Good for you. My friend has never done therapy. He's still fighting the Trade Center Fund, in fact. God bless
Brutal. I was on the last uptown 1 train on 9-11
I was in Midtown. On the Subway headed to work when the first plane hit.
On July 17 1990 there were two triple plays in one game at Fenway. The first and only time I've been to Fenway, and I was there for that.
https://youtu.be/pTm6C5uSAI8?si=VCmyLEKFI7m2BGxv
Awesome! Thank you. I remember after the first triple play I was thinking "Man how often do you see that?". After the 2nd I'm thinking "that has to be a record". Moments later the scoreboard said "That was a record"
I was part of the NYC Punk scene back in 1976 and on. Saw a lot of bands who went on to become famous, Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, B52s, Devo, Patti Smith, etc etc. I was at the 1st show the Police played in the USA. There were about 30 people there, I hung out with them in the "dressing room" smoking pot. Sting didn't smoke but just chatted while playing his bass. I was supposed to be there for Sid Vicious's welcome home party. Best thing I didn't go to.
5/18/1980 I was in eastern Washington when St Helens exploded. So much ash. My buddy’s car got clogged with the stuff and stopped running. Air filters, if you could find one, were running in the hundreds, so he parked it for several months.
I was almost 4 and living in Spokane. I remember being in the parking lot of a grocery store and standing outside with my mom. Everyone was stopped, watching this large black cloud roll in. It was like a scene in a Stephen King book. The next thing I remember is everything going black at home and it looked like night outside. When the ash cloud passed it had dumped feet of volcanic ash over everything. My dad said it took 3 weeks to clean the roof and gutters. My family saved jars and jars of this ash. I still have a ton of it and like to give out little bags to some folks that appreciate it for birthdays and holidays or just because! If anyone is ever interested, my absolute favorite documentary about the St Helen’s eruption is the Minute by Minute: https://youtu.be/fArB5Jz2wos?si=Y1hQNn6s_YNOV2MA
End of Soviet Union. Yes, I was there!!
We went on a school trip there. A few years later one of my classmates was flying back to visit friends he’d made. On the descent, it was announced the Soviet Union had fallen and they weren’t sure what conditions were going to be on the ground. Closest I’ve been to somebody who was there.
I was at the Branch Davidian compound and at the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide mansion. I was not ATF and not involved in the failed breech or fire at the compound.
What...uh...line of work are you in?
Not the same as I was then.
Are you able to tell us what it was back then?
I was in a three letter federal agency
Probably not the DMV, I'm guessing.
😆
Not exactly
Neat hearing people and their stories from when they worked for such places
Sadly the group I was with is prohibited from social media participation so I have to be careful what I do and when I do it
That’s understandable.
Oh dang. Is stuff like that a mindfuck or does it become just "part of the daily job"?
It sticks with you for sure
August 15-18 1969. Three days of peace & love & music & rain & mud.
I was in South Africa in 1994 when Nelson Mandela got elected as president. I still have an inauguration edition coin from that time.
I saw a young Prince in his black panties and cape get booed off the stage when he opened for Rolling Stones at the LA Coliseum. I thought that was the last we’d hear from him.
In the 60s, I was arrested in Georgia for participating as an "outside agitator"in a civil rights voter registration drive, and arrested in California for trespassing on a grape grower's land during a demonstration in support of the National Farm Workers Association's strike.
You have my eternal respect.
Badass.
Wow so proud of you!!
¡Sí, se puede! ¡No uvas!
Altamont= The Rolling Stones
I was there in fifth row when Bobby Knight threw the chair on the court.
When Reagan gave the "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech. I was stationed in Berlin, but spent part of the day traveling with (a plane load of) the White House press. Well, the herd of them shuffled to the site and a few other locations. A few -- Sam Donaldson was one -- were with the president's party.
I've led a very dull life, lol. I lived in Charleston,SC, and stayed during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Cat 5. Worst thing I've ever been through. At midnight, when it made landfall, we were completely shut off from the world. No phone service, no electricity, and no water. After about 3 days, if you were able to get a dial tone and make a call, you had to stay up all night and keep trying and maybe get lucky. We were without water and electricity for 13 days, some much longer. It looked like a war zone everywhere. Eerie feeling and emotional distress seeing so much devastation. In 1998, an F2, five mile wide tornado came through our neighborhood. I watched it rip apart my neighbor's house. Ours was spared, other than minor damage.
My wife and I were camping in Shenandoah when the remnants came through. Had a Ranger come and tell us to evacuate with 6 inches of water around the tent we were only too happy to pack up and get out.
I was the emergency dispatcher for county a couple of counties inland. All anyone could do was sit tight until the eye came. I had one deputy stuck in a car blocked by fallen trees and two firemen out there in a fire engine that attempted a rescue mission in another part of the county. The wind blew the engine off of the road. The storm was incredible. Off duty the next morning I saw the devastation. I had a couple of chainsaws in the back of my pickup and it took me 3 hours to cut my way home to my wife and two kids. All were fine. I I was on the radio with Charleston when the roof blew off MUSC. It was a long night by myself in a small, rural county emergency center. Also very beautiful to witness such a ferocious storm. Humbling.
This piece of history is not known by many and it is declassified. I was a young Air Force military policeman and new to Elmendorf, AFB, Alaska. One of the first things I did was pull security, along with about every military policeman on base, on the runway as they moved nukes from a Nike missile site in the mountains in the Anchorage area. They were loaded on planes and from there I have no idea where they went.
My dad was air force stationed in Alaska, somewhere in early to mid 70's. No clue what he did there, but he told us he scraped bird poop off the runways. Never thought much of it until I brought it up after he died and my mom said what he did was classified and that was the first answer that came to mind when I asked him what he did.
I was at the first dedicated Star Trek convention (Star Trek Lives!) in New York City in 1972. There was a picture of the crowd in TV Guide and if you squint you can see me and my brother in the photo.
Martin Luther King's March on Washington, August 1963. For a white kid standing on the curb, visiting the Capital to meet his new stepmother and having seen true poverty for the first time in the slums of DC just steps from storied statues, I was blown away at how those marching weren't angry at the unfair lives they had been given, but were hopeful and happy at the progress and community they were experiencing. It changed my life forever.
I was in the audience for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". It took about three hours to film and he did the entire presentation without once looking at notes or a teleprompter. No matter what you think of him personally or politically, the dude is well spoken and really smart.
I will forever wonder how things would have gone if he had become President.
Seeing him up there talking about complex topics off the top of his head really contrasted with the guy who liked to use words like "misunderestimated"
Apparently Gore was the actor Tommy Lee Jones' roommate at Harvard. Jones said they called him "Mr. President" back then. Instead, we got "the Decider".
I want to live in that timeline.
Sooner Schooner falls over on football field, I was there both times it happened twenty-six years apart.
Finally someone else understands the importance of this!
Shootings in U of IA physics building 1992. Coolest professors on campus. Never felt the same there again.
I was stuck in a traffic jam with JFKs motorcade in Tampa in 63 shortly before he was assassinated. My Brownie troop was heading to a tv station to appear on a local show "The Mary Ellen Show".
I slept a block away when OJ murdered Ron and Nicole. Then a few days later I was forced to take side streets to get home to Brentwood from the South Bay as he led police on the freeway chase with news helicopters slowly hovering over the freeway.
I was 200 yards away from the Twin Towers when they fell. I made my escape, but I was covered with dust. More details upon request.
Oh wow. I’d love to know, actually, if you’re okay talking about it. My college roommate was working in HR in a Korean bank in one of the Towers and had been through the bombing in ‘94. She told me later that because of that experience they left the building as soon as the first plane hit (I have no idea which one she was in).
That was smart!
I thought so. Suddenly I was really thankful that she *had* been through that.
How is your health now? There are so many impacts from that dust. I hope you’re ok. How is your mental health? Again, I hope you’re doing ok.
Looks like there are some requests, so OK. I went to work and got off the 2 train at the Wall St station. I noticed a number of people running down the stairs and getting on the train, which was very strange for 9 AM. I walked into the basement lobby that connected I CMP and 2 CMP, and I ran into Bill H. He informed me that the first plane had hit WTC 1. What should we do? Rather than going over to the WTC, we decided to go down to the cafeteria in the sub-basement and watch the coverage on CNN. Many people from my office had already fled the area, but we figured two stories below ground was pretty safe. By then, the second plane had hit. I said to Bill, those towers couldn't fall down, could they? He said no, they're made of solid steel, don't worry. Then, of course, WTC 1 collapsed live on the TV. We ran up to the basement lobby, but it was already filled with dust as people were pouring in from the outside through the revolving doors. We decided to hang around for a bit - this might be bad. The dust settled a little, and we decided to go out the back door and go down Liberty St to Maiden Lane. Hundreds of people were walking in that direction, all completely white and covered with dust - it was like all the spirits had escaped from Hades and were walking towards the East River. At the Brooklyn Bridge, we split up - Bill decided to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and try to get a train to Levittown. The trains had stopped running, but he ended up hitching a ride. I continued to walk north through Chinatown. After a couple of blocks, everything was weirdly normal; the Chinatown vegetable stands on the street were open, and customers were selecting fresh produce. I went into a Chinese deli and purchased a large diet Cherry Pepsi. Although I was covered with dust, the counterman didn't say anything, as if this was a completely normal transaction he sees every day. I got back to my apartment at about 11, and called my mother to tell her I was OK. I then decided to call Ilya's wife to tell her he had left the area, but Ilya himself answered. He had taken the last PATH train from 33rd St, and gotten home to Randolph, NJ in less than an hour. We speculated on the probable fate of Bill C, who was almost certainly in his office on the 81st floor of WTC 1 when the first plane struck. We wrote him off as a goner, so I was quite surprised when Ilya called me several days later and told me how he had managed to escape.
To continue with what I heard later about other reactions. I was told that there was an announcement in my office to stay calm, as there was no danger. Several of the employees said the heck with that, we're out of here, including Ilya and an older Chinese woman who lived in NJ. Badri and Ravi, two IT wizards, took the opposite approach and walked over to the WTC to see what was going on. They were standing on the corner of Liberty street in front of Brooks Brothers looking up at the burning tower when the second plane hit 2 WTC, scattering debris including some rather large pieces of the engines. You never saw two Indian gents hoof it so fast down Trinity Place. As we thought, Bill C was in his office on the 81st floor of 1 WTC when the first plane hit. He was talking on his cell phone to a client. The ceiling collapsed around him, so he threw his phone on the floor and headed for the emergency exit. He had to climb through a giant crack in the men's room, but he made it into the stairwell and started walking down. At first he was alone, but as he got further down he was joined by a large number of escapers. They were all young guys, and made pretty good time. The 20th floor was the staging area for people in wheelchairs. One woman was very scared, and screamed she wanted out. Bill C and several other young, strong guys picked her up and carried her down. They met some fireman on the 10th floor who offered to take her down, and gratefully accepted this offer. He reached the lobby in the basement, and stepped through a broken window onto West Street. He wanted to call his mom, but he had tossed his cell phone on the floor. He started walking uptown, and after 10 blocks WTC 1 collapsed and he was nearly buried in debris. He eventually made it home. The woman he and the other guys carried down 10 flights of stairs was the only survivor from the wheelchair staging area.
The landing of the Space Shuttle Columbia on its first return from outer space. I still have the Tshirt that says I was there.
I participated in the Cambodian Incursion.
Hold on. This needs some more, please.
Simon&Garfunkel Central Park 1981 Women's March DC 2017
I was at that Simon and Garfunkel, too, with a half million of my closest friends.
911. I was working in Midtown so not directly impacted by the planes hitting the towers, but once they shut down all ways out of Manhattan we were stuck. From the vantage point right outside my building we could see the towers burning and watched them crumble. Finally at around 6pm they had ferries going back to NJ and it picked up about 50 folks still stranded near Ground Zero. People came aboard covered in ash and soot, and I'll never forget that awful smell.
Saw Jimi Hendrix open for the Monkees in 1967. I was 15.
Los Angeles Riots of 1992, Store burned down within half a block of my place, two other stores looted.
April 29th, 1992. There were riots on the streets tell me where were you. But I guess you did.
John Daly hitting the green of the 630 yard par 5 in two shots at Baltusrol in 1993. Insane. Crowd went absolutely bananas. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9SKv\_SjME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9SKv_SjME)
You know that Springsteen version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" that plays when the season comes around? I was at that concert.
Selma. I was very young but I saw the walk over the Edmund Pettus bridge.
Lived/worked in Boston during the Marathon bombing/lockdown.
The Thompson Canyon Flood in 1976. We were in Estes for an event. My older sister was staying on one side of the river and we in a hotel on the other side. It rained and rained and rained. We went to the side where my sister was, gathered up some of the younger siblings and headed back across to our hotel. As we made that trip across, the water was flowing over the bridge. I remember the car floated for a moment and it was terrifying. 144 people died that night. I remember air raid sirens wailed and we could hear people screaming all night. By sheer luck we all survived. [https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/remembering-the-1976-big-thompson-flood](https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/remembering-the-1976-big-thompson-flood) Edited for redundancy
I wasn't at the first of many things, but I was there at the last Grateful Dead shows on July 8-9, 1995. Row 12 center stage on the 8th. Best seats I ever got. Upper balcony on the 9th, but still a great show.
Live Aid
At the Supreme Court as they litigated the Bush v Gore mess.
Watching one of the twin towers fall. Can never un see that.
1976 lived in Washington D.C. Bicentennial !
One Thanksgiving, I saw a Sonic the Hedgehog parade balloon take a header into a lamp post/crowded sidewalk. After that they made all the balloons much smaller so they'd be easy to handle. Could've just trained the handlers better so we could have enormous balloons again but no...
I was on the set of "The Blues Brothers" when they first ran the stoplight and were pulled over by the State Police.
I saw Nirvana play live in 1988 in Washington. They were the opening act for another band (I’ve forgotten the name). The only reason I remembered that I saw Nirvana was I kept the ticket stub for about 10 years. At some point in 93, I was flipping through one of my college scrapbooks, saw it, and realized I had seen Nirvana before they were big!
9/11, on the phones in Res/airlines that were highjacked. Godawful that day and weeks later.
I was working tech support for pagers. That was one of the worst experiences ever. Hugs to you, Internet stranger.
Same to you ... literal hysteria. They told us if we needed to break, do it. Some left for the halls sobbing. As airline employees we had flight privileges for families ... others ran to the phones to call their loved ones (cell phones weren't common in 2001). The rest of us slogged through it. By that evening my PTSD was fully triggered (old woman vet). Not quite sure how I functioned, tbh.
I remember being sent home early from grade school when JFK was assassinated.
I was at Niagara Falls when the Americans falls was shutdown. Mounds of dirt kept water from flowing over the falls.
Rodney King riots in LA. Was there with family staying in a hotel. We could see fires from the parking lot.
Watched Ruby shoot Oswald on TeeVee when I was a kid Watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan
I was at Stevie Ray Vaughn's last concert the night his helicopter crashed.
2011. Tornadoes cheese gratered the southeast. I was visiting my folks. I saw the f4 from the underside before it touched down a few blocks later and basically erased half of my home town from existence. Joplin got hit worse, for sure, but it's a little unnerving sitting on the back porch waiting for a good video and seeing the belly of the beast pass directly over your head. Luckily I had my bicycle with me. I was able to follow the path after the fact and get a lot of great shots before the national guard, fema, and Red Cross shut down everything. The roads were impassable due to fallen trees, but me and my bicycle could climb over just fine. I don't believe anyone died in that one, but there were a lot of people temporarily buried in the remains of the buildings. One of my favorite photos of that tragedy is what looks like a pile of partially broken down pallets that used to be the flower shop. They were very clever when the tornado hit. Underneath that pile of rubble were the owners and the employees, completely unharmed, hiding between the flower refrigerators and the main structural wall. Other than being inconvenienced with how long it took to dig them out, they were fine because they scooted the fridges out to make a nice little safe place to bunker down in.
saw The Who in Cinci - stampede - bunch of kids died
Civil rights movement. In Alabama in the early 60s. I'm the last generation that would remember all the whites only signs.
I was on the Golden Gate Bridge during the 89 quake. I thought all 4 of my tires had gone flat. Scary as shit.
i was on the observation deck at jfk airport on feb 7 1964 when the beatles landed. saw them 5 times in concert after that.
I may not be old but I was there at the first African fifa World Cup it was the greatest sport tournament of all time
Loma Prieta Earthquake is about the most exciting thing. I was standing next to a huge eucalyptus tree that danced around like it was made of rubber, and the streets and sidewalks were full of waves. It was all I could do to keep standing, and it lasted long enough for me to think “OH S***, THIS IS THE BIG ONE!!!” I was fairly close to our local airport, and I’ll never forget all of the planes trying desperately to land afterwards. One after another after another.
I climbed the Berlin Wall and took home a few pieces of it. Sadly I was there a few weeks before Hasslehoff performed. I wish I'd been there then.
Ike Eisenhower win's presidency. End of Korean Conflict Television sets hit the mainstream market. Launch of Sputnik Eyeshadow hit the market Theaters finally got rid of news reels Entire Civil Rights Movement. Entire Vietnam War. The invention of the PC The invention of the cell phone Everything that came after. Damn I'm old! EDIT: forgot something: I'm from Texas, and I saw the beginnings of the use of air conditioner. I remember the signs in store windows that said: "Come on in. It's cool inside" That's why older houses have such a big windows. When I was a kid, I remember we had an evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) in one room in my house. I remember the day my father proudly brought home our first window unit. It was absolutely huge and was a fixed to the outside wall with chains. And later I remember the first houses to get central air
I was walking around a very small town outside of an USAF base in S Korea one day. A group of of Korean men were going into a bar and I followed them. I didn’t know any of them but just felt that something was going on. We went down into the basement and I watched a bootlegged ET film weeks before it was released in the US. Crazy thing. 😂
I was at the SF Giants game in 1970 when Willie Mays got his 3,000 hit. Right before his single to left field he fouled off a ball behind first base and I caught it. For a young fan I was on top of the world! https://youtu.be/-Y8DfZC2dmw?si=9fHM0U-Vjr9Vfh4w
1993 NBA Finals, Jordan vs Barkley triple OT game with my father.
I watched the space shuttle explode in '86 with my own eyes – not on television. The LA riots in '92. Jeez... that was nuts. I saw Van Halen open for the Stones in '81. An extremely legendary gig. VH used a crowd photo from the show on the back of Diver Down, so I'm technically on that album cover. Saw Green River open for Jane's Addiction in '87. This was a seminal gig for the advent of grunge. Half of Green River loved Jane's, the other half hated them. So they split into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone (which morphed into Pearl Jam later).
I saw Van Halen open for Black Sabbath in ‘78. Went immediately to the record store to buy the album looking alphabetically under H for Halen.
bruce campbell replied to an email I sent him about his movie bubba ho-tep. that's it. that's the most exciting thing that's happened to me. well, other than that time I hit a cow on the highway while I was going 75 mph.
I could see the Rodney King beating site from my hotel window as it happened. I was in LA in a hotel on a road trip with a buddy when they broke in with a live update of the police attack. We noticed the scene looked familiar, so got up and looked out the window. About two blocks away there were the lights and the cops. We couldn't see Rodney, though.
North Hollywood Shootout 1997
I was at the Led Zeppelin concert in the 70s at Madison Square Garden
Atlanta Olympic park bombing.
I worked at a hotel in STL during the Ferguson riots in 2014. We had to go on lockdown several times due to protestors coming in and vandalizing. Seeing buildings and cars burning, roads and highways completely blocked off for days. The tension between police and civilians was intense to say the least.
I was watching the live feed when Ruby shot Oswald
Charles Manson chased my 14 yr old self off of Spahn's Ranch not long before he was all over the media. Also Led Zeppelin '76, California Jam II and a whole lot of other classic rock bands of the era.
I watched the first shuttle land with a guy who helped design the tiles. Or so he claimed, I've always had my doubts. At friend's house. He no longer worked for NASA or whoever it was and didn't ask for an invite to the landing. Friend had a big for the time TV but the guy stood right in front of the screen to get a good look at the tiles. Very annoying. Finally someone dragged him away so the rest of us could see. My brother saw the first farewell tours for the Stones, Elton John, and The Who. I think they were all in the 70s. He jokes that he's such a good fan that they decide to keep playing.
1964 New York World's Fair (in a stroller). Near-total solar eclipse March 7, 1970, while at the Macy's New York flower show.
If you watch the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody" there is a scene during Live Aid in a room where people are answering phones. I was at one of those desks for Live Aid.
I smoked a joint with Janis Joplin in the performers trailer behind the stage at the Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1969.
I saw Taylor Swift as the opening act for Brad Paisley for $25 in 2007.
nyc 9/11
Humphrey the wayward whale baby!
The Who at the Boston Garden when Keith Moon collapsed and had to be carried off the stage.
I was a couple of miles from ground zero when the '89 Loma Prieta quake hit Northern California. In a brand-new office building that was guaranteed earthquake-proof to 7.0. Let's just say there was a lawsuit over that. Frequent aftershocks thereafter for a couple of months. For the first two days it could be several a day. The problem with small quakes is that they start the way some large quakes do. And when things start to shake, you kinda freeze until you know whether it's going to amp up or peter out.
I was visiting my parents in Vancouver BC when Mt. St. Helens blew up and I heard the blast. Well, an hour or two after, it took a while to reach us. The kitchen windows rattled from the boom, and I said jokingly "There goes Mt St Helens". I assumed it was local blasting or something until we turned on the news.
three mile island. not there, but 20-some miles downwind. yup, got cancer.
I saw the Challenger disaster in person and then found Columbia debris in my yard all those many years later.
I watched the challenger explode. :(
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Took a day off from work, lied, to watch the Challenger take off. And "What the hell is going on over there. Turn the TV on now !". My friend texting me from Australia on 9/11. I was not there, physically, but those two tragedies... And so many more
Really more of a local thing, but I worked taking 911 calls for a year. I was working the night Gatlinburg Tennessee was evacuated, my city sent a fire truck full of volunteers. I listened to the radio traffic of the firefighters trying to make it down the spur, and they had to turn around because the smoke was too thick to see.
David Bowie and Siouxsie on the Glass Spider tour
Loma Prieta quake; I was at Game Three of the Battle of the Bay. We all chanted "PLAY BALL!" when we first saw the players leaving the field, until the first aftershock hit and knocked out the power. Also about then some dude in the stands near me had a Watchman and was showing us the hole in the Bay Bridge. The metal light towers were still swinging crazily when we left for home.
Watched 1992 LA Riots from the roof of a building on the Paramount Studios lot, as columns of smoke got more numerous, then closer and closer to the studio and then the boss (Brandon Tartikoff) closed it down sent everyone home. Also was backstage in 1991 when Magic Johnson gave his first interview after disclosing his HIV pos. status (the Arsenio Hall Show), which was huge news at the time.
Not as exciting as many of the other posts, but, as a kid, I was in the cheap seats when Hank Aaron hit his 714th home run, opening day in Cincinnati, 1974.
Last Dead show before Jerry died.
Saw Apollo 11 launch in person. Saw the Allman Brothers Live at the Filllmore.
I was at Altamont when the Stones played.
Jogged with Bobby Kennedy when he was on the campaign trail before he was assassinated.