I recently started reading Ken Jenning's blog. Bridget recommended it to me a long time ago, and it took me awhile to get into it because every time I'd look, he'd have some sort of word play question that I would have no idea how to solve and it made me feel dumb. But, he does blog about other things that I find funny and/or interesting. In last Thursday's post, he lists the earliest news events he can remember. He's almost 10 years older than me, so our lists are wildly different, but I thought this was fun to think about. Here's my list with my corresponding ages:
1. Election of George H.W. Bush- November 1988 (age 5). I probably only remember this because we had a polling place in our garage (right?) and I can remember asking my mom what the heck all these people were doing at our house and having a talk about how Ronald Regan wasn't going to be president anymore.
2. Persian Gulf war- August 1990 (age 7).
3. Rodney King riots- March 1991 (age 7).
4. Fall of the USSR - Dec 1991 (age 8). I remember my teacher pulled down the world map at the front of the classroom and pointed to the big purple splotch that was the USSR and said that we would have to get new maps because it wasn't going to look like that anymore.
5. US invasion of Somalia- 1992 (age 9), and I'm going to group this together with the start of the Bosnian War, which also took place in 1992 because in thinking about this, I had to look up whether Somalia and Sarajevo were part of the same conflict.
Two things stand out about my list. The first being that 3 out of 5 (4 out of 6 if you count #5 as two seperate occurances) items have to do with wars or violence. The second being that on Ken's list, all items occured when he was between 5 and 6 years old. I must have been asleep at the wheel when I was that age because mine span from age 5 to age 9.
Is there some world event I'm missing that I probably do remember but just didn't think of? What are the first news events you remember?
Note: I just remembered watching MTV with one of my older siblings, Allison maybe, when the Milli Vanilli lip-syncing scandal broke in 1989 (age 6). Does that count as a major news event?
5 comments:
Age 7: Lost my special Mini Mouse watch with the red leather strap while playing at the Atascadero Lake park during a special Pizza in the Park day for doing all my assigned reading. Not only did we have pizza, but we also had a lot of watermelon.
I loved that KJ post and I am going to do it on my blog someday, too. I'm glad to read yours. Some of ours overlap even though I am older than you.
Politics was not a big subject in my house. For some reason the first news memory I have is of the discovery of Otzi the Iceman by some tourists in a glacier in the Austrian Alps in 1991 (age 7). I vaguely remember war activity but wouldn't be able to tell you if it was Somalia or Bosnia/Herzegovina. The first real political memory I have is the reading of the verdict of the OJ Simpson trial in 1995 (age 11).
1. Back to the Future on video 1986 (age 5) - I remember watching it over and over again. I suppose it might count as a world event, but I think it was in its own way.
2. G. H. W. Bush elected 1988 (age 7) - I just remember the colored states on the map really.
3. Loma Prieta Earthquake 1989 (age 8) How do you forget your whole house shaking violently and then having all sorts of earthquake drills later at school?
4. Exon Valdez 1989 (8 yrs old) I found this one online as one of the major events of 89, so I didn't remember it off hand, but I definitely remember when it happened.
5. Oakland Fires 1991 (10 yrs old) - I remember going up in the hills and looking across the bay and seeing the hills on fire. I also remember thinking, "You know, a good way to put out those fires would be to lower a gigantic glass bowl over the top." This may have been inspired from a Twilight Zone episode though.
Notable events not on the list:
Challenger Explosion 1986 - I kinda remember talking about it in school, but not really. It was probably years later.
Chernobyl 1986 - no memory at all.
Tiananmen Square 1989 - I got nothin.
Age 5- In kindergarten learning left from right. Also in kindergarten, Reagan was shot and they announced it over the loud speaker, Allison showing me her new trick, kissing Stevie Hadlock.
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