Where were you when it happened?

[milk]

What new events were so significant to you that you remember where you were when they happened?
9/11/01 and the Space Shuttle Challenger for me.

[springrite]

What new events were so significant to you that you remember where you were when they happened?
9/11/01 and the Space Shuttle Challenger for me.

Challenger for sure. I was between class in college, and was excited that I got out of the classroom just in time as every screen on campus had the launch on it. Then... 

[milk]

Challenger for sure. I was between class in college, and was excited that I got out of the classroom just in time as every screen on campus had the launch on it. Then... 

I remember where I was. But also, the next year I attended my first year of university and started dating a girl who graduated from the high school in Concord where Christa McAuliffe taught. She said, if I remember correctly, that the whole high school was in an auditorium watching the event live! Can you imagine that!!!!

[Karl Henning]

Challenger for sure. I was between class in college, and was excited that I got out of the classroom just in time as every screen on campus had the launch on it. Then... 

I was in a laundromat in Weatherford, Oklahoma;  and there it was, on a TV screen hung from the corner of the ceiling.

[mn dave]

The big one was John Lennon. My dad woke me up to tell me. Thanks, Dad.  The whole school was bummed out the next day.

[Karl Henning]

The big one was John Lennon. My dad woke me up to tell me. Thanks, Dad.  The whole school was bummed out the next day.

I was driving to work at the bank in Parsippany.

[Todd]

9/11
Oklahoma City - out with my then girlfriend, now wife, and heard it on the radio as we were shopping.
Challenger - teacher interrupted class to announce it.
First Columbia landing - school assembly to watch it. 

[mc ukrneal]

I was actually watching the Challenger live.

Personally, I don't understand the need to remember where I was for this type of event. But then I don't understand why people go to cemetaries (I mean I do, but they can do the same thing anywhere).

[Todd]

Personally, I don't understand the need to remember where I was for this type of event.

Is there a need to, or at least a conscious need to?  I don't remember where I was on 9/11 because I want to remember, I just remember.  Maybe others can purge such memories.

[Gurn Blanston]

It's not an effort to remember the associations one has with momentous events. As Todd says, you don't havew to try, really. Here are some in MY life:

November 1963: we were off school for Thanksgiving week holiday. I was at a friend's house and we were playing with a engine powered model airplane, the sort that's on a string and you turn in circles with. His Mom came out and told us to come in and watch the newscasts about Kennedy being killed.

Challenger: I was just leaving the house and my wife and I were watching 'live' on TV because we always were interested in space events. It blew up before our eyes...

Sept 11 2001: I was at work. I was online arranging a delivery of flowers to my mother and my sister, both of whom have birthdays today. The radio in the background broadcast a bulletin, so I went to CNN's site and saw the second tower get hit, and then the first tower fall before the net got so overloaded I lost the feed. I said f--- this and went home...

Columbia: it was a Saturday morning, my wife was gone to the grocery store by the time I got up. I was checking my email when the dogs began barking weirdly. I turned the music off and could hear a non-stop sonic boom that lasted for many minutes. I went outside on the porch and it was deafeningly loud, bright sunshine but ground level fog so I couldn't see a lot. Some pieces landed in the trees in front of the house. It was hours before they would let my wife drive in the driveway...

I can easily remember many others, like John Lennon, and the attempted Reagan assassination, the "peace in Vietnam" event, Nixon resigning, but the top ones are most ingrained.

[springrite]

The big one was John Lennon. My dad woke me up to tell me. Thanks, Dad.  The whole school was bummed out the next day.

It was a short while after I arrived in the US from old communist China. I asked "who is John Lennon?"

[milk]

Columbia: it was a Saturday morning, my wife was gone to the grocery store by the time I got up. I was checking my email when the dogs began barking weirdly. I turned the music off and could hear a non-stop sonic boom that lasted for many minutes. I went outside on the porch and it was deafeningly loud, bright sunshine but ground level fog so I couldn't see a lot. Some pieces landed in the trees in front of the house. It was hours before they would let my wife drive in the driveway...

Wow! That's amazing.

[milk]

It was a short while after I arrived in the US from old communist China. I asked "who is John Lennon?"

That's also quite interesting. So, at that time, the general public in China would have had no idea who he was?

[springrite]

That's also quite interesting. So, at that time, the general public in China would have had no idea who he was?

I think John Lennon was the closest to a known pop musician in China, and that only because he sang for Deng Xiaoping during his visit to the US.

[Karl Henning]

Probably hadn't yet heard that line about "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,/You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow . . . ."

[springrite]

Probably hadn't yet heard that line about "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,/You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow . . . ."

Certainly did not prevent the population boom under Mao! Ha!

[Karl Henning]

Hah!

[mc ukrneal]

It's not an effort to remember the associations one has with momentous events.

I think this is the issue. I don't view most of those events as 'momentus' in the way you do. Maybe it sounds callous to others, but should they have the importance they have? I don't really believe in belaboring the past. Learn from it and move on (but that doesn't mean forget it either). For example, the death of Lennon was tragic, but I haven't a clue where I was when it happened. Same with Reagan assassination attempt. I remember the Challenger only because I saw it on TV, but I cannot tell you what day of the week or even time of year. I remember 9/11 because I was with other people at the time and they always talk about it. I don't understand that. It's a terrible event, but no less tragic than the thousands of other lives lost every year, and noone gives them the time of day.

[Karl Henning]

Viz. Lennon, sure, most of us have moved on.  I don't choose these strikingly clear memories;  I am just reporting them (per the OP).

9/11, cataclysm that it was, I don't think there's any moving on from, just yet.

[mn dave]

It's all moving on...