(no subject)

[chess]

1. When John F. Kennedy was shot (22/11/1963)
My parents were children.

2. When Mt. St. Helens blew (18/5/1980)
Still significantly not born.

3. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded (28/1/1986)
Less than one year old, and somewhat less than aware.

4. The Hillsborough disaster. (15/4/1989)
Three. I have no idea of my awareness at the time, because later on lots of people have talked about it and so I remember those times instead.

5. When the Berlin Wall fell (7/11/1989)
Four. I have no particular memory of it. My parents were probably quite excited.

6. When Nelson Mandela was released from gaol. (11/2/1990)
Four still. I'm pretty sure I was aware of this one, on account of my parents being interested.

7. When Thatcher resigned (22/11/1990)
Five. I remember this whole affair quite clearly through TV images. My parents were following it quite avidly, although they were hoping that Labour would win the next election anyhow.

8. When the Gulf War began (16/1/1991)
Five still. I also remember this very clearly through TV news and my parents talking about it. But not anything of my surroundings at the actual time it started.

9. When Princess Di was killed (31/8/1997)
12. I remember catching some of the TV coverage, on account of being bored. One of my grandparents did the whole Collect Far Too Much Memorabilia thing. There were newspapers involved, too.

10. When Omagh was bombed (15/8/1998)
13. I'm not even sure what this refers to now; was this the Unabomber thing, or something different?

11. When Bush was first announced President (7/11/2000)
15. I remember reading stuff online about it and going 'aagh, doom' with a lot of people, and spending quite a while dissing Americans with Naath.

12. When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (11/9/2001)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/chess/2001/09/11/

13. When the Queen Mother died (30/3/2002)
I was at passage's. I don't think I even heard about it until my grandparent-who-likes-to-follow-royals waved a newspaper at me some time later. (Old people die. It's not a big thing.)

14. When Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas. (1/2/2003)
I was at home, being bored, but without the aid of news things. I heard about it mostly through the New Scientist article on it, and GROGGS, and other online stuff. Mostly decided it was a lot of fuss over very little; shuttles should blow up more often than they do, if you compare things like new aircraft.

In other news, I am spending too much time on the computer, and therefore I will grow up fat and lazy. Ho hum.

Comments

[cjwatson]

I think you may be thinking of Omaha (although that was Timothy McVeigh rather than the Unabomber).

Omagh is in Northern Ireland: the bombing was the first major outing of the Real IRA, and was one of the worst attacks in the history of the Troubles, killing nearly thirty people. Also, it was notable for being preceded by several false phone warnings, which meant it was totally implausible that it was meant for any other purpose than killing civilians, unlike many other bombings which at least went through the motions of pretending to be mainly attacks on property.

My mum grew up near Omagh, and we still have some family there, although fortunately none of them were around at the time.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

You were *three* when Hillsborough happened!?!?! But, but...

(I lived near Sheffield and was a Wednesday supporter, and was almost 7. It's surprising how big a difference there is between 3 and 7 that there isn't between 18 and 22.)

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

You were almost exactly six-and-a-half. (I was four). I'm not sure why you find the difference suprising - if you express the difference as a percentage of age it seems about right.

[(Anonymous)]

hey Michelle ty for the essay on macbeths defence, our teacher at school found it and gave it to the class as an example for our assignment. U must be very talented, it was great. I made a prosectution version of it ;)