Have You Witnessed A Major Historical Or Current Event?

[NotHardUp1]

You make a fair point, but if access to 24 hour world news effectively means that we all witness everything, then the thread becomes pointless in a way. Everyone here is likely to remember the Orlando shootings earlier this year, so it would follow that we all witnessed that. Most are old enough to remember coverage of 9/11, some clearly remember the moon landings and the assassination of President Kennedy. No doubt one or two of the older members will recall the Relief of Mafeking or the Seige of Troy. One might as well just ask who is old enough to have seen what on TV.

It would be much more interesting from my point of view to hear from anyone who was present at one of these events or who had a personal connection tò it.

I concur that witnessed isn't much of a basis when reinterpreted to mean "viewed by broadcast." On the other hand, I grant that people SEEING a dramatic event in real time does impact them, even a thousand miles away and they experience it in a material way.

At any rate, I think Cormac's thread a good one and the discussion appealing. For my own part, l listed in-person experiences, even if a bit dull when not part of a bombshell story, as I do feel like I witnessed those world-changing bits first-hand as a participant.

 

[unloadonme]

I concur that witnessed isn't much of a basis when reinterpreted to mean "viewed by broadcast." On the other hand, I grant that people SEEING a dramatic event in real time does impact them, even a thousand miles away and they experience it in a material way.

I'm afraid I don't think that the real time aspect of this necessarily makes very much difference. I saw the election of President Obama in real time on TV and, whilst I can appreciate his significance as the first mixed-race US president, I remain to this day entirely indifferent about it. One can, however, see footage of events many years after they occurred and be very moved indeed. The Holocaust for instance and I would never suggest that I'd witnessed that.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Yet the destruction of the Twin Towers was seen real time and traumatized people in quite a different way than viewing documentary footage. The terror was immediate, threatening, and the outcome uncertain. One watching the Invasion of Normandy on newsreel may indeed be moved, but there is a true difference when watching in retrospect and knowing the outcome.

 

[G-Lexington]

Another weird example of "experiencing an event".

I was asked to take part in an all-day promotional event. One group was doing something tiki-bar related, and they wanted to go all-out for the launch. They got a bunch of plastic leis, and bowls of tropical punch, and I got some CDs of exotica music and whatnot. The employees put on Hawaiian shirts, and they planned to have this thing going on all day to promote this new business venture.

The day of the event? Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

I did watch a bit of the coverage that day, but it was filtered through this surreal prism of Polynesian music and kitsch. There was that slow realization that this was a Very Big Deal, and that it was probably not a good idea to continue this promotion that day. Slowly, the leis were put away, the punch taken to the back room, the music switched off. And I decided to walk home - six miles, but I wanted to think.

So my "experience" of 9/11 was, in a way, the same as everyone else's who watched it on TV. But in a way, it was very different.

Lex

 

[gsdx]

Perhaps 'experienced' would have been a better word than 'witnessed'. I was alive during many historical events, but I wasn't 'there' to see it happen in real life. Still, that doesn't diminish the fact that I experienced them and felt their impact.

I didn't witness the war of 1812, or the flight at Kittyhawk, or the crash of the Hindenburg, or the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II, but I've experienced them through reading about them or seeing video clips and so on. Not being there to witness them personally doesn't mean that I wasn't affected as much as if I had been there at the time.

 

[Kyanimal]

This happened last night.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/milwaukee-officials-call-calm-unrest-073812266.html?ref=gs

The gas station that burned is 5.5 blocks north of my house.

I was asleep, and knew nothing was happening until I read about it this morning.

I'm witnessing the aftermath, not the actual event, as close as it was/is.

 

[peeonme]

As a boy I lived in a small northern town in Michigan for a few years, a river ran from lake Michigan to the small lake that created the peninsula that about 6 city blocks of homes were built on.
As with most small towns, it was boring, you didn't watch the grass grow, you could hear it.

Then someone usually a kid on a bike would yell "it's the Fitz" our nick name for the Edmund Fitzgerald.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald

I can't tell you how many times we all (adult included) ran to the shoreline to view that ship and wave at the crew.
Looking back it seems so silly, but it's all we had, now it's history.

 

[gsdx]

Then someone usually a kid on a bike would yell "it's the Fitz" our nick name for the Edmund Fitzgerald.

This is an iconic Canadian song composed and sung by an iconic Canadian balladeer, Gordon Lightfoot. I don't know if Gordon is even known in the United States, so here he is. Enjoy:

 

[jbrown329]

This is an iconic Canadian song composed and sung by an iconic Canadian balladeer, Gordon Lightfoot. I don't know if Gordon is even known in the United States, so here he is. Enjoy:

Yes, Lightfoot is well known on this side of the border. Sundown, anyone? Or, If You Could Read My Mind?

 

[peeonme]

@gsdx, I am real familiar with Lightfoot and the ballad of the Fitzgerald. I have a friend who at one time played backup for Lightfoot.

Thanks for posting it!

 

[gsdx]

@gsdx, I am real familiar with Lightfoot and the ballad of the Fitzgerald. I have a friend who at one time played backup for Lightfoot.

Thanks for posting it!

No problem. The bell seen in the video is the actual bell from The Fitz. As far as I know, it's the only piece salvaged from the wreck. (A replica bell was put in its place.)

 

[G-Lexington]

This is an iconic Canadian song composed and sung by an iconic Canadian balladeer, Gordon Lightfoot. I don't know if Gordon is even known in the United States, so here he is. Enjoy:

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" peaked at number two on the US charts. So yeah, we knew him.

Lex

 

[Yooper]

This is an interesting thread.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days; most events I've witnessed have been through the Media.

However, first hand, a few come to mind (not counting huge blizzards, primarily local events anyhow).

When I was about 12(ish), I was at a Boy Scout Camp in Northern Wisconsin and a EF3 Tornado hit the camp. It got major media coverage because it was owned by the North Suburban Council (Chicago) and there were a LOT of Chicago kids there at the time. Our campsite got hit and a couple of trees went down on some of our tents but no injuries; in other campsites, several campers were injured but nobody killed.

When President Reagan was shot, I was living in the same hometown as the shooter. When it happened, I was the only person in our Church building, I was reorganizing the Church Library which had fallen into disrepair. As soon as the media found out where the shooter was from, the phone started ringing off the hook. I fielded probably 40 calls from all over the world from media people wanting to know if the dude was affiliated with our Church (he was not). I got to stop after I called the part time Church Secretary after about the first 10 calls and she came in to give a 'standard' media proof answer.

Lastly, I was highly affected by the Colorado Floods in September just couple of years ago. I made it in to work the first day, and heard on the radio that my route had collapsed behind me into a river just about 15 minutes after I had passed the collapse location. I worked my full day, but upon leaving, it took almost 4 hours (a normal 35 minute trip) to find the last open road to home. That route closed just 30 minutes behind me, leaving me stranded in my hometown for 3 days--no way in or out. My house is on high ground so wasn't at all affected by any water personally, but was stuck not being able to get anywhere for the next 3 days.

One of my work colleagues in those floods was actually very lucky. He was living in his home built 'Tiny House' parked on a river in a Canyon. He was woken up about 4AM by the sound of VERY LOUD rushing water, went outside and saw the river, normally 40 feet from his spot already had the one wheel underwater. He managed to hook up a winch on his truck to his house and drug it up the hill another 25 feet, by which time any escape route was gone. He and his wife and dog took off uphill where the waited 3 days to get noticed by a helicopter evacuation team, flag them down, and get transported out of there. His house and truck were safe, but it took until March of the next year for him just to be able to check if his house survived, and until July to be able to actually retrieve it.

I know there's one other event, but it escapes me at the moment.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I can't tell you how many times we all (adult included) ran to the shoreline to view that ship and wave at the crew.
Looking back it seems so silly, but it's all we had, now it's history.

The gawking phenomenon and the coast have always gone hand in hand.

The explosion of the Mont-Blanc in 1917 in Halifax harbor was multiplied many times in its consequence due to the spectacle of the burning ship and the timing. People were preparing for the day and once the burning ship was visible, much of the town either watched it from their homes or made their way to the docks to see it better. The following explosion met many of them face-first.

Gawking is no vice, and it is perfectly natural to watch a great ship.

 

[mikey3000]

I remember the news coverage on the TV of the murder of Princess Diana.

Yes, Diana's murder, that was a biggie. Chernobyl was significant too.

 

[72-Jay]

Nothing first hand, but there are things that happened not too far from home.
And plenty that I can sorta-clearly remember from TV news
1980 Mount St Helens Eruption (I remember there even being a thin layer of dust from it all the way in Colorado)
1981 Attempted Assassination Of President Reagan (only somewhat)
1986 Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion (this one being quite clear..even remember the fact I was watching it on the downstairs TV)
1986 Iran-Contra Affair (only somewhat)
1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (especially the pictures of oil-covered birds)
1989 Loma Prieta California Earthquake (only somewhat)
1991 Soviet Union Breakup (more-so the teacher in history class talking about you're watching history in the making)
1992 Landers California Earthquake (only somewhat)
1992 LA Riots (and wondering how far they'd spread outside LA)
1992 Colorado Amendment 2 Passed (remember even voting against it & tell some mis-truth's since everyone family/friends/etc voted for it)
1993 World Trade Center Bombing (only somewhat)
1994 Northridge earthquake (in particular the collapsed freeway pic's)
1995 Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing (just all the continuous TV coverage / video of damage)
1998 Matthew Shepard Killing ()
1999 Columbine Highschool Shooting (can clearly remember this one . even where I was when the 1st reports came over the radio .. what it was like driving home from home work that day, and also allot of stuff from the time period afterward too)
2001 9/11 (another where I remember where I was / what I was doing when I 1st heard, and also that there was this small B&W TV at work which was never used...I set it up & let it run so I could hear the news updates, also placed it so people passing by in the hall could see. )
2003 Space Shuttle Columbia Denigration (I almost remember the Challenger better)
2005 Hurricane Katrina (just the amazing amount of flooding/water/damage/it did)
2007 Virginia Tech Shooting (I remember Columbine better though)
2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (more the video than anything else)
2012 Aurora Theater Shooting (Even though also in CO, I remember Columbine more clearly...)
2012 Hurricane Sandy ()
2013 Boston Marathon Bombing (Main thing I remember is getting a note from a missed call at work saying a relative who'd done the race is ok/safe...I hadn't even heard about the bombing at that point, so I went straight to a computer to find out what was going on)
2014 Same-Sex Marriage Legalized In Colorado ()
2015 Same-Sex Marriage Legalized In The US ()
2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting (this one alittle bit brought back some of the memories from years ago when the Columbine one happened .. not really sure why.)

 

[jbrown329]

Well, I do remember this. And watched it unfold. As Al Franken (when he was on AAR) put it, "Spokane's gay, anti-gay mayor". It made a blip on the national news and even got a bit of coverage in Europe. I was one of the votes to recall him.

A Hidden Life
On May 5, 2005, the residents of Spokane, Washington, awoke to one of the strangest headlines in the town's history: "West Tied to Sex Abuse in '70s, Using Office to Lure Young Men." The popular, socially conservative Republican mayor of Spokane, Jim West, had been outed by the town's newspaper, which told the sordid story of a man with two lives: in public, he had once sponsored legislation forbidding gays from teaching in public schools, while in private, the paper alleged, he was trawling for young men online, using the trappings of his office to lure them into sexual relationships. But as bizarre as the revelations were, so too were the newspaper's methods. FRONTLINE producers Rachel Dretzin and Barak Goodman investigate the complex relationship between politics, sexuality, fear, and judgment in one all-American town.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/hiddenlife/

 

[gsdx]

Wow. Something I just remembered an historical experience that is taken for granted these days: colour television.

I still remember seeing the NBC peacock in colour for the first time.

 

[eastofeden]

I didn't even think about the 1989 Earthquake......and I experienced it first hand versus something I saw on TV.

I have a permanent reminder. A few days before the earthquake I went to Downtown Santa Cruz to an antique shop to buy this hand carved camel saddle dated 1904 that I was looking at for a few months and it is in the shape of a camel....and he has been one of my favorite things I ever bought. I see him every morning when I get up...but the shop he came from was demolished so he would have been burned or crushed in the rubble and fire a few days later...

...and then the carousel ride from the 1930s I was trying to find a place for as it was kinda big but they were holding it for me because I wanted it even if I had to sleep in it...in San Francisco in an old warehouse building on the 3rd floor....right across the street from where the freeway wall collapsed on the cars and I am not sure what happened to the building but I know it was damaged and condemned...and whatever was inside I suppose was either demolished or damaged..so no carousel ride. I was gonna pick it up the next week....

As for the earthquake itself...I am not too freaked out about them. Things shake..and fall..and if you are in the wrong place at the time you could die....but that is the story with anything in life. It happens so quick and lasts for only a short time even though it feels like it is longer....and then it is over. My house didn't do so well so we had a tent in the backyard for the aftershocks and our Chow Chow was freaked out..she kept trying to get under the covers in our very small tent..she looked like a lion....

 

[peeonme]

Most of us have an image and an approximate date of our first ejaculation, in my own time line of life, it was a historical ( and somewhat hysterical) event.
I think all guys would put that first orgasm in a category of the utmost significance.