What event in your life stands out in your memory?

Susie

Susie

Member
Location
Australia
Never even thought about this event until my later years.
Maybe some of you were there?
The event was the opening of the very first VW plant.
I was just a little kid then (8 or 9), and grandad took me there by train.
There were 1000's of people, standing room only, and the only place we could find was on the other side of the canal, hedged in by many others.
We couldn't see a thing, but did hear the "would-be" world conqueror "braying" thru a microphone!
 

OH my goodness sooo many personal ones I could relate here, but more relatively recently was the sudden death of Princess Diana, it was such a shock.

I had got up for work about 5am and turned the tv on which was still on a shopping channel I'd been watching before I'd gone to bed, and all there was on the channel was a picture of the Union Flag, I thought something had happened to the Queen and quickly changed channel to the News,..along with millions I was totally stunned to hear that Diana had been killed in a car accident just hours before. Such a waste of a young life, and something most of us in the UK will never forget.
 
Leaving out personal events I would say I cannot forget the assassination of JKF.

I cried. I remember the death of Diana too and was so impressed by the outpouring of love from the English people at her funeral. Watching her cortege move slowly through a hail of flowers was very moving.

But the event that I remember with excitement and joy is the first lunar landing when Armstrong and Aldrin descended the steps and walked on the surface of the moon. I was entranced and exhilarated. A moment in history I'm grateful to have witnessed.
 

Many personal ones but also the assassinations of JFK, RFK, the death of Princess Diana. And on a happier note, watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964 just before my 12th birthday.
 
There are two that really stand out in my mind. One didn't happen in my lifetime and that wasn't part of the question, so I am going to say that Pearl Harbor and the jets flying into the WTC would be a tie. I studied to great lengths the events of WWII because of my Dad's involvement, but also because U.S. History was one of my majors the first two years of college. Of course, there are several others.
 
I remember watching the TV at my uncle's house when the news of Kennedy's assassination hit the news. I was also watching the TV when we saw live the second plane to hit the twin towers, that was so shocking! As for Diana, I had a premonition three days before she died that she was about to do so, and dismissed it as preposterous. Goodness knows why that should flash into my mind, I never liked the woman, and thought the reaction to her death was OTT, and then some!
 
Didn't mention 911 but try not to think about that one. As a newbie to the UK when it happened it's the only time I felt homesick and wished I could be with other Americans.
 
Yes the 911 disaster was so shocking and unexpected. I was driving down a quiet country lane on a Sunny day, no-one around for miles when I heard the news on the radio. I just caught that there had been 2 planes involved in a 'crash'' and I don't know why but I immediately looked up into the sky (simply because I hadn't heard where it was I suppose)...there was a blue cloudless sky..so I called my daughter and she told me that it had been reported that 2 passenger planes had crashed into the twin towers .

I didn't get to understand the level of devastation until I got home and saw it all on the news!!:(
 
The day that stands out for me is the 7/7/05 London tube train bombings, these happened at 8.50am and when the news started to filter through I knew that my eldest son who lives in London would have been on the Kings Cross tube on his way to work.

Despite several phone calls between myself, my daughter and my youngest son we couldn't get through anywhere to find out anything, some of the mobile phone companies and landlines had switched off.

At 2.30pm that afternoon my eldest son managed to phone me to let me know he was safe and as it happened that although normally he would have been on the Kings Cross train, that morning he had decided to go into work later than usual.

I would never want to live through those hours again.

http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-london/77-london-bombings
 
Bee, my husband was on the Tube behind the train that was bombed on his way to work.

They stopped his train in the middle of the track 2 stations before KX and had everyone get off and walk along the line. No-one knew what was happening they were just told there was a fire in the next station.

When they came out on the upperground there was a double decker bus on fire, and police and fire fighters everywhere, so my husband thought it must be a crash of some sort, and continued on his way to work, not realising that I would be at home watching it on the news as a terrorist report so didn't attempt to even call me.

I was at home desperately trying to call him to see if he was safe..because by all accounts he would potentially have been on the bombed train there was only 3 minutes between them..but of course I couldn't get through to him ...it was mid-day before I could get him, and I was damn near having heart failure by then!!
 
Bee said:
The day that stands out for me is the 7/7/05 London tube train bombings, these happened at 8.50am and when the news started to filter through I knew that my eldest son who lives in London would have been on the Kings Cross tube on his way to work.

Despite several phone calls between myself, my daughter and my youngest son we couldn't get through anywhere to find out anything, some of the mobile phone companies and landlines had switched off.

At 2.30pm that afternoon my eldest son managed to phone me to let me know he was safe and as it happened that although normally he would have been on the Kings Cross train, that morning he had decided to go into work later than usual.

I would never want to live through those hours again.

http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-london/77-london-bombings
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How scary for you!! I was very active on an American expats forum at the time and many of them lived in London. So everyone was checking up on those who hadn't checked in to the forum. My niece was also coming from the US the next day for a 6 week university course.

I remember that week well. I was home from work with shingles. It was the day before that the announcement came out that London was chosen for the 2012 Olympics and everybody was happy. I had also just found out that my first grandchild was booked to be born (Caesarian) on the 14th.
 
One of mine was also the death of Diana..my dog started howling..which he never did..thinking he was ill I got him up to the bedroom so I could keep an eye on him..Turned on the TV..I was shocked to the core..

The 9/11 disaster..I was watching about 9 o'clock.when the first plane hit...but when the second one hit..I remember saying ''This is world war!''

Last one was more personal..I worked in a research laboratory as a metallurgist....In an experimental metal melt...one of my jobs was to take samples of the slag for analysis..I did this every day..but this one particular day I felt a feeling of fear..And didn't go in..

One of the workers was talking to me outside..when all of a sudden it sounded like a bomb had gone off..fire hurricanes rising into the air...next to the research station was a field of cows all going nuts..hot metal dropping like rain..I ran under a tree and continued to watch..I was stupified..men trying to get their boots off..clothes on fire..I could not move..
 
It was a research station just outside Alvechurch near Birmingham..

Called ''The British Cast Iron Research Association''

I think the BCIRA still exists..but this one was closed down..
 
Even though my mom and dad were divorced at the time, the day my dad came home from fighting in Iwo Jima was a very special day for me. I can remember everyone in my little town celebrating the end of WW2. I was 7 years old, at that time, and the memory is still very strong in my memory.
 
Like most........JFK, 911 and the Beatles Ed Sullivan appearance is high on the list. But another one that is closer to home also stands out. Hurricane Camille hit the MS gulf coast back in 1969 when I was a teen. A cat 5 hurricane and one most storms were compared to up until Katrina in 2005. My brother was working on the coast that summer and I remember going down with him to look for an apartment. The first one we looked at is the one described in the article below. I think he passed on it because it was on the expensive side. But we both thought it would have been a fun place to live. Its the story of a hurricane party but one that is not totally true according to the article.

It was a heck of a storm. I remember going for a visit shorty afterward( I live in central MS) and the coast looked totally different.

http://camille.passchristian.net/hurricane_party.htm
 
A lot: JFK, first moon landing, Woodstock (did not attend), 9-1-1, graduation day at the Pennsylvania State Police Academy in Hershey, PA. And of course the normal things like the births of my kids and my wedding day.
 
Suez crisis, 1956. Mam and dad were in Syria, I was in England with grandparents. Oil pumping stations were blown up, mam was sent home while dad and other male workers were taken into the desert, kept there for a few days and then released and sent home.

June 1961, this time I was in Kuwait with my parents. Kuwait had become independent with the end of the British protectorate. Iraq was making claims that Kuwait was part of its territory and threatened to invade but backed down after British military intervention.
 
The JFK assassination -- I still remember exactly what I was wearing to work that day and exactly how the day unraveled.

Personally the worst was the riot in Washington, DC after the assassination of Martin Luther King. I worked in downtown DC and had to drive through it to get home. It seemed like the world had gone mad -- traffic at a standstill, fire everywhere and people breaking store windows and turning over cars and dragging people out. I was positively terrified. I made it through safely, but what would have been about a 45 minute drive home to suburban Maryland took me four of the longest hours of my life. By the time I got out of DC I was nearly hysterical with fear. It is a memory that has never grown dim, nor will it.
 
Of course the Assassination of JFK and 911 I will never forget. And losing friends during the Viet Nam war. The thing that sticks in my mind all the time is when I was 20 yrs old and my Grandfather who was 85 yrs old went missing at a festival my Aunt had taken him too. She had sat him on a bench and walked a few feet away to get him something to drink. When she turned around he was missing. That was the beginning of the most horrible month for the entire family. Many search parties went on during that month. I remember so clearly getting calls from people saying they thought they had seen him , and the entire family going out to search, sometimes in the middle of the night. Then after a month of him being lost a young boy ran through a field that he had run through everyday, but that day he ran in a different direction and tripped over my grandfather's body. I will never forget those horrible days.
 
The birth of my only children; Perfectly formed beautiful identical twin boys.

All grown up now and live close to me. Gainfully employed and have kids of their own.
 
Sassycakes said:
Of course the Assassination of JFK and 911 I will never forget. And losing friends during the Viet Nam war. The thing that sticks in my mind all the time is when I was 20 yrs old and my Grandfather who was 85 yrs old went missing at a festival my Aunt had taken him too. She had sat him on a bench and walked a few feet away to get him something to drink. When she turned around he was missing. That was the beginning of the most horrible month for the entire family. Many search parties went on during that month. I remember so clearly getting calls from people saying they thought they had seen him , and the entire family going out to search, sometimes in the middle of the night. Then after a month of him being lost a young boy ran through a field that he had run through everyday, but that day he ran in a different direction and tripped over my grandfather's body. I will never forget those horrible days.
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I can't even imagine what that must have been like and for a whole month at that! I certainly understand how that could be an unforgettable time in your life.
 

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