What was the earliest big news story you remember hearing about ?

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
For me, I think it was the Aberfan disaster in 66 when I was about 11 years old... I kept thinking the same thing was going to happen at our school too even tho' we didn't live in Wales nor did we have any coal mining near us..

The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip at around 9:15 am on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil and overlaid a natural spring. A period of heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed the local junior school and other buildings. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.

There were seven spoil tips on the slopes above Aberfan; Tip 7—the one that slipped onto the village—was begun in 1958 and, at the time of the disaster, was 111 feet (34 m) high. In contravention of the NCB's official procedures, the tip was partly based on ground from which water springs emerged. After three weeks of heavy rain the tip was saturated and approximately 140,000 cubic yards (110,000 m3) of spoil slipped down the side of the hill and onto the Pantglas area of the village. The main building hit was Pantglas Junior School, where lessons had just begun; 5 teachers and 109 children were killed in the school.



So what was the first big new story ..doesn't have to be a tragedy or a disaster... that you remember hearing as a child..
 

The Polio vaccine.
I didn't comprehend the situation at that time, but I felt how much everyone was celebrating, whether they knew each other or not. All strangers so happy about it, was an unusual and noticeable feeling to experience, a sense of everyone being involved with appreciating something.
 
I think I was about 5yrs old when I heard my Mother talking to my older brother on the phone. All of a sudden I heard her screaming. My brother had called to tell her he got his Draft notice, it was during the Korean war. For the next few years nothing was the same until my brother finally came home.
 

The one I remember at the moment was the start of the Korean War. I was at a movie and there was a newsreel about it. In the newsreel, the announcer kept talking about guerilla fighters. I was looking at the screen as hard as I could but I couldn't spot any gorillas.
 
I can't remember a day in my early, preschool life when I did not know about the Holocaust. I always knew, it was always in the background, it was always part of life.

I also vividly remember Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement. Big topic of conversation.

Watching the news and hearing it discussed was important in my family.
 
1962, Cuban Missile Crises
Yea, we've been hearing it for years...blab, blab, blab

Whoa! these guys are serious about lobbing A-bombs.

Had I know Khrushchev was dealing with a mad dog I would have been much more frightened.
Two decades later found out Castro was willing to lob A-bombs on the U.S. knowing his island would be incinerated.
 
I was a tiny girl, much too young to be interested in the news, but a picture of a very glamorous woman on the front of my parents newspaper caught my eye, I’ve never forgotten her

Ruth Ellis (9 October 1926 – 13 July 1955) was a British model and nightclub hostess. She was the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, after being convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely.
 
Wren said:
I was a tiny girl, much too young to be interested in the news, but a picture of a very glamorous woman on the front of my parents newspaper caught my eye, I’ve never forgotten her

Ruth Ellis (9 October 1926 – 13 July 1955) was a British model and nightclub hostess. She was the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, after being convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely.
Click to expand...
She died the year I was born !!
 
I remember sitting in front of the television set when it was announced to President Kennedy had just died. I was 4 years old sitting in front of our black-and-white television set the only television we had in the house. The entire neighborhood was completely silent it was pretty bizarre.
 
Sassycakes said:
I think I was about 5yrs old when I heard my Mother talking to my older brother on the phone. All of a sudden I heard her screaming. My brother had called to tell her he got his Draft notice, it was during the Korean war. For the next few years nothing was the same until my brother finally came home.
Click to expand...
I remember when my brother came home from the Korean War, he never ever talked about the war ever, but it was a celebration at our home.
 
I have vague recollections of Sputnik and Hawaii's statehood, but the Kennedy/Nixon election aftermath is seared in my memory. My parents voted for Nixon, which itself wouldn't have been quite forgettable for a seven year old, except that my mother was so disappointed by his behavior after the election. She said he was a sore loser whose actions after the elections proved that he wouldn't have been a good president anyway.

Time proved her right.
 
Mine was in 1951, in Cleveland, Ohio, a little girl by the name of Beverly Potts disappeared... and was never found.
That front page news story haunted me for the longest time, as I was a couple years younger at the time.
Back then, I couldn't understand how that could happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Beverly_Potts

Aftermath...
The enduring mystery of Potts' apparently random disappearance and the extensive investigation quickly captured the imagination of the press and by extension the entire city, becoming notorious especially among parents fearful for their own children's safety. It has since become one of Cleveland's most well-known missing-persons cases.[2] Thea Gallo Becker, author of Legendary Locals of Cleveland, says that it "remains one of the most haunting and heartbreaking mysteries in Cleveland history."[11]
Potts' mother died in 1956—her demise reportedly hastened by "heartbreak" over her daughter's disappearance—and her father in 1970. Beverly's only sibling, Anita, continued to search for her until her own death in 2006.[12]There is a memorial marker to Beverly situated next to the graves of her parents.[2][9]
 

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