Can you recall exactly where you were when you learned of a major historical event and what was it?

9/11 I was on holiday driving when i heard the first news report on the radio. We drove straight back to our villa, sat in a group around the TV and watched as events unfolded, in complete silence and disbelief at what we were witnessing. Nobody moved from there for about 3 hours…i’ll never forget that.

@iammia We watched 9/11 at the stock brokerage where my s/o works, standing alongside a broker who had just left the WTC to take a job with a local bank. We got there a little after the first plane and watched the second plane hit live.

All of these are still very fresh in my mind.

Kennedy assassination – Watching Mighty Mouse Cartoon
Landing on the moon – At home watching on TV
Skylab 2 was a pretty big deal to me watching the first manned space “lab/station” cruise across the night sky.
Reagan assassination attempt when I was in the lunch line in college.
I’ll never forget sitting in rush hour traffic when the news broke about Clinton’s cigar.
Of course 9/11 I was sitting in an airplane as news broke about the planes being flown into buildings.

I was living in NY and working for a newspaper when I learned that JFK had been shot. In fact, I was the “copyboy” who pulled the bulletin that he was dead off the AP and UPI wires. As a native Texan who was extremely familiar with the area in downtown Dallas where it happened and who had an uncle who was one of his advisors, I felt very close to the trajedy.

Nixon resigning – I was 4, watching my grandfather’s grim face as Nixon made his speech on TV.

Elvis dying – I was 8; I saw it on the news and my aunt snorted at it.

John Lennon’s murder – I was11 and watching the football game (not by my choice, may I add) when Howard Cosell announced it. I forced my cousin away from the set and tuned into the CBS report with Douglas Edwards. Then I woke my aunt and told her. She at first thought I meant Paul and was freaking out, then when I corrected her, she looked sort of resigned and said, “Oh. Yeah. He said something like that would probably happen to him,” and then turned her back. I cried myself to sleep and was very sad. All my female teachers were crying about it the next day.

Reagan getting shot – I was still 11. I was in school, and the secretary got on the PA to tell us. We were all sent home immediately. Some of the older kids at my school made some pretty rude remarks and were given in-school suspensions. I went home and watched Frank Reynolds on TV. The bit where Haig went on about being in charge made me laugh. Even I saw he was being a tool.

Challenger explosion – I was 16. One of the science teachers at my school had made it to the semi-finals of the competition to go. She was so disappointed over not making it. But the day came and we all crowded in her room with the TV to watch. When those trails split in two, you could’ve heard a pin drop. A moment later, she rushed out of the room, heaving sobs, and the biology teacher had to yell to maintain order.

I was 22 when I saw the Gulf War start on TV at my college apartment on CNN and remember being absolutely shocked that it was actually happening. I was telling all my friends in the days before that I thought what was happening over there was none of our business, but I remembered that realpolitik (we want access to the oil) trumps everything else. :/

9/11. I was 31, living in NY, at work. It was not a good day. For all these years I thought it was the South Tower I saw fall, and I will correct it, it was the North Tower I saw falling, and that was the tower where the two people I knew at Windows on the World were trapped and died in.

When I was a kid I recall my mother and some friends talking. One of the friends admitted that he couldn’t recall where he was when he heard that JFK was shot and my mother was flabergasted. I remember at the time I could not comprehend an event so impactful that I would be surprised if somebody didn’t know where they were when they heard about it.

This concept seemed alien to me until 9/11. I was at work, I will never forget it and if I meet somebody 40 years from now that was alive at the time and doesn’t recall where he was, I will be as shocked as my mother was.

I was at work at Subway when the 911 happened.

When the Apollo rocket that carried Neil Armstrong took off, I was standing in a meeting room in a lodge at summer camp. When 9/11 first started, I was lying in my bed listening to the news. I was sick that day. When Kennedy was assassinated, I was in a classroom, I think. I remember being on the street outside my house during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember because my parents went over to a neighbor’s to watch TV. We didn’t have one and they never watched. I knew this was important (memorable) because my parents had never done such a thing before.

I saw the second tower fall out of the window from my high school in Brooklyn. I was at home pregnant when Obama was elected.