What would you say

[Camino LS6]

...are the two most significant events to occur in your lifetime?

For me:

Fall of the Berlin wall

9/11

[SAmadei]

...are the two most significant events to occur in your lifetime?

For me:

Fall of the Berlin wall

9/11

Based upon people in my family glued to the TV or rushing to the TV...

9/11

Second is a toss up between the Challenger explosion and Reagan's assassination attempt.

[balthazar]

My wife was in NYC on 9/11. I was driving to my brother's house to work for the day, heard Howard Stern break the first plane's impact. By the time I got to his house, we were watching it burn on TV. It never occurred to me the building would collapse until it did. I tore blindly across 3 counties at high rates of speed, high beams & hazards on, to where she worked normally, and thankfully got quick word they weren't in the usual building, which was # 7 WTC. I didn't hear from her until about 3PM. That'd be my #1.

I could go with the Challenger for #2.

[Robert Hall]

Probably 9/11 and the Challenger explosion. Was on vacation in AZ when 9/11 happened, got up in the morning and turned on the TV...was glued to it and the Internet for hours. I was in a high school current events class in Florida and saw the Challenger explosion live on CNN. Will never forget that date since it was on my Mom's birthday.

Closer to home, another Big Event I remember from childhood was the Three Mile Island accident. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a big deal also.

[Lamar]

9/11, of course.

Fall of the Berlin Wall... I remember being in elementary school and them making the announcement in the morning that Germany was no longer a divided nation... then playing some German music over the intercom. Carefree days...

Honorable mention would be the Beltway Snipers... I was in college, and half of my friends were from metro DC and were obviously scared for their families.

[knightfan26917]

9/11

Challenger

Cort | 36.m.IL | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker

MCs.Caprice | models.HO.legos.CHD.RadioShows | RTs.us66 = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort

"So much more aware" ... Linkin Park ... 'Numb'

[Lamar]

Seems most of us have similar responses so far.

[vonVeezelsnider]

9/11, I wasn't quite around yet when the wall came down.

Never going to forget that day- was in the 6th Grade. I was still asleep when it initially happened- my mom dragged me out of bed at quarter to seven in the morning and I was glued to the TV until I went to school.

[PONTIAC06]

definitely 9/11... I was in homeroom in 8th grade and we just stayed there watching it on the news until they closed the schools...

The fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union are other big ones, but I wasn't old enough to personally remember them...

[daves87rs]

9/11

That happened days before my wedding....

[Camino LS6]

Interesting responses.

I chose mine based on the fact that we (and the entire world) have changed fundamentaly due to both 9/11 and the Berlin wall coming down.

I see those two events being largely responsible for the way we live today - the ripples are still washing across the globe.

I was deeply affected by both the Challenger and Columbia disasters, so much so that I wrote a tribute the day that the Columbia disintegrated. A friend placed it at the makeshift memorial at a NASA facility. As intense as those events were however, they didn't have the implications that 9/11 and the Wall did.

Edited April 24, 2010 by Camino LS6

[RjION]

7-20-1969 Landing on the MOON

[Camino LS6]

7-20-1969 Landing on the MOON

Now there's a contender!

[A Horse With No Name]

9/11

Challenger

Cort | 36.m.IL | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker

MCs.Caprice | models.HO.legos.CHD.RadioShows | RTs.us66 = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort

"So much more aware" ... Linkin Park ... 'Numb'

7-20-1969 Landing on the MOON

Interesting responses.

I chose mine based on the fact that we (and the entire world) have changed fundamentaly due to both 9/11 and the Berlin wall coming down.

I see those two events being largely responsible for the way we live today - the ripples are still washing across the globe.

I was deeply affected by both the Challenger and Columbia disasters, so much so that I wrote a tribute the day that the Columbia disintegrated. A friend placed it at the makeshift memorial at a NASA facility. As intense as those events were however, they didn't have the implications that 9/11 and the Wall did.

[A Horse With No Name]

I would say Moon landing #1, and #2 the energy crisis of 73 and 78...because we haven't faced our known energy needs yet, and the implications of a horrid energy shortage actually outweigh 9-11 and the Berlin Wall in my mind.

But 9-111, Challenger, and Berlin are all significant....I was standing on the deck of the Arizona in Perl harbor when the whole Challenger thing was going on...

Chris

[Camino LS6]

Can't say I agree about the "Arab Oil Embargos" ( as they were known at the time) being quite that significant.

But we may be in for an industrial strength version before too long - and that might qualify.

[A Horse With No Name]

Can't say I agree about the "Arab Oil Embargos" ( as they were known at the time) being quite that significant.

But we may be in for an industrial strength version before too long - and that might qualify.

It's significant because we've spent 35 years putting our head in the sand. it's also significant because we've sent so much of our working capital overseas to buy crude.

I'll stick with my original thought, sir.

Chris

[Camino LS6]

I can see your point generally, I guess I just don't see those events themselves as direct causes.

You are certainly right about the decades of cranio-silica insertion.

[A Horse With No Name]

I can see your point generally, I guess I just don't see those events themselves as direct causes.

You are certainly right about the decades of cranio-silica insertion.

What is significant to me is that we have gone from the nation of can do, which Won World war II and rebuilt Europe and Japan...to the nation of head up our ass and can't do.

Which is why I rant and rave so much in the politics forum-both the left and right in this nation make me ill...and we don't have the political or personal will to do ANYTHING in terms of facing our problems through the front door. The energy crisis in my mind marks this shift in our nation...I saw it as a young boy, and it has made me ill ever since...

Chris

[Camino LS6]

Is it any wonder that I'm an advocate of third parties?

[A Horse With No Name]

I'm damn near with you there brother...the greatest rock and roll song ever IMHO is won't get fooled again by the who...in which IIRC they are critical of both the left and the right.

Johnson was a war criminal who lied to us and got us into Viet Nam, Bush 43 was a War Criminal with his actions in Iraq.

I'd like to be represented by someone non criminal....and methinks I'd get that in a third party if one were a rational possibility...

[Camino LS6]

"Meet the new boss..."

[A Horse With No Name]

The new boss is exactly who I want to meet...and I don't want him (or her) to be the same as the old Boss.

I'm proud of my nineteen year old, she couldn't vote for either party in the last election so she voted for Nader instead. She's not a fan of Nader at all, but she feels the same way that you do about both parties...

Chris

[Camino LS6]

Good for her!

[GMTruckGuy74]

I often think back to the WTC bombings in '93 and the Oklahoma City bombing because those were terrorist attacks in my country, something we weren't familiar with in our own backyard (I was a senior in high school in '93 and a sophomore in college during those two attacks). 9/11 deeply affected me, as with many others here, and I agree with camino's statement that it changed our world entirely. Personally, the Columbine school shooting has had an impact on me because that occurred within my profession/career, and as such many changes were made after that that I didn't face as a student in school (lockdowns, bomb drills, emergency evacuation plans <not fire drills>, etc). Challenger, as I was 11 or 12 y-o at the time, and then Columbia a few years back, had their impacts on me too.

[regfootball]

9/11 (at work)

challenger (in the school library on TV)

Hinckley assass.

those seem to come to mind the most right now.

what i specifically recall was after 9/11, everyone hunkered down in their homes like a bunker for days sort of. all the news was about 9/11 and all you could see on TV or the internet was about 9/11. if we didn't have the internet at that time, lots of folks would have felt disconnected, and any country that was attacking us could seriously overtake our population without any of us knowing much about it if they had knocked out TV as well. a very disconcerting situation with mass uncertainty could surely occur when the country is disrupted like that.

[Camino LS6]

Have the answers to this question changed for anyone?

[CanadianBacon94]

i was too young to really comprehend 911, first grade, but i know it is a very significant event in that it changed the way we thought about air travel, and the way air travel was dealt with, security wise.

not sure about a #2 though

[Turbojett]

9/11 seems an obvious choice. everybody was impacted by that in one way or another, be you scared, saddened, angered, or all three.

Though they happened in my lifetime, things like the Challenger explosion, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Collapse of the Soviet Union or the first Gulf War all happened when I was a kid. I do remember the first George Bush and him pronouncing Saddam Hussien's name wrong (Saad'm HOO sain). Come to find out in my adult years he did that on purpose as a thinly veiled insult.

I remember being a young teenager in the mid - late 90's, wanting to rage against the establishment. I thought I was a badass hardcore punk rocker, but honestly I don't even think I fooled my dog. I remember making fun of Bill Clinton when he was impeached, hoping he'd get axed. But then I grew up and grew a brain, and now I kinda wish we had somebody else like him with his tenacity and work ethic, who knew how to beat a deck stacked against him and get things done, instead of the spineless jellyfish we have in office now, or these hypocrite elitist xenophobes all trying to muscle him out.

God, I hate politicians.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Turbojett

[G. David Felt]

First was the family friend who died in my arms in 1989 coming back from a fishing trip to the Kamloops,CA

Second was the Seattle earthquake Feb 28th 2001.