What is the first major news event you were aware of as a child?

Think it was the Apollo 8 launch (first orbit of the moon). My mother (and I) watched it on television.
 
My earliest news memory would be of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, June 1953. I remember being glued to the TV watching the pomp and circumstance. Yeah, I was 3 1/2 years old, which is why it sticks out so prominently in my memory. To see all the marching soldiers and such, it was like watching a live fairy tale.

As for the Moon landing, I watched that from the jungles of Vietnam, no TV, just my eyes looking at the moon thru the canopy. I was on radio watch when they announced the landing. I did not see the actual film footage until early 1970, when I returned to 'The World'.
 
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The first event I remember as a child is the Yum Kippur war, I understood they were fighting in the Middle East, and I remember there being rationing of gasoline from the OPEC oil embargo in 1973. I was born in 1966. I also have a very vague memory of seeing the Moon landing on TV in black and white but I cant say for sure about that one.
 
Not sure which one I first became aware of but I remember the one that I first became interested in.
April 30th 1980 was the day the public as a whole learnt of the Special Air Service & I watched with utter fascination as black clad figures entered the Iranian Embassy amidst explosions, dust & smoke.
 
Apollo 11 Moon landings clear as a bell, weird dim memories of lots of Vietnam war news footage (Always get's shivers listening to copters overhead/nearby). Damn I'm feeling old (that's because you are and you look and feel it :cool:)
 
The day John F. Kennedy was shot (day after my sixth birthday)... I remember my mom crying about it...
 
Like many of you, probably the moon landings. I would have been 3 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. I have one vague memory of watching it on a black and white TV. I think we were at the beach.

I remember the day Elvis died. I'm not a big Elvis fan, but his death was a big deal here in the U.S. I also remember Nixon resigning.
 
I was 9 years old when Apollo 11 landed. It happened in the middle of the day in Australia, and my dad wouldn't let us go to school. He said watching the landing on TV was too important. He was right. Scratchy black and white images. It was amazing, even for a kid.
 
Hmm, the collapse of the Reichsbrücke in Vienna 1976 (I was 5 years old).
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I also remember Jimmy Carter´s election that year (I was in the US that year and remember the ads).
 
The bridge was damaged in the war (not sure if the germans tried to blow it up, or just russian artillery or allied bombing).
Anyhow it was the only danube bridge standing and was hastily repaired using shoddy concrete that was washed out over time.
Luckily it collapsed in the early morning.

The building in the background is the UN building still being built.
 
No doubt in march 24, 1976, when I was 12 years old.
The coup in Argentina, the military took over the government.
In fact, this dictatorship led us to war with England 6 years later.

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Troops circulate through the streets: looks behind the Government House.
 
A lot more recent than all of your's, mine is the 911 attacks. I was 5, i think we heard on the radio about the first impact, me and my family were on our way to a shopping centre, once there we saw live on a TV in a bar the second impact. I remember the news for the next week kept showing the images over and over.

I think the next big "event" is the Iraq war, i remember the images of the initial stikes very clearly.
 
Just remembered the terrorist attacks in the Atocha train station in Madrid in 2004.
 
when I was pretty young around 6 I remember seeing pictures from the conflict on the newspaper that was left on the front door. One picture that I cant find but remember seeing to this day it was a american soldier inside a building who was sitting down and holding up a fake head on a stick with his helmet on it.
 
Two things stick out in my mind :
The very first recollection I have of anything is looking out of a window of an airplane - turns out that this was the flight to Singapore on a Dakota in 1963 when I was a year old!!

July 20th 1969 - six yrs old and I remember being woken up by my dad to watch the first moon landing on a b/w telly in the army quarters we were stationed in, Gielenkirchen, Germany.

Steve
 
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