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Historic events you've experienced in person

R

rousseau

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Anything?

Outside of being aware of 9/11 and almost having flights cancelled due to the Iraq war.. I can't think of much.
 
I was present at the birth of the man who became Prime Minister of Canada in 2054.

Other than that, no.
 
I remember when Captain Kangaroo was preempted by the Kennedy inauguration, which is my earliest political memory.

Television may not really count, but it's almost like being there.

One truly surreal moment stands out. It was right after Nixon's 1972 election and Ralph Nader came to LSU to make a speech. The local TV station got him to record a sound bite. Nader read a statement for them, in which he declared that when the facts of the Watergate break in were revealed, President Nixon would either be forced to resign or be impeached. My immediate reaction at the time was that Nader had gone so far over the edge, no one would ever listen to him again.
 
I don't know what is being considered a "historic" event. Do you mean an event that books were written about, some event that was covered by the news media, an event that changed some peoples life? I can think of two - I participated in the defense of Hiep Duc during the Summer Offensive of 1969 and (I think is was the mid 1990s) I was camping in the state of Chiapas, Mexico when the Zapatista rebels took control of that area of the state. To be honest, I didn't know anything was happening in Chiapas until I was leaving and encountered a Mexican army barricade set up to defend against the rebels and discovered that the rebels had taken control while I was there and I had spent two weeks in the heart of a rebel held territory. After finally convincing the Mexican army that I was just a dumb gringo and not a Zapatista sympathizer, they let me go.
 
Having read lots of history and knowing what most historical events really are, I'm not entirely unhappy I've never been part of one!
 
I lived in Florida when the Challenger exploded.

I was in physics class when one of the other science teachers burst into the room and said "The Challenger exploded!" We went outside, and I could see the vapor trails of the explosion. I remember thinking that the vapor looked like a particular species of unicellular organism.
 
Does Butler's interception at the goal line count as a historical event? Of course, I wasn't there when it happened, but saw it live.

Otherwise, my life has only intersected the most mundane history that can be offered. Heck, I don't even know if I've been in the same state as a historical event. Speaking of which, what is a historical event considered to be?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Does Butler's interception at the goal line count as a historical event? Of course, I wasn't there when it happened, but saw it live.

Otherwise, my life has only intersected the most mundane history that can be offered. Heck, I don't even know if I've been in the same state as a historical event. Speaking of which, what is a historical event considered to be?
Click to expand...

If that counts, I was at the 1972 LSU-Ole Miss game, when on the last play of the game, Bert Jones took the snap with 4 seconds left on the clock. Running back Brad Davis caught the pass and fell across the goal with no time showing on the clock. This tied the score 16-16. The extra point gave LSU the win. I never saw so many grown men cry.
 
Came across a broken down train in Melbourne once. Then I read about it in the papers the next day. It happened after I saw the train. Or so the paper said.
 
I was on a sub, being a deterrent to nuclear aggression from the USSR when the Berlin Wall fell.

Sorry it took so long, we just FINALLY figured out what that button was for.
 
I lived through the 1974 flooding in South East Queensland. It was fun and we swam down the street. :D Yes, we SWAM down the street and into the pool at the bottom of the road, though there wasn't a pool down there at that stage.

The 1974 floods are equal to the 2011 flooding of Brisbane as well.
 
gmbteach said:
I lived through the 1974 flooding in South East Queensland. It was fun and we swam down the street. :D Yes, we SWAM down the street and into the pool at the bottom of the road, though there wasn't a pool down there at that stage.

The 1974 floods are equal to the 2011 flooding of Brisbane as well.
Click to expand...

I was in the  2003_Canberra_bushfires. My spouse even got sent home.
 
Oh, yeah, my wife and i were in Virginia Beach during the '89 riots.

We lived about a mile from Atlantic Avenue. We heard the music, the screaming, the loudspeakers, all clearly.

About midnight, we went to the beachfront area, but we couldn't decide which side of the riots to support, so we looted a candy store and went home.
 
I was inTripoli, Libya when Khadafi's coup occured. I was in school at Wheelus air-force base, the local US run air-force base. Due to riots and gunfire, we were kept there three days and left for Rome Italy via a USAF 'Flying Boxcar" cargo plane.
 
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