What is the first big news story you remember?

I think it was the moon landings for me too, although I don’t believe it happened now!!

Thé moon landing . I can remember our neighbours also my god parents telling me about it the next day.

Actually I’ve just looked up when Yuri Gagarin went into space because I remember that. It was 1961 so it was before Kennedy was assassinated, so my first memory was actually Yuri Gagarin going into space.

Meant to say Walking on the moon I was 6 .

Harold Wilson beating Alec Douglas Home in an Election (I think that's right)....somehow I remember the names but also thinking it was all very boring, when I was about 6

Not sure if it was Aberfan or JFK assassination

The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. I was 12, living in Oz and remember my mother coming into my bedroom and waking me up to tell me the news. It's interesting how many of our generation from across the globe recall this event so clearly.

Poppy red. Assassination of JFK is the first one I remember too. I was also 8 and probably watched the same news flash as you, as my parents always watched Doctor Finlay's Casebook. After that I clearly remember the shock of the Moors murders and Aberfan disaster,both also in the 60s.

I was aware of the coronation (party in village hall, a lovely smocked dress and a striped propelling pencil with a little crown on the top) but news-wise, I was at primary school when a little girl called Brenda Nash went missing and was found murdered. I think she must have been quite local to us (SW London) as our parents started making us go home from school in groups rather than alone. (parents actually picking you up from school wasn't done back then!)

The Profumo Affair when I was 13. I thought it all sounded very sordid (but a bit interesting too!!)

A very sad incident when, in the dark, a vehicle ran into the back of a troop of young naval cadets being marched back to their barracks in Chatham (it could have been Gillingham). There were deaths and injuries amongst these young men. I believe that after that incident, it became mandatory for lights to be carried at front and back of troops marching on roads. I was about seven years old at the time, 1951. Because it was a local incident (I lived in Gillingham at the time), it had a tremendous affect on the adults around me.

I have just found this in Wikipedia. There were seventeen young marine cadets killed and the vehicle was a double decker bus.

James Hanratty being hanged (1962), I was 5 and had little school friend with that surname and was worried it was her Dad but that she was too scared to tell anyone. Of course he wasn't her Dad at all but it's always stuck with me.

The Queens Coronation, I remember being disappointed because it was pouring with rain and I had to wear my coat over my fancy dress costume for the parade around our village.

Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independenc.
We talked about it in class.
And I vaguely remember the Queens coronation because there was a street party.

This is an excellent topic which really made me think. I remember the assassination of JFK and also the Great Train Robbery but nothing before that.

Reading these messages, I see that Kennedy`s assassination was before the funeral of Churchill, so I will say that was the first news story that I really remember. I was in our sitting room and we all heard it on the TV. I remember the shooting of Bobby Kennedy better, I was at school at the time and we were outside on our break. The headmistress announced the news.

Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence was 1965!
Some of my student friends went back home there around that time (they were a year or two older than me).

I'm beginning to feel old.

The same as Poppyred, it was John F Kennedy. I also remember arriving home from school and my mum telling me about Aberfan.

The moon landing, when I was around 6/7

As an avid reader I remember the headlines in the newspaper about the Profumo Affair but didn’t understand it as the vocabulary was unknown to me. I asked my mum but her reply was that Christine Keeler was ‘a naughty woman’ - I still didn’t understand what it was all about - the innocence of childhood!

i think it was kennedys assassination, i'd been to brownies and wondered why the normal tv programmes were not on. the biggest impact was without doubt ,aberfan, i was 10.

Margot Fonteyn being arrested and thrown into gaol somewhere in Latin America. I mainly remember my mum ranting about about ballerinas being unlikely to overthrow governments. I didn't understand what overthrow meant and had a very strange mental image of tutus and cricket balls. I think I must have been about four.

Winston Churchill's funeral. I was 3 so I think it must be my first ever memory of anything.

Really! Who cares!!