Earliest Memory of Seminal News

I was just nine when King George V1 died. A teacher came into the cloakroom at school, where I was washing my hands. He told us that the king was dead.
In 1953 Neville Duke became the holder of the World Air Speed record. We were taken from school to the promenade to hear the breaking of the sound barrier.

Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation on our newly rented TV

Whoops - my spelling of assassination looks as though I have an adenoid problem!

I remember Princess Margaret's wedding -possibly because my mother deeply admired her dress ,tiara and hair .
She had enormous respect for the late Queen , but she thought that her dress was too fussy and not chic .
I think that Princess Margaret set a trend for Royal brides .

Later , I recall the assasignation of Kennedy with shock . And cried when I saw his little son salute him at his funeral .

I recall the funeral of Churchill - an irreplaceable leader -the saviour of the Nation .

But the news item that filld me with horror was the tragedy of Aberfan .

Munich air crash 6th February 1958

This is a really interesting question. My earliest memory is (what I now realise) the moon landing in 1969. I remember playing outside and being called in to watch the TV and being told we were watching world history. I watched the TV for a while, quite unimpressed and went back outside to play, which was far more interesting. I'd have been almost 5 years old.

I also remember Elvis and John Lennon dying but not JFK.

Aberfan happened on my first birthday, my mum was terribly upset by it and we talked about it when I was older, and a young mother myself.

I'm sure there are more. I'll clear my mind (not too difficult) and see if anything else occurs. 🙄

The pictures of the opening up of Belsen concentration camp, the piles of bodies with some limbs still moving. I was about 10 at the time. It haunts me still.

Aberfan for me too I would have been 6 years old. Another that sticks in my mind is the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967 when an oil tanker ran aground and leaked an enormous amount of crude oil into the English channel .

The bombing of Coventry (1940). I was about 3 and I remember my Dad carrying me up the air-raid shelter steps to see the glow in the sky from the burning buildings (we lived about 25 miles away). I didn't know what it was all about but my Aunt and Uncle lived in Coventry, fortunately not near the centre.

The Smallpox epidemic, I used to have nightmares about catching it and having to go into isolation; I was convinced I would have to sleep in a hammock packed with ice and strung up several feet off the ground.

the announcement of the death of king george V1. in 1952. maybe memorable because it was my fathers' birthday, february 6. i was eleven and staying with an aunt and uncle and can still picture coming downstairs and being told that the king had died.

I can remember the coronation. I was three and remember the street party we had. Also the poor monkey that was sent into orbit. I was so upset about it. Can’t remember the date though.

Watching the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. We didn’t have a tv so we went to a friend!s house a few miles away.I remember my dad pushing me in a pushchair and my mum by his side with my baby brother in his pram. A very exciting day!

Watching mother reading the news about the finding of the concentration camps by the allies. She told me what she was so shocked about. I can't remember what she said or how much I understood at the time but I know that's what it was. I must have been four.

@Bijou,
The general Strike was in 1926, not 1936.
My mum was born just a few days after it finished, May 1926!
Mum would have turned 97 this year, so you must have been a very advanced child to remember it!

First man on the moon; I was 7 and my mum got me up early hours of the morning to watch it - she told me when I was older I would realise how important and significant it was to actually see on TV as it hapened - and she was right.
Our next door neighbour was round ours watching it as they didn't have a TV and she was really disappointed not to see little aliens running around - even at 7 and half asleep as I was I thought , "how stupid....."

King George VI death.

The late Queen’s Coronation in 1953 . The first ( and I think last) Street Party I went to. I was 7.

Was living with my mum in Bournemouth where she had a job in a hotel. The owner sat me in a huge lounge to watch a Royal event on a big TV, much larger than ours. Don't remember if it was a Christening or wedding but it was in 1960 or 1961

The Coronation of our late Queen. We went to a neighbours to watch on her little black TV. My parents bought me a replica of the gold coach. Don't know what happened to it!

Ohh that's brought a memory of shopping with my grandma, I was 9, and she was always saying to me 'so what's that in proper money' I used to look at little charts, if I didn't no to tell her 😊

JFK assassination
All the Royal babies born in 1964, (same time as my sister)
Churchill’s funeral
Great Train Robbery
Aberfan
1966 World Cup
The first moon landing (my brother was born during the following week)

GrandmaSeaDragon

Coming home from secondary school and hearing about Aberfan, October 1966.

This is mine too.

My husband's is The Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967.

I remember my mother and her two sisters (my aunties) sitting in the large house where we lived five minutes walk from Notting Hill Gate, they were talking about something that sounded scary to me. This was in 1960 and I was nearly five.
They were discussing a horrible man called Christie who had also lived in Notting Hill Gate at a previous time. If I remember correctly he was hung in 1953 for the murders of several women and also an innocent man was hung as his wife was found dead although it was later found that she was one of the victims of Christie.

The election of JFK to the presidency is 1960. The nuns at my school were all a-twitter about such a momentous event - the first Catholic president!