s/o: what was the first human tragedy you knew about as a kid?

[AnnieW625]

The posts about wheter or not to tell you children about the Sandy Hook tragedy made me think of this.

I was 8/1/2 when the Challenger exploded. I remember going out for 9:15 recess and the teachers put the tv in the middle of the cafeteria. I think my entire class ended up sitting in the cafeteria and watch a bit of the news coverage. My brother was almost 6 and in kindergarten at the time. I don't remember telling him what happened, but my mom told us at home because we going to my brother's best friend's 5th birthday party that afternoon and we weren't to mention it.

Besides that I remember I seeing numerous airline hijackings on tv around the same time, but never no one being shot on TV. Just the terrorists opening the door and the planes sitting on the tarmac.

[maestramommy]

I think it was when John Lennon was shot. I was 11. It was on the radio that morning, in all the newspapers. All of my friends were talking about it on the bus, and clueless me had to confirm who he was because I got him mixed up with Jack Lemmon (saw China Syndrome). I think President Reagan was shot after. At the time I was shocked but I didn't connect it to feeling less safe. In my mind they were shot because of who they were and the shooter was fixated on them.

[brittone2]

2 things come to mind: The Challenger, and my cousin being shot to death while caught in a domestic violence situation with a friend. She and a friend were in school for nursing, came back to the friend's house and made a nice dinner. While they were cooking, friend's ex SO came, shot at them both. Friend lived, my cousin was in the ICU and had no brain activity. She was removed from life support.

One of my mom's best friends lost two sons to HIV/AIDs back in the 80s, so I was pretty aware of what was going on with that from an early age.

When I was young one of my brothers was on a Naval ship (missile destroyer) when things were bad with Libya and Gaddafi. Went through it again later in school with another brother and the first Gulf War. He was also stabbed while fighting in Somalia.

[BabyBearsMom]

The only thing I really remember was Columbine. I was a senior in high school. Before that I don't have any firm memories of anything really shocking other than the start of Desert Storm.

[ha98ed14]

Challenger for me also. I was in 5th grade. We were watching it on TV as a class. When it blew up, the teacher just looked at us and immediately turned off the T.V. He didn't say anything. We were all looking at him thinking that what had happened didn't make a lot of sense, but no one questioned it out loud. I didn't realize that everyone was dead until I went home and saw the evening news.

[LBW]

Challenger here, too. I still vividly remember it. We were in a school assembly.

[trales]

The Challanger in 3rd grade, is the first thing I can remember.

[AnnieW625]

I think it was when John Lennon was shot. I was 11.

Oh yeah I vaguely remember hearing that sometime around the time I was 5 so he had been dead for 2 yrs. by then. Same thing with Ronald Reagan being shot when I was not quite 4 yrs. old. I knew about both but for some reason it wasn't something I couldn't handle even at that young age. I guess it probably helped I was always one to ask a lot of questions.

[BDKmom]

Challenger. I was in 6th grade. I remember our science teacher calling off his lesson the next day and just pulling up a chair and letting us all talk about it. I had forgotten about that part until just now. He always seemed like a goof ball kind of teacher, making dumb jokes and stuff, but looking back that was a really caring thing for him to do.

[sntm]

Challenger. I had seen the prior launch in person, so it was a major event for me.

[JElaineB]

I think it was when John Lennon was shot. I was 11. It was on the radio that morning, in all the newspapers. All of my friends were talking about it on the bus, and clueless me had to confirm who he was because I got him mixed up with Jack Lemmon (saw China Syndrome). I think President Reagan was shot after. At the time I was shocked but I didn't connect it to feeling less safe. In my mind they were shot because of who they were and the shooter was fixated on them.

Same for me, I was 10 when John Lennon was killed and 11 when President Reagan was shot. I remember my mother being very upset and crying about President Reagan.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

Challenger for me also. I was in 2nd grade and we didn't have school that day. A boy from school called our house and told me about it. That was the first time anyone every called me.

[maestramommy]

There was one other incident that happened at the beginning of 6th grade (I was 10). I just transferred to a very large magnet school. The first week I was there one morning we got the shocking news that a girl who had been at the school last year had fallen from her balcony and was killed. She was loved by many and so there were kids and teachers crying everywhere. I distinctly remember feeling an odd sort of "sympathy" grief and not knowing really how I was supposed to do. One kid asked me if I knew her and when I said, no, he said, "then why are you so upset?" And I didn't even know how to explain to myself. Shouldn't I feel terrible? I mean, one day she was there, the next she was gone, because of a tragic accident. The odd thing was I had only heard about her before because when I arrived kids told me I looked a lot like her.

[Gena]

I saw the Time Magazine photos of the Jonestown massacre when I was 6. It affected me deeply, eventually leading me to do research on cult groups when I was in grad school.

My parents had no idea that I had seen those photos until I told them as an adult.

[hillview]

Challenger for sure. I was 15. I do remember Lennon and Reagan being shot but Challenger we watched live.

[squimp]

Diary of Anne Frank. I lived in Amsterdam when I was 11 and saw her house and the moving bookcase. Learning about the Holocaust was my introduction to human tragedy and wrapping my brain around such horrible things.

I was in high school when John Lennon was shot and I remember that vividly as well, I listened to the radio in the morning so I woke up to that. I also woke up to 9-11 news on the radio.

I stopped listening to the radio in the morning after 9-11.

[crl]

I was home sick and had the television on so I saw the Challenger accident. Over and over. That's the first one I remember. Very different from a school shooting.

Catherine

[rlu]

I stopped listening to the radio in the morning after 9-11.

We quit watching GMA (although I adore Diane Sawyer) after 9/11.

Vaguely, John Lennon's death (although no-one close to me seemed hugely affected so the impact to me was slight) and the terrorist attack at the 76 Munich Olympics. Vividly the Iranian hostages in 79-80 and the Reagan assassination attempt (we were watching on tv at school).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

Challenger probably affected me the most.

[KDsMommy]

The assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan when I was in 1st grade, and then the Challenger when I was 11.

I remember feeling very sad about the teacher that was on the space shuttle.

[wolverine2]

My friend (and former neighbor)'s mother was murdered. She was leaving the grocery store (which was on my street about a 1/2 mile away) and there was someone hiding in the back seat of her car and shot her. I don't remember how old I was, but I think it was before Challenger. I don't remember much about how I felt at that time- I just remember my mother being so sad (they were friends).

ETA: I just looked up when this was- 1983. So I was 11.

[citymama]

Personal - the death of my 11 year old cousin (who had been ill). I had never seen my mom cry like that before and it shook me up. I was maybe 6 or 7. I had two childhood friends whose parents (both moms) died young and I was aware of it but not shaken up the way I was with my cousin.

National/international: The Bhopal gas disaster in 1984 and then Chernobyl in 1986. They both had a very profound effect on me, and I read about them obsessively in TIME and other news sources. I'm still horror struck by the memories.

[bisous]

The Challenger incident is what immediately came to mind for me. I think I was in 4th grade so I'm about the same age as many of you. So unexpected.

I remember the horrors of Columbine. I was working my way through college in the dishroom of the cafeteria. Two of my coworkers on my shift were from Littleton, CO. It made everything seem so scary-real. I think that one really changed everything for me in the way that I viewed guns and schools and many other things.

[essnce629]

The only thing I really remember was Columbine. I was a senior in high school.

Me too. I don't remember anything before this. I was also a senior in high school.

When was the Challenger accident?

[lizzywednesday]

Public? Challenger. I was in the 2nd grade & didn't want to believe it. (I was 2 months shy of turning 8.) I remember being sad for the astronauts' families.

Also the "Baby M" surrogacy/custody case, but I don't know if that was big news anywhere except NJ. Since I didn't understand what it was about, I thought it meant that anyone could come and take my baby sister because they wanted a baby. Again, I was about 8 years old.

The first one that impacted me on a PERSONAL level was in 1994 when a high school classmate shot herself in the woods near our high school. I was 16; the girl who died was a year ahead of me & I knew her through Chorale. Also, my mom worked with her mom briefly as part of a visiting nurse program.

When Columbine happened, I was a Junior in college.

[lizzywednesday]

Me too. I don't remember anything before this. I was also a senior in high school.

When was the Challenger accident?

Challenger was January of 1986.

[wendibird22]

Challenger. I was in 6th grade and we were watching the launch in my class and other 6th grade classes were in our room too huddled around the mobile TV cart.

[rin]

The only thing I really remember was Columbine. I was a senior in high school. Before that I don't have any firm memories of anything really shocking other than the start of Desert Storm.

:yeahthat: word-for-word. Babybearsmom, we're obviously the same age.

My great-grandmother died when I was 9, but she was very old and in a nursing home with severe dementia so I didn't experience it as a tragedy.

ETA: Just remembered that I was actually aware of Chernobyl, but on a really basic level. My parents had read something about radiation in milk and made us drink powdered milk for months. I don't recall being aware of the loss of life, though.

[ellies mom]

I would guess that my first "where were you when?" tragedy was Challenger (11th grade, doctor's office getting a cast put on my foot).

On a more personal, local level, when I was in 6th grade, two girls in my grade at school were walking home from school. They took the frequently used short cut through a park and were accosted by two teenagers. One girl was killed and the other was left for dead but she survived. This was a small town in Vermont so definitely not the type of place that you expect those things to happen.

[TxCat]

The Challanger in 3rd grade, is the first thing I can remember.

:yeahthat:

[citymama]

Me too. I don't remember anything before this. I was also a senior in high school.

When was the Challenger accident?

On a lighter note, whew! Now that I know we are a decade apart in age, I don't feel quite so bad about my legs looking all gnarly compared to yours - yes, I'm talking about your Rent the Runway photo! I was done with college, grad school and was a few years into my first job after grad school when Columbine happened.

[Reina]

I was 5 and a half years old. I saw a man get shot during a police chase on the street. (He was just a bystander.) He died on the spot. I couldn't get over it for years.

[SASM]

The Challenger space shuttle mission in elementary school...we were watching it live. :(

[Melaine]

The only thing I really remember was Columbine. I was a senior in high school. Before that I don't have any firm memories of anything really shocking other than the start of Desert Storm.

:yeahthat: We must be the same age.

But, my mom (I now realize) has anxiety issues and was a little too free in sharing scary news stories with us as a means of explaining her protectiveness. So I do remember that I heard a lot of the local stories of missing children and kidnappings and they were burned into my brain. I won't be doing that with my children. In fact, it's one of the main things I plan to do differently than my parents.

[khalloc]

Challenger. I was in 2nd grade I think.

[wildfire]

When I was in fifth grade, two students died. One was accidental. The other was a girl in my class who was abducted out of her home. She was found a few days later, I won't go into the details because they are pretty horrific.

[ladysoapmaker]

THe Challenger Explosion. I was in 5th grade. My class actually got to have one of the schools tvs and we watch the coverage. I remember some of teh hearings on it later too.

Jen

[rorycam2]

In 1977, 3 Girl Scouts, aged 8-10, were brutally raped and murdered at camp in Oklahoma, and I was visiting relatives who lived in Tulsa and read the paper every morning. I can still see the pictures of the 3 little girls on the front page of the paper. I was 7 at the time, and these girls were only a year or two older than me, so it really shocked me and has stayed with me all these years. That is my first memory of hearing about something really horrible.

No word on why my grandparents allowed me to read that at 7 years old, though!

[essnce629]

Now that I've been thinking about it the first tragedy I remember was the baby Jessica incident. She was the 18 month old little girl that fell down the 22 foot deep well and was trapped for more than 2 days before being successfully rescued. It happened in 1987, so I was 6 years old at the time. I definitely remember it being all over the news.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEgQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biography.com%2Fpeople%2Fbaby-jessica-17175736&ei=pIvPUP-RHOb6igKPwIGIDQ&usg=AFQjCNGpIdYKCQfx2yQn-KO12ifc8ocCiw&sig2=TkLS060I7tQ1Jhi63zG66g&bvm=bv.1355325884,d.cGE

[Philly Mom]

Challenger. I think I was in first grade. In Kindy, my cousin shot his girlfriend and himself. They both lived. He had mental illness and would ultimately succeed in killing himself. I never actually met him though. My parents would not bring us around him.

[MommyAllison]

Oklahoma City bombing. I was 10.

[joonbug]

It was Chernobyl in my case.. I was 8 and lived in Poland then. Even the kids were discussing it mainly because we had to drink that nasty liquid to prevent radiation side effects. My older cousins were trying to scare my brother and me with some weird scary stories...

[luli13]

Now that I've been thinking about it the first tragedy I remember was the baby Jessica incident. She was the 18 month only little girl that fell down the 22 foot deep well and was trapped for more than 2 days before being successfully rescued. It happened in 1987, so I was 6 years old at the time. I definitely remember it being all over the news.


:yeahthat: I was just thinking about baby Jessica while I read this thread. I remember watching updates on tv and how she came out of the well dirty and scraped up. I remember my mom crying as we watched.
The first real tragedy I remember was Challenger- I was in fourth grade.

[kijip]

The Challenger explosion. We were watching, like so many others, at school. I was 5 and in kindergarten.

[kristac]

Challenger as well- 3rd grade. We were outside (in Florida) watching the launch and saw it happen.

[anamika]

Indira Gandhi's assassination.

[elliput]

I vague memories of the Fall of Saigon (not sure if that counts or not), but I definitely remember Jonestown.

[MaiseyDog]

Challenger was the first I can remember. I was in 4th grade and we were watching the launch live.

On a closer level, I was in college when a kid walked into the Pearl MS high school and shot 2 people. This was the first time I can remember a school shooting occuring (it was about 2 years before Columbine). I knew the shooter's older brother through a friend and had a hard time trying to figure out how this guy, that I thought was pretty normal, could be brothers with someone who so obviously was not. I get that this is not a logical jump- one doesn't have anything to do with another - but as a 20 year old, I think it was the first time I really thought about how you never know what is going on in peoples lives and families.

[kdeunc]

I remember Reagan and Lennon being shot. Challenger is a big memory. I was home from school sick that day. Personally one of my classmates who sat beside me in English was struck by a car and killed in the 9th grade. He was killed by the older sister of another classmate. He was on life support for a couple of weeks. That memory has stayed with me to this day despite not being my first experience with death. All of my grandparents had died by then but I guess a peer dying was much different.

[maestramommy]

I vague memories of the Fall of Saigon (not sure if that counts or not), but I definitely remember Jonestown.


I remember seeing Jonestown on the cover of TIME and looked through the article. I was pretty young and didn't understand the reasons behind it all. Don't remember if I asked my parents about it.

[scrooks]

The Challanger in 3rd grade, is the first thing I can remember.

Ditto this exactly.

[KLD313]

While I remember the Challenger and have a vague recollection of Reagan being shot the thing that sticks with me the most is a classmates death. I can't remember hoe old I was but I was in middle school. This particular boy wasnt a friend of mine but I had classes with him. He didnt have a lot of friends, kind of overweight and he tried way too hard to fit in and it was off-putting. You know how mean kids can be in that kind of situation? He wa riding his bike and a car hit him and all the kids found out way too much info about the accident. His funeral was packed with school kids, I think we all felt guilty. I remember going through the line and meeting his mom with some of my friends. She started crying and said oh look all his little girlfriends came and that made me cry because it couldn't be further from the truth. I remember slamming the door in his face just a week before. I felt terrible, I'm crying right now thinking about it. At least it made his mom happy. He really was a sweet kid.

[pb&j]

Air Florida Flight 90, in January 1982. I was 7, and home from school for a snow day. The plan crashed into the 14th street bridge over the Potomac in DC. We lived about 2hrs south of DC and were being hit by the same terrible weather that contributed to the crash. We got TV channels out of DC - I vividly remember watching live TV coverage of the man on the banks of the river diving in the freezing water to rescue a woman who they'd tried to lift out via helicopter but who couldn't hold on to the harness.

[KrisM]

I remember a lot from the mid-80s, as I was in my mid-teens. The Challenger explosion, the 1987 Flight 255 plane crash in Detroit, the Lockerbie bombing, Chernobyl, etc.

I remember the Iran hostages being released in 1981. It didn't end badly, but was big news of course. I also remember President Regan being shot.

[llama8]

The challenger exploding when I was 6. I was devastated when I saw it on the news.

[Fairy]

I think it was when John Lennon was shot. I was 11. It was on the radio that morning, in all the newspapers. All of my friends were talking about it on the bus, and clueless me had to confirm who he was because I got him mixed up with Jack Lemmon (saw China Syndrome). I think President Reagan was shot after. At the time I was shocked but I didn't connect it to feeling less safe. In my mind they were shot because of who they were and the shooter was fixated on them.

Exactly what she said. I was 10, I heard about it on the radio, and i was shocked. Did not feel unsafe (and I didn't get him mixed up with Jack Lemmon :-)), but the rest of this post I emulate fully.

I learned of the Holocaust around this time, too.

Challenger was 6 years later when I was 16.

[speo]

The first was when I was 10 and Richard Ramirez (aka the Night Stalker) was a serial killer moving around the LA area. My dad worked nights and my mom would make a point of locking the doors and windows. She was scared and it made me terrified. At some point it carried into the summer and it was really hot and we couldn't open the windows. My mom told us it would be ok because he was in LA and we were in OC, but then he hit a house not far from us.

Then a little after that in Cerritos near LA a smaller plane collided with a passenger plane killing everyone and taking out part of a neighborhood. To this day I am still scared if it sounds like a large plane is getting near. I remember seeing footage.

And I too was in 5th grade with the Challenger explosion. School was just out and my mom, sister and I stayed with some teachers and a few kids to watch take off. We watched it happen.

I feel all of these events have really affected me.

[ZeeBaby]

Sadly so many things happened. I remember when John Lennon died I was 8. I also remember Reagan being shot. Challenger effected me the most though. The Lockerbie bombing was also very prominent as well.

Personally was when a friends HS boyfriend fell off a building because of LSD.

[karstmama]

i guess i'm older than y'all, because i clearly remember the vietnam war on tv every night. i remember nixon resigning, though that wasn't some big 'unsafe', just weird that presidents could...quit. i was a senior for the challenger - my whole organic class (9 of us, i think) watched it with the teacher in second bryan lounge through all of organic lab.

[Katigre]

The Challenger Explosion was my earliest tragic memory - I think I was 6.

The two tragedies that stand out most clearly to me, aside from 9/11, were the OK City Bombing b/c I gave a totally flippant response when my dad turned on the TV and saw the news - I was in 7th grade and when he said a bomb went off I responded "Cool" and he was aghast and went on to say that people had died in it.

Columbine is the most vivid emotionally for me because I was in high school at the time and I remember crying and then trying to safety-plan my way out of getting shot if the crazy kids at my school got guns.

ETA: I remember a lot of commercial plane crashes in the 90's too - they are so much more rare now. But at the time it seemed like there was a bad one every year or two.

[MamaInMarch]

Also the Challenger shuttle explosion.

[viba424]

I vividly remember Des Moines paperboy Johnny Gosch being kidnapped (1982). Also Elvis dying, sort of. Space shuttle challenger definitely.

[BelleoftheBallFlagstaff]

Reagan being shot as a toddler. My mom cried listening to the radio. I was almost 3. That is one of the only memories I have of my mom.

Next was space shuttle. I was born in 78.

[maestramommy]

i guess i'm older than y'all, because i clearly remember the vietnam war on tv every night. i remember nixon resigning, though that wasn't some big 'unsafe', just weird that presidents could...quit. i was a senior for the challenger - my whole organic class (9 of us, i think) watched it with the teacher in second bryan lounge through all of organic lab.

LOL, I was starting to feel old too! I was living in Hong Kong during Vietnam I think. I remember seeing a picture of Nixon greeted by his daughter at the airport after he resigned. But my parents just didn't talk about American politics when I was young and we didn't watch that stuff on TV. So I didn't learn anything about either even until I was much older.

I was around 9 or 10 and living in Chicago when the whole John Wayne Gacy thing happened. I think that's when I started to be afraid of clowns, cept for Bozo. There was a lot of violent crime in the city. We got the Tribune, and I was always reading about someone, sometimes kids, getting shot. I hear it's really dangerous there now. Is that true?

[ilfaith]

I think the earliest news story I really remember was the "44 Caliber Killer" who later became better known as "Son of Sam" when I was about seven years old. We had just moved from NYC to New Jersey in the summer of '76, and I still felt very connected to the city where the murders were taking place. The disappearance of Etan Patz was another news story that I found terribly disturbing as a child.

I remember where I was when I heard John Lennon had been killed (a Chanukah party) and when Reagan was shot (on the way home from buying bird seed for my new parakeet).

Of course the Challenger was very much the cultural touchstone of my teenage years (I was a junior in high school when it happened). It is interesting how the loss of the shuttle Columbia isn't thought of in the same way.

Lockerbie was the first news story to hit close to home, since i was a student at Syracuse University at the time. I actually had a job with the study abroad program, and while I didn't know any of the students lost personally, I had friends who lost roommates and girlfriends, and I was familiar with all of them from their application files.

And this thread does make me feel a bit old too. I was nearly 30 when Columbine happened, and a college freshman when baby Jessica tumbled down that well.

[AJP]

The Challenger when I was 10 is the first I remember. It seemed so unreal and distant because it was a space shuttle, an accident etc. It didn't feel like an act of violence, hatred, etc. so while I felt sad, it didnt scare me. Even at such a young age, I remember feeling like it was so "unreal" and not so likeley to affect me, and not scary like the plane hijackings (that I remember realy scaring me because we travelled by plane often).

[kijip]

On reflection, while The Challenger explosion was the single most memorable tragic event, the thing that first taught me that there is evil in the world (whereas the Challenger was tragic it was not an intentional malicious action but a mistake) was the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway. He raped and killed an extremely large number of young women in the Seattle area in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many victims went unfound and unidentified for decades. He was finally arrested in 2001 and was ultimately convicted of 49 murders. He pled guilty in exchange for life in prison and identifying additional victims. He led police to many more, previously undiscovered, bodies of women. Creepiest of all is that he admits he killed more women than he can recall or keep straight. There are still missing, unfound women whose families can only assume he was the cause of their daughter's disappearance.

The faces of the victims and missing women who were assumed likely to have been killed by him were *frequently* featured on the covers of the newspapers here from the time we moved to Seattle in 1984 until after he was convicted. I recall seeing them when I was like 5 and 6. I was haunted by the faces for most of my childhood. Here are the women he was ultimately convicted of killing. http://seattletimes.com/news/local/greenriver/victims_new.html

Making it hit closer to home was that for the first couple of years we were in Seattle, my family was either homeless or living in a cheap motel kitchenette or flop apartment, all in or near high prostitution areas from where some of his victims were taken. One woman last seen walking to the store where my parents took us for school clothes every summer they could afford to. I still get angry when I think that he was a suspect before many of his victims died and that a victim's family hunted him down based on a truck description yet the police couldn't do anything.

That would definitely be the first I knew that evil people do live among us.

[1mom2dylan]

Baby Jessica falling down the well was the first news story that caught my attention.

Also, the Zodiac killer was the first time I felt unsafe.

[lmh2402]

challenger. i was in 5th grade and we were watching it in class.

i remember the teacher snapping off the TV and just walking out of the room.

and i remember my mom crying in the school yard when she picked me up

[ourbabygirl]

*Challenger (I think I was in 2nd grade)
*Abduction of Jacob Wetterling (he lived in my state and was about a year older than me)
*Plane crash that killed my grandpa (I was in middle school)
*Columbine (I was a junior in college, and I was a secondary ed. major planning to be a h.s. teacher- we talked about it a lot in our adolescent psychology class)

[Staraglimmer]

I don't remember Challenger, I think I was 3 or 4. I think it was the Oklahoma City bombing. I remember watching it on television while waiting in a hospital for my aunt.

[AngB]

Columbine, I was a freshman in high school, it really scared me and I probably watched way way too much coverage of it. I remember being scared to go to school in the years afterwards on that day, worried someone was planning an attack on the anniversary. (The next year there were threats written on a bathroom stall at our suburban school, so not completely unfounded.)

[ahisma]

I knew about the assaination attempt on Reagan, but somehow wasn't terribly concerned. I think it was because he recovered quickly and, living in DC with a politician father, it was a known risk that I had grown up with.

The first tragedy that really struck home was the Challenger. We had a snow day and I was playing outside. I clearly remember my mom coming to tell me and feeling just devastated.

I also remember holding hands and singing "We are the World" and really internalizing the suffering that was happening.

[Pear]

I recall being the only kid in kindergarten who knew about the hostages in Iran being released. That didn't feel very real though,

The first thing was the challenger. I remember taking a math test and having the teacher called out of class and coming back looking ashen. They didn't tell us until dismissal. I actually threw up when I got home.

[s7714]

Challenger here too. The whole school was gathered together watching it. I remember it exploding and everyone looking around at each other in confused silence.

As for the first up close tragedy, when I was in 6th grade an 8th grader committed suicide. She had been a teacher's aid in one of my classes so it was a massive shock to have her there one day and find out she was dead the next.

I do remember the Reagan incident well, but not really as a tragic moment. Probably because we wrote letters to him in the hospital and were thrilled when we received a letter back.

[mom3boys]

I also would have to say the Challenger, in 5th grade. I grew up in NH, where Christa McAuliffe was from; she taught at a school about 30 minutes away. My teacher was an acquaintance of hers.

We were watching on a TV in the classroom. When it blew up, my teacher started to cry.

I also remember baby Jessica but that wasn't a tragedy (baby Jessica lived).

As for malicious acts I very clearly remember the Charles Stuart murder, a big case in Boston in 1989 (I was 14). Charles Stuart shot and killed his pregnant wife, made it look like a failed carjacking, and blamed the crime on a black person. Let's just say Boston police spent a lot of time looking for this fictional black person and race relations were uh, poor for awhile.

Also the Pam Smart case in 1990 was a huge case. That Nicole Kidman movie "To Die For" was loosely based on the case.

[Binkandabee]

Definitely the Challenger. I was 9 years old. I was actually home from school that day due to illness. I distinctly remember watching it happen on a teeny tiny black and white portable tv my mom had given me to watch in my room that day.

[Tinochka]

My mom died when I was 6y.o. and my family fell apart literally within days... When we moved for a year, that town had a plant exploded, where my uncle worked, he came home in panic, the only thing I remember he was rolling on the floor saying, what he witnessed (like human parts laying around). Then we saw how the windows of big children’s store were broken into small pieces, even it was far away from the tragic event. Then we saw trucks full of coffins... The reality hit me pretty hard.

[mom2binsd]

I was home sick the day Reagan was shot, I remember watching Another World with my babysitter who was an older lady and the news broke in with the assasination attempt. I remember them playing the video of the shooting over and over. Although I was in Canada at the time and pretty young, I knew the significance of the US President being shot.

To those who don't know, Another World was a very popular soap opera back then...

[niccig]

A girl in my area was abducted and killed when I was 13, she was in same year as me.. I didn't know her, but later went to high school with kids that did.

The first, where were you event, would be Princess Diana dying. I as working in college at the library and another staff member said "Diana is dead" and my reaction was "ha ha, very funny."

I knew about Challenger but I didn't grow up here in USA, so wasn't watching it live. Columbine massacre occurred when I was in college. Port Arthur massacre in Australia has more memories for me as I was watching that live on TV (I'm Australian).

[maestramommy]

Does anyone remember in 1978 (approximately) when a DC-10 airline crashed and most if not all the passengers were killed? Couple weeks later another DC-10 airline crashed but this time most survived. A month after that happened I and 40 other kids ages 4-17, with their chaperones boarded a flight for Europe. We were part of a Suzuki music school on a concert tour. I used to wonder how my parents let me go without them on this trip, which was 2 weeks long. Now I wonder how they let me go so soon after plane crashes! And yet all I remember is that they were excited for me and very proud. As a kid I wasn't particularly scared because we were flying in a DC-8. Kids!:p

[FTMLuc]

Chernobyl was the first for me. The day after it happened everything was very hushed and subdued at school, and we were given iodine tablets by the nurses. We could tell that something was off, that teachers were scared, but were keeping up pretenses, that whole day felt surreal. Something was up, yet except the distribution of iodine tablets to the kids at school, nothing was said, no announcement on the news of the disaster. The government handling of the disaster was discussed a lot at home later that week week and in the ensuing months, not in the most positive way, I remember being told quite a few times to ensure not to ever repeat what was said outside the house, glasnost has not quite happened yet. I remember a lot of worry at home too b/c my aunt was pregnant with my cousin at the time, and the rest of the family was worried how the radiation would affect her. What I remember most is the stories of the first responders to the explosion, the helicopter pilots who flew in the sand to fight the fires with no protective gear, how the authorities were just throwing human bodies at the site with no plan at first. It had really hit home for me.

[KrystalS]

I vaguely remember watching the news about baby Jessica and when Princess Diana died. I was in 6th grade when the OKC bombing happened, and I lived an hour away from there. The teachers brought tvs into all the classrooms so we could watch the news coverage. I would watch the news every day after school to see if they found anymore survivors. I was 16 when Columbine happened, so that was a lot to handle being in high school.

[mikeys_mom]

My grandparents on my mother's side are Holocaust survivors and my grandmother in particular has always been very active in telling her story. So, growing up, the atrocities that occured were just part of my life. Our grade 1 and 2 teacher was also a child survivor who lost her parents and on Holocaust remembrance day we were always shown a film and I remember her breaking down and crying.

As for events that I remember, I was in grade 6 during the Challeger explosion and I also remember watching it on tv in school and the feeling of disbelief over what happened.

I think the tragedy that really affected me the most were the Paul Bernardo crimes. He was a serial rapist and tortured and murdered many school age girls in the Toronto area. I was just out of high school when it happened and although I wasn't living in Toronto at the time, the papers across Canada were filled with the horriffic story and details that emerged during his trial. I was old enough to understand just how serious and heinous his acts were.

[almostmom]

Well, my sibling died when I was 5 1/2 (he was 11) so I remember that. Kids are amazingly resilient though, as it doesn't feel like it took me that long to get over it and keep living my life as a first grader. (I don't mean to sound cold - it obviously had a great effect on my whole family, and me). My grandmother died a year later - also memorable and very sad. I think it effected me mostly because my mom was likely checked out for awhile, though I don't remember her being that way.

But honestly, what first came to mind was when they were finding cyanide in tylenol. Does anyone remember that? I always got headaches and took tylenol, so I feel like it hit close to home. But I remember my mom hugging me and saying I didn't need to worry about it.

[Nooknookmom]

I distinctly remember the Jonestown massacre, I was about 7 or 8.

I REFUSED to drink kool aid for a long time, i was scared to death, didnt understand that it was planned poisoning. Saw pics of the bodies and it really impacted me as a little kid.

[kellyd]

I remember Challenger. I was in either 3rd or 4th grade and can remember watching it in school.

[scriptkitten]

Challenger. I was in 4th grade.

[endlessheather]

A few things happened as I grew up that stand out – witnessed a man in the park doing something he should not have been and had to talk to the cops about it, a mother of a close friend that I used to go over to their house was killed tragically all while in elementary school. Challenger I was in 6th grade. (I lived in Aurora, CO during that time – city where the theatre shooting was.) In high school a mom of another girl in my high school was killed by her dad.

Columbine was very difficult as I lifeguarded each summer in Littleton, CO (my parents were divorced so I spent time at my mom’s during the summers as part of the custody agreement). The pool I lifeguarded at was Columbine West swimming pool (the name should tell you how close it is to the high school) and many of my friends were students there. I had been in that school quite a few times with them, attending sports games and watching football summer practices etc. When the shooting happened some of them had younger siblings in the school. I was living in Boulder at CU and I remember being on pins and needles waiting to find out from some of them if they got out. I attended a lot of those memorials and vigils with various friends...which I will never ever forget. I ended up living less than a mile from there after college and before moving out of state to be with my now husband.

[kmkaull]

Challenger. I was ten and home sick, playing Barbies and watching the launch.

The first funeral I remember is that of my good friend, when I was about 8. She, her brother, and father were killed in a car vs. semi accident. I will never forget her mother at the funeral. Horrible.

[mackmama]

Challenger. I also remember when Reagan was shot.

[indigo99]

Challenger, but I remember being more upset about the baby Jessica story (since pp mentioned it although I wouldn't have thought of it now).

Personally, I had a classmate killed when her brother shot her in the face with their mother's gun. We weren't good friends, but I'd been her partner-for-the-day on a fieldtrip. I was in 6th grade and have been against having guns in the home ever since.

[Dream]

I'm from a country that had a long civil war, it was ongoing when I was born. When I was 5 yrs old my parents picked me up from school early because of riots, it was really bad. On the drive home I saw homes and building burning on both sides of the road, it was so hot because of the fires. I saw bodies along the side of the road, some were burned, some were cut into pieces. It was horrible. People stopped cars to ask for gas so to burn buildings and people, they stopped our car but we had couple of my friends with me too so when they saw small kids and our driver said we have to drive far they let us go. It was so scary when they stopped us.

Since then there's been so many bomb explosions, been close enough to feel the vibrations and see the smoke but lucky enough not to be injured. I've had classmates who's parents were killed or badly injured. The hard part is finding out where the explosion is and often you'll have at least one classmate with a parent working there and seeing her going through it not know whether she's going to see her mother or father that day. There was a time that when we left to school in the morning we weren't sure whether we would return home to our families. We all lived with that fear for such a long time it became a way of life. You don't have a choice but to live that life. towards the later part of the war I've heard parents say even though they travel to the same city for work they would take different means of transportation so that if a bomb explosion kills one parent there's at least another to provide and care for the children.

Its been a few years since the war ended and I'm grateful for that.

[Carrots]

I remember the assasination attempt of Ronald Reagan. I remember being upset because I wanted to watch a disney special that was supposed to be on, but the news coverage was on instead.

I remember the death of Jessica Savage in '83 and then the Challenger in '86. Like many have said, my class was (I was in the 4th grade) were all watching it on the tv. :(

[viba424]

On reflection, while The Challenger explosion was the single most memorable tragic event, the thing that first taught me that there is evil in the world (whereas the Challenger was tragic it was not an intentional malicious action but a mistake) was the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway. He raped and killed an extremely large number of young women in the Seattle area in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many victims went unfound and unidentified for decades. He was finally arrested in 2001 and was ultimately convicted of 49 murders. He pled guilty in exchange for life in prison and identifying additional victims. He led police to many more, previously undiscovered, bodies of women. Creepiest of all is that he admits he killed more women than he can recall or keep straight. There are still missing, unfound women whose families can only assume he was the cause of their daughter's disappearance.

The faces of the victims and missing women who were assumed likely to have been killed by him were *frequently* featured on the covers of the newspapers here from the time we moved to Seattle in 1984 until after he was convicted. I recall seeing them when I was like 5 and 6. I was haunted by the faces for most of my childhood. Here are the women he was ultimately convicted of killing. http://seattletimes.com/news/local/greenriver/victims_new.html

Making it hit closer to home was that for the first couple of years we were in Seattle, my family was either homeless or living in a cheap motel kitchenette or flop apartment, all in or near high prostitution areas from where some of his victims were taken. One woman last seen walking to the store where my parents took us for school clothes every summer they could afford to. I still get angry when I think that he was a suspect before many of his victims died and that a victim's family hunted him down based on a truck description yet the police couldn't do anything.

That would definitely be the first I knew that evil people do live among us.

Wow, I had heard of that but that link and the story are so compelling and frightening.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Challenger. I was home sick that day.

[speo]

A lot of you were home sick on the day of the Challenger explosion!!

[fumofu]

Tiananmen Square massacre in China. It was summer after 2nd grade. We were in Hong Kong about to move to the US. My parents were scared that they would do something similar in HK. I remember photos in newspaper of piles of bloody human remains trampled by tanks. I don't think I knew what I saw. But I remember my parents afraid and just wanted to move to the US ASAP.

[MontrealMum]

I remember the assassination attempt on Reagan - I was 9 at the time, but I have more clear memories of Challenger and Chernobyl. Both occurred when I was in 9th grade and much more aware of things. My mom's best friend was a finalist in the teacher-in-space competition and she, along with the other finalists, had been invited to watch the launch and was in Florida to see it. I have a bunch of stickers and a patch and things that they'd given her, which she gave to me because I was into Physics and space when I was younger. So, that really hit home for me in a way that other things had not. Back when I was in maybe 4th grade a local 6th grader was abducted and killed, and that really hit home in terms of listening to my parents about safety as well.

[mommyp]

Challenger for me too. We were not watching at my school, it was only after getting home that we knew what had happened.

[kboyle]

Baby Jessica was the first thing that came to mind. I remember Challenger happening, but it wasn't a forefront in my mind. Next up is the Gulf War, i remember learning so much about it in social studies class as it was happening. And lastly a death of a teenager in my freshman math class, horrible car accident at a bad intersection in town.