Fifty Years Ago Today

[saskganesh]

I remember Canada Russia 72. It was a very big deal. But I missed Game 8 because I was playing outside with my best friend instead. Monkey bars over hockey.

I remember the Vietnam war ending. My parents were subscribers to Life magazine and I saw photographs of wounded children and I was sad and also confused because war was not like it was in the comic books.

Everyone talked about Watergate. To me it seemed like a nice hotel with a waterfall.

I remember how everyone was shocked by the Sex Pistols. It took me a few years before I actually got to hear the record in boarding school. I thought it was pretty good.

That same year, close to lights out, one of my roommates was watching Monday Night Football in the TV room, and he ran into the room crying. Howard Cosell had just announced the assassination of John Lennon. We were all upset and got to hear the Beatles all week during study period.

[Duque de Bragança]

I remember running home from school to the catch the afternoon news about the historic events in Vietnam.

What other comparable news events do you remember in a big way?

Or indeed 'smaller' events happening that have stuck with you?

Best dramatic depiction of the events is definitely from the opening scenes of the Chuck Norris classic, "Braddock Missing In Action III". 

While classic may be too much, even with the limited Chuck Norris canon (pun intended), that is indeed the best scene of the movie. Continuity be damned or Chuck is a bigamist.
Rest of the movie is MIA I&II rehashed.

As for me, Berlin Wall, with people being happy and some East Germans showing up since they could travel, at last, without clearance from the Stasi.
9/11 as well, but more of a different vibe.

I also remember the Porto victory in 1987 in Vienna vs Bayern. One of my first TV sport memories.

[Savonarola]

I remember New Coke. 

My dad was going to make a fortune by getting several dozen bottles of the original Coca Cola, keeping them in our crawl space and selling them off later in the New Coke dystopia.  I think the bottles exploded after the first winter in there, leaving us with a brown sticky mess, but I don't know why he even bothered keeping them there after Coca Cola Classic was released.

[Pedrito]

The Aldo Moro abduction and execution; I was 6 but I remember clearly my parents talking about it;

Espana 82!


L.

[Barrister]

I remember New Coke. 

My dad was going to make a fortune by getting several dozen bottles of the original Coca Cola, keeping them in our crawl space and selling them off later in the New Coke dystopia.  I think the bottles exploded after the first winter in there, leaving us with a brown sticky mess, but I don't know why he even bothered keeping them there after Coca Cola Classic was released.

I remember we had some bottles of Old Coke, and we did a blind taste test with the new stuff.

We were surprised that New Coke actually won in our family.

Nevertheless we were a Coke family (my parent were Rum and Coke aficionados at the time) so there was no hesitation about going back to Coke Classic.

They actually kept New Coke on the market for a while, didn't they?



Earliest historic memory might be Mulroney winning an absolutely massive landslide election in 1984 - or similarly Reagan doing the same that same year.

[saskganesh]

You are not fooling anyone.  We know it was the battle of Salamis for you.

I was too busy rowing to take in much of that battle.

wins thread

[Admiral Yi]

I remember the Yom Kippur War on TV, and the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam, which I mostly followed mostly in The Stars and Stripes, a US military newspaper.

This is why I think the F4 is a more iconic jet than the F14.

[Savonarola]

I remember we had some bottles of Old Coke, and we did a blind taste test with the new stuff.

We were surprised that New Coke actually won in our family.

Nevertheless we were a Coke family (my parent were Rum and Coke aficionados at the time) so there was no hesitation about going back to Coke Classic.

They actually kept New Coke on the market for a while, didn't they?

I've read that more people preferred Pepsi in The Pepsi Challenge because, for a small amount, you'll usually prefer the sweeter drink, but at a full serving you might not (depending on personal preference.)

They had New Coke for about five years; I see from Wikipedia they then rebranded that as Coke II, but I don't remember that.  The 90s would also be the era of OK Soda and Crystal Pepsi; the darkest days of the Cola Wars.

[HVC]

Crystal Pepsi was preak of the illicit classroom soft drinks. "What teacher, it's just water. Ignore the bubbles, I like sparkling water" 

[Barrister]

They had New Coke for about five years; I see from Wikipedia they then rebranded that as Coke II, but I don't remember that.  The 90s would also be the era of OK Soda and Crystal Pepsi; the darkest days of the Cola Wars.

I enjoyed OK Soda.

Living in Winnipeg, which was only one hour from the border, you'd shop across the border frequently.  I remember getting OK Soda.  I thought it was "OK".

I also didn't mind Crystal Pepsi, although that was a year or two later.

Ah - 90s nostalgia...

[The Brain]

I remember the nuclear power referendum campaign in 1979-80. Earliest specific day event is probably Whiskey On The Rocks in 1981.

Correction: it may have been the Sadat assassination, which *googled* was a few weeks before WOTR.