You are too young to remember, but...

[alfred russel]

The time I banged your mom while your dad was out of town...you were too young to remember because you weren't born for another 9 months.

[Zoupa]

1989, but for some reason the Berlin wall didn't catch my 11 year old eye, while I clearly remember Ceausescu's fall, Timisoara and Tiananmen Square fascinating me.

[The Larch]

Bizarrely, even if I was already at an age to be aware of stuff, the fall of the Berlin Wall (I was 10) and the collapse of Communism (I was 12) didn't really register that much for me. I mean, I could feel the adults in the room being very eager for more news and the vague feeling of "this must be something important", but the precise importance was not really something I felt at the moment. Maybe because the Cold War feeling was not that relevant in Spain in comparison with other countries?

[DontSayBanana]

If I'm being brutally honest, we're getting there with 9/11. This is the year we're going to start seeing people born after 9/11 showing up in bars.

It does seem that the "you had to be there" effect is a little softened since the Internet picked up steam and we really started religiously recording everything, so I'd say the last major events that really fit the bill for me are the Atlanta Olympics bombing and the Bosnia conflict in the late '90s where you're less likely to find real-time reactions floating around YouTube or other video-sharing sites.

[Valmy]

Bizarrely, even if I was already at an age to be aware of stuff, the fall of the Berlin Wall (I was 10) and the collapse of Communism (I was 12) didn't really register that much for me. I mean, I could feel the adults in the room being very eager for more news and the vague feeling of "this must be something important", but the precise importance was not really something I felt at the moment. Maybe because the Cold War feeling was not that relevant in Spain in comparison with other countries?

Yeah the fear and paranoia of nuclear war and Communist infiltration and all that was very much still a thing in the 1980s in the United States and especially as a kid they seemed very formidable and terrifying. After all the USSR looked much bigger than the USA on a map! Oh nos! And then somehow just like that they were gone, seemingly overnight (I mean not really the USSR lasted until 1992 or something but once the Wall came down they were clearly no longer the big threat they were. You actually kind of started to feel sorry for them). Then the halcyon days of 1989-1999 began. What a great decade to be an American.

But more to the point I thought the USSR vs USA thing was going to last well into this century. The idea that the whole thing was about to end was far far from my mind. Nothing has ever really shook my world to the same extent sense. I think those events are now so uninteresting and just taken for granted by all born since 1989 that it makes it hard to convey what a big deal it was.

Still wish I had visited Russia during that period, and I could have easily. I spent a long time in Europe in the 1990s. A chance I am unlikely to ever have again. But how was I to know?

[crazy canuck]

If I'm being brutally honest, we're getting there with 9/11. This is the year we're going to start seeing people born after 9/11 showing up in bars.

It does seem that the "you had to be there" effect is a little softened since the Internet picked up steam and we really started religiously recording everything, so I'd say the last major events that really fit the bill for me are the Atlanta Olympics bombing and the Bosnia conflict in the late '90s where you're less likely to find real-time reactions floating around YouTube or other video-sharing sites.

I think the main effect on post 9/11 generations is that for them, the intrusion on personal liberty in the name of safety are normal.

[Valmy]

I think the main effect on post 9/11 generations is that for them, the intrusion on personal liberty in the name of safety are normal.

Yeah. Or that at one point a figure skating controversy or a football player killing his wife were years long national obsessions, that we had that little of actual concern to fret about.

Now everything seems like an existential threat and the fact that multiple governments and private entities have more information on you than you do yourself is taken for granted. Thanks Osama.

[DGuller]

I fear that history would view 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts that utterly succeeded in their goals, just like Rabin's assassination.

[alfred russel]

I think the main effect on post 9/11 generations is that for them, the intrusion on personal liberty in the name of safety are normal.

Yeah. Or that at one point a figure skating controversy or a football player killing his wife were years long national obsessions, that we had that little of actual concern to fret about.

Now everything seems like an existential threat and the fact that multiple governments and private entities have more information on you than you do yourself is taken for granted. Thanks Osama.

But it is a function of media rather than reality. The world has become a lot safer, there is less war, violence, extreme poverty etc. than the 80s and 90s.

[crazy canuck]

I fear that history would view 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts that utterly succeeded in their goals, just like Rabin's assassination.

Yeah, that's it exactly.

[Jacob]

I fear that history would view 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts that utterly succeeded in their goals, just like Rabin's assassination.

I think that's a given at this point and - as you say - Rabin's assassination is another one. I'm surprised we're not seeing more attempts, to be honest.

[Duque de Bragança]

Bizarrely, even if I was already at an age to be aware of stuff, the fall of the Berlin Wall (I was 10) and the collapse of Communism (I was 12) didn't really register that much for me. I mean, I could feel the adults in the room being very eager for more news and the vague feeling of "this must be something important", but the precise importance was not really something I felt at the moment. Maybe because the Cold War feeling was not that relevant in Spain in comparison with other countries?

Yeah the fear and paranoia of nuclear war and Communist infiltration and all that was very much still a thing in the 1980s in the United States and especially as a kid they seemed very formidable and terrifying. After all the USSR looked much bigger than the USA on a map! Oh nos! And then somehow just like that they were gone, seemingly overnight (I mean not really the USSR lasted until 1992 or something but once the Wall came down they were clearly no longer the big threat they were. You actually kind of started to feel sorry for them). Then the halcyon days of 1989-1999 began. What a great decade to be an American.

But more to the point I thought the USSR vs USA thing was going to last well into this century. The idea that the whole thing was about to end was far far from my mind. Nothing has ever really shook my world to the same extent sense. I think those events are now so uninteresting and just taken for granted by all born since 1989 that it makes it hard to convey what a big deal it was.

Not just the US, though France being a nuclear power was a wild card and had an official strategy of using tactical nukes if West Germany were to be invaded (made for a hell of a British movie called Threads)

I do remember old farts (Bigeard?)/paranoid people worrying about the Red Army being "3 days away of Strasbourg". In the second half of the '80s this was seen as ridiculous by most people, mind you.
Topic came back recently in a discussion about the performance of the Russian Army in Ukraine.

[Valmy]

I think the main effect on post 9/11 generations is that for them, the intrusion on personal liberty in the name of safety are normal.

Yeah. Or that at one point a figure skating controversy or a football player killing his wife were years long national obsessions, that we had that little of actual concern to fret about.

Now everything seems like an existential threat and the fact that multiple governments and private entities have more information on you than you do yourself is taken for granted. Thanks Osama.

But it is a function of media rather than reality. The world has become a lot safer, there is less war, violence, extreme poverty etc. than the 80s and 90s.

Absolutely, but I am very specifically talking about the US.