What was the first major news story you remember as a child?

[COOL HAND LUKE]

"Assassination of JFK is the first I can remember, but worst by far was the Aberfan disaster in 1966... I've visited the site and the graves there, it was desperate bad luck - fifteen minutes earlier or a day later and the children would not have been there... and nobody at the NCB was ever held to account for it, despite many warnings about the state of the slag mountain up above the village."

[Mike Oxsaw]

Cuban missile crisis. Scared the shit out of my parents and I was just about old enough to realise it was not a good thing.

[Woodford Green]

I vaguely remember (as I was only 5) the John Lennon assasination and Imagine getting back to no 1 in the charts soon after. While it was not a single event as such I remember following the Falklands conflict quite closely. In terms of the first pure single events that I vividly remember it would probably be the Mexico City earthquake and the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.

[Cheezey Bell-End]

I think it was the attacks at the Munich Olympics. Watergate was around that time and I remember the David Frost interview. Plus the Vietnam war was on. My first memories are from just after the first moon landing. I regret missing that.

[Iron Duke]

Charles and Diana’s wedding. I think I must have lived under a rock for the first six and a half years of my existence.

[zebthecat]

Apollo 11 Moon landing. We were living in Miami at the time and actually went to see the rocket at Cape Kennedy just before it was loaded onto the transporter.

[zebthecat]

Apollo 11 Moon landing. We were living in Miami at the time and actually went to see the rocket at Cape Kennedy just before it was loaded onto the transporter.

[COOL HAND LUKE]

"FC - Apparently the NCB crews had realised several hours earlier that the slag height had dropped overnight by 3 to 4 metres, which was a visible sign that the heap was 'on the move'. This was reported back, and the only management action was to suspend tipping onto that heap. Why nobody alerted anyone in the village below is a mystery to this day. The kids had only been in school 15 minutes when it happened, and it was the last schoolday before half term... Un-fucking-believable, eh?"

[Far Cough]

"The Pyramids of Giza were finally finished with a topping out ceremony performed by Alf Ramesses II in 1966 BC. Seriously, I vividly remember where I was when JFK was shot. CHL, yes the Aberfan disaster was a terrible disaster and the coal board led by Robens was complicit in the tragedy."