Most significant (live) TV you've ever seen.

[TorontoTrekker]

I'm another one who supposedly watched the Apollo 11 landing, but since I was about three weeks shy of my second birthday at the time, I don't remember it.

Next momentous for me was live feed of Voyager 2 reaching Neptune. I was really into astronomy as a kid, and I had waited all my life for that moment, seeing Neptune for the first time up close and personal.

I was on a work term in Ottawa at the time, and they carried NASA-Select on their cable system. I used to sit in front of the TV in the evenings watching the pictures come in from Neptune.

My work term was in the Ice section of the RADARSAT project, analyzing satellite imagery of the Arctic to determine ice motion and thickness, so I was able to look at the pictures from Triton and point out various features in the images to my roommates.

 

[sidious618]

I was in school during the 9/11 attack so I didn't see the towers falling but I remember quite vividly the post-attack coverage. That's probably my number one.

Obama's election was very memorable as I don't think I've ever paid so much attention to the political scene before. 'twas an amazing moment for me personally.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Live?

Probably Jack Ruby shooting Oswald.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I haven't seen a lot of hugely significant events *live*. Most of them have been coverage recorded after the fact. Even things like 9/11, the destruction of Challenger and Columbia (although when I was a kid I did see Columbia's first *launch* live), etc.

Unless we are counting sports as significant. Then, yes, I've seen it. Does the last game ever played at Yankee Stadium count?

 

[Mallory]

Live?

Probably Jack Ruby shooting Oswald.

I saw that too. Totally unexpected and pretty much unprecedented for live TV. You don't see too many assassinations/murders happen on real time network TV.

 

[What's his face]

Good:
- Obama's election
- Spaceshipone's first flight

Bad:
- 9/11 (Only saw the aftermath. I was at school when it happened)
- Columbia disaster (again, the aftermath)
- These are the Voyages original airing

Neither good nor bad:
- American tanks crossing the Kuwait border into Iraq in 2003
- New Years 2000

I have class at noon on tuesday so I'll miss the inauguration.

 

[FPAlpha]

- seeing people chanting "We are the people" into the face of old school german communists which finally culminated a few months later into pictures of people dancing on the Berlin Wall before it was dismantled

- the Soviet Union (failed) military coup of 1991.. i saw it in the morning on TV and didn't think much of it (hey.. i was 15 at the time.. what did global politics matter to me?) until i mentioned it to my dad when we had breakfast in a casual tone ala "The Russians are fighting in Moscow.." and my Dad just stared in disbelief how i could not grasp the significance before he rushed to the TV

- the Iron Curtain falling like a house of cards in the 90s

- the people of Serbia attacking Milosevic regime in Belgrade and overthrowing them.. huge to me since i come from the Balkans and saw my people slaughtering each other for years

- 9/11 of course.. i was at home that day and on a whim turned on my TV at around 3pm when i saw the towers burning. I thought it was a "standard" fire at first but soon realized it was a terrorist attack. I knew then that the world would never be the same after and that the Americans would go nuts and wouldn't also know when to stop.. sadly i was proven right

 

[Deckerd]

Neil Armstrong stepping off the lunar module.

 

[Omnius]

I'll just leave out the obvious stuff that everyone else has posted. Instead I'll also mention some highlights that were significant here in the Netherlands.

Good stuff
- 1990, fall of the Berlin Wall
- 1990, The Wall concert in Berlin by Pink Floyd
- January 2004, watching the first images of the NASA Mars Rovers.
- January 2005, the Huygens probe from the Cassini-Huygens mission lands on Saturn's moon Titan.
- Watching the launch of an Space Shuttle live through NASA TV (hull cams etc)

Bad stuff
- Oktober 4th 1992, an El-Al flight crashes into a suburb flat near Amsterdam. Killing 43 people and injures many more. link
- May 13th 2000, a fireworks storage depot explodes in the city center of Enschede, erasing a complete block of houses from the map, and kills 22 and injures around 1000 people.link
- May 2nd 2002, prominent (but controversial) Dutch politician is murdered by an animal rights activist. link

 

[Outpost4]

Live?

Probably Jack Ruby shooting Oswald.

I saw that too. Totally unexpected and pretty much unprecedented for live TV. You don't see too many assassinations/murders happen on real time network TV.

Agreed for me, too. Walking on the moon was also a pretty big one, as was seeing the towers fall on 9/11.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Janet Jackson flashing her tit for all the ruckus it caused.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I believe everyone in Britain had tuned in to see the funeral of Princess Diana in September 1997.

 

[Deckerd]

No they didn't. We had an 'Avoid the Royal Wedding Party' so it was only fair to have an 'Avoid the Royal Funeral' weekend holiday. Very nice it was too. The outbreak of Diarrhea in Sept 1997 is one of those events which have subsequently provoked national amnesia at the sheer horrifying embarrassment of it all.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

- 9/11 (heard about the first crash while listening to the radio in bed, and flipped on the TV before the second tower was hit).
- Challenger explosion (watched it in class)
- Columbia break-up
- Russian coup attempt of 1991
- Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
- Rodney King verdicts and the LA Riots
- OJ slow-speed chase and later the trial
- The start of the air and later the ground offensive in Gulf War 1 and the Scud attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia
- Tearing down the Berlin Wall
- Election of Barack Obama
- Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 (was watching the World Series as it happened onscreen)
- Launch of the space shuttle Columbia for the first time

There are others, but those are some of the biggies. Not including sports events.

 

[propita]

While not significant to many--I was wondering where my boyfriend (now Hubby) was, as he was in Loma Prieta for the auto races.

He had said they'd (he and a friend) would be out of town. All I could picture was the fallen bridge span and the downed freeway.

Luckily, they were at one of the safest places in the area--NOB HILL. As solid ground as can be found, I think, in the area.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I had a few relatives living in San Francisco at the time who we were concerned about. But they were all okay.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Good:

The fall of the Berlin Wall
The end of the USSR
Capture of Saddam (breaking news)

Bad:

9/11 (aftermath--I didn't see the actual attack live)
OKC bombing (radio, actually)
Tornadoes coming through my hometown on live TV
Hurricane Katrina
Bombing of the USS Cole (breaking news)

Other:

Start of the second Iraq War

 

[TheLonelySquire]

At 62 years old, my first profound TV memory was footage of the first Hydrogen bomb test. Too many to list after that.

As for the remark above about Obama, such ignorance and bigotry in one place is extremely efficient of you.

Which remark are you referring to?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The outbreak of Diarrhea in Sept 1997 is one of those events which have subsequently provoked national amnesia at the sheer horrifying embarrassment of it all.

What was the cause of the outbreak?

 

[Lookingglassman]

I was very young like 2 or 3, but I remember watching the astronauts floating in space on a black and white tv.

 

[Davros]

Man on the Moon.