Off Topic Top ten significant historic events....

Prompted by a survey in the US, thought it might be diverting to see what up to ten public events (not personal stuff) posters felt have made the biggest impact during their lifetimes (some of us have more to choose from than others, and obviously from a personal perspective). I'll attempt to keep a running total of the most 'popular'.

Mine, not very thoroughly ranked and probably will change with things I have forgotten and others remind me of. Selected on significance from my viewpoint, not whether I think they were good or bad things.

1. Tech/scientific revolution
2. Thatcher/Reagan economics, personal credit/debt boom
3. 9/11 (including Iraq/Afghanistan wars and the rest of the aftermath)
4. Vote to enter EEC
5. Brexit referendum (Tbc.)
6. Berlin Wall/end of USSR
7. Social liberalisation - women's rights, minority rights, divorce, abortion, gay rights etc
8. More affordable air travel
9. Climate change concerns
10. Sky buying football (well, it is a football forum)

List omits US Civil Rights, moon landing, Kennedy assassination, Obama election, Vietnam War, Mandela, Falklands, many natural disasters and famines, OPEC oil price rise which changed everything in the seventies, financial crash 2008 (though that could fit under 2).......It's quite difficult to do.

 

1, The bearded tranny winning Eurovision
2, Peter Davison becoming Doctor Who
3, Michael Gove
4, El Niño
5, Embassy No. 1 at 67p a packet
6, Making use of an upturned boat in Beth Dunne's back garden
7, Swords
8, Battle-Action comic
9, Stroller
10, Tiswas

 

Damn, how did none of those occur to me?

 

You were being sensible.

 

1. ONLY FOOLS & HORSES
2. The Milk Cup 1986
3. The Hand of God 1986
4. Spitting Image
5. Frankie Goes to Hollywood "Relax"
6. Paul Hardcastle "19"
7. CHERNOBYL
8. Bush 1 & 2 with Blair crapping all over Iraq with Desert Failure and No WMD
9. Flight MH 370 disappearance and subsequent failure to locate
10a Thailand Tsunami 2004
10b Fukushima Japan Tsunami & Nuke disaster 2011

 

Jim Gregory becoming QPR Chairman in 1965, without him we'd be down there with Orient and other also-rans...

 

Wasn't No. 6 by Paul Hardcastle?

 

Mainly bad stuff for me, sadly.

Aids
Tolerance (homosexuality/gay marriage etc)
Intolerance - the rise of hard line extremist Islam
Destruction of the English language through emogies/text speak
Rap

 

End of the Cold War
First Gulf War
NI Peace Pact
Mobile phones
Social media
Rise in celebrity culture / increase in earnings by entertainers
The decline of the singles chart / music downloads
Al Qaeda / ISIS
Brexit
Benefits culture / the say what you want generation / decline of social conscience

Probably huge events I've not recalled quickly enough.

 

Hairless genitalia.

 

The Pill introduced.
Moon walk - the real one.
Bay of pigs
JFK assassination
Bloody Sunday
Berlin Wall
Falklands
Miners Strike.
Iraq War
9/11

Israel as a nation state but before my time!

 

Yes! I was testing you!

My memory escapes me in me old age...............



fixed

 

My top 10 would be; 2 & 3 are linked.

1. The www. It has affected all of our lives.
2. The invasion of Iraq and all the consequences which we see to this day in the whole Middle East Region. See 3 below.
3. 9/11 and the utter pigs ear of a response to it by Bush and Blair - especially Bush Jnr. See 2 above.
4. The banking crisis of 2008 which will affect the lives of people for the next 40 years and has resulted in financial devastation for so many and in some cases it has led to suicides.
5. Brexit - it will take 20 years for the full effects to become apparent on everybody.
6. The 2004 Thailand/Indonesia/Sri Lanka tsunami. It was utterly horrendous.
7. The fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the effect that has had in terms of migration to Western Europe..
8. Global warming. It will only get worse with Trump.
9. The Northern Ireland peace process and the economic benefits it has had for the whole island of Ireland and also for Britain.
10. The moon landing. What an achievement for mankind. I was only 6 but remember it well.

 

Sorry mate, but why would it get worse with Trump? There is no stopping it, regardless. All the Nuke testing done by the US and Russia up to the late 70's have done more damage to the Ozone than they will ever lead you to believe. And nobody will ever fess up to it, so we can't ever do anything about it. The effects of which is just as equal as the tech advances we made while doing it. Besides - look here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste

There's no stopping it. And we have more Nuke-powered sh1t around the world than anytime in our short time of Nuke power history.
Until the Catholics stop breeding and allow the use of condoms, until we, as a whole human race agree to stop having kids with reckless abandon (China's 1-child policy, anyone?), and agree to control birth, there is no stopping. As you mentioned the WWW - how do you think we get all this tech? Where do we get all this tech? How do we live our current lives in such a modern way without all this INDUSTRIAL TECH? If we even stopped for a second to agree to not use any electronic gadgets or anything made by electronic gadgets (lights, cars, plastic bottles, etc) - do you think any of us would? No is the answer, and our privileged first-world, technologically and economically advanced world nations will not stop but look down upon the poor, supposedly uncivilized countries who actually live as we did before all this industrial tech and we have the audacity to think we're better?
We must have our satellite-fed footie coverage from around the world so that we can all enjoy the World Cup. So that we can all enjoy watching our own individual teams. Bleh.
It cannot be stopped. There is no global warming, per se, because we can't ever go back to before the Industrial Revolution. It's all just part of progress. And one day, there will be a time when the world's population will no longer be able to sustain this technological world, then the populations will decrease by famine, disease and death, the very few will survive, and carry on with whatever paradigm they will face of the crap we leave them, just as all the world's civilizations from the past that had no idea nor cared where they were headed, such as it is for us. We will all choke in our own technological waste because we don't want to grow up and clean up our own mess (look at India's pollution, and the Favelas of the world!), we will succumb to our own sh1t.

 

Did you write that on an iPad or laptop

 

Wow. I now think we let Yappy off lightly for not knowing the difference between Axel F and 19.

 

Hard to add to those above, so on a more cultural level.....

Elvis
The Beatles conquering USA
Summer of love 67 / Woodstock
Summer of Punk 76 / Sex Pistols
Assassination of John Lennon
Band Aid 85
Hillsborough/Heysel disasters
All day pub opening hours (thus enabling benefit culture to spend all day in their local Wetherspoons....)
Smoking ban
Www/Youtube/myspace/facebook

 

Nice one Steel. I nearly put punk on my list, it certainly had a huge impact on me, in terms of worldview and attitude as well as musical taste.