Off Topic Historic moments you'll never forget

[originallambrettaman]

Another big one for me is the tsunami disaster 2004.

Hard to watch this clip without getting chills.
"Maybe the earthquake affected the water?"
"Naaah"

"Look, all the thais are running"

"We should warn the tourists"

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My Mum was caught up in that, she was on holiday in Sri Lanka. Her hotel was destroyed, but the staff were brilliant, they got her out of the hotel just in time, then get her into an emergency shelter for a few days until she was evacuated. They kept treating her as a hotel guest and trying to sort everything for her, despite most of them having lost their homes.

 

[FER ARK]

My Mum was caught up in that, she was on holiday in Sri Lanka. Her hotel was destroyed, but the staff were brilliant, they got her out of the hotel just in time, then get her into an emergency shelter for a few days until she was evacuated. They kept treating her as a hotel guest and trying to sort everything for her, despite most of them having lost their homes.

Could be posted on the acts of kindness thread. Funny how extreme adversity can bring out the very best in people, or maybe most people just are that way and you don’t really appreciate it till the chips are down.

 

[RichardG]

My Mum was caught up in that, she was on holiday in Sri Lanka. Her hotel was destroyed, but the staff were brilliant, they got her out of the hotel just in time, then get her into an emergency shelter for a few days until she was evacuated. They kept treating her as a hotel guest and trying to sort everything for her, despite most of them having lost their homes.

An uncle of mine was in a folk band that were pretty successful and lucky enough to play in 80 or so countries by his estimation. He would always say that the kindest people in the world were Sri Lankans, with daylight before anyone else got a look in. The band did several gigs in Sri Lanka one tour and had the same driver that they got to know well, as you would. Turned out he was a teacher working in the holidays to try to raise some money to pay for his daughter's wedding. When the band found out how much the wedding would cost - not much by Western standards - they gave him that money and more as a thank you at the end of the trip. Obviously it was all a bit tearful. This was in the late 80s, and as far as I know the members of the band were still in touch with the Sri Lankan family as of a few years ago.

 

[RichardG]

I think the enormity of some situations doesn't really hit you until long after the event. The tsunami in southern Asia, for example, didn't really hit me until a week or so after when Channel 4 showed a documentary largely comprised using tourist footage. I remember one clip in particular of a beach in Sri Lanka where the tide went out further than it had ever gone before. Load of people were on the beach intrigued by this weird phenomena, laughing away. In the background, eventually, you could the tsunami coming. I'll never forget those scenes.

More immediate was obviously the 9/11 attacks. I was working in the PA newsroom at the time. Was an unforgettable day, and you knew as soon as the second plane hit that the world was changed forever.

For the London terrorist attacks of 2005, I was on my way to work just off Oxford Street and couldn't get on the Jubilee line, as it was suspended, as it frequently was past then. Annoyed, I got a bus down the A5, otherwise known as Edgware Road. We were told we had to get off the bus at Edgware Road station, where one of the bombs had been detonated, and the scenes around there will never leave me. The panic in the eyes of the police, trying to cope with what they knew was such a major event, but us commuters didn't, was very scary. I got to work and tried to contact all the London-based people I knew. My now-wife was in the train behind the one bombed in Moorgate. Had she arrived at Highbury and Islington two minutes earlier... I also remember being sat at work next to the Plaza on Oxford Street listening to the reports coming in. I think at one point there were about 12 'confirmed' bombs, including one at Leicester Square and snipers taking out people from the top of Canary Wharf. You were just wondering if somewhere on Oxford Street was next. A lesson in how quickly misinformation spreads at such times, I suppose.

Diana's death was another big one. I was working at Spiders at the time and got home at about 3am to see the news on all the TV stations. You kind of knew it was bigger than they were letting on. All they'd say was she had cut her legs badly, but there was no way she'd escaped with just that. I ended up going to bed about two minutes before her death.

 

[Barchullona]

I think the enormity of some situations doesn't really hit you until long after the event. The tsunami in southern Asia, for example, didn't really hit me until a week or so after when Channel 4 showed a documentary largely comprised using tourist footage. I remember one clip in particular of a beach in Sri Lanka where the tide went out further than it had ever gone before. Load of people were on the beach intrigued by this weird phenomena, laughing away. In the background, eventually, you could the tsunami coming. I'll never forget those scenes.

More immediate was obviously the 9/11 attacks. I was working in the PA newsroom at the time. Was an unforgettable day, and you knew as soon as the second plane hit that the world was changed forever.

For the London terrorist attacks of 2005, I was on my way to work just off Oxford Street and couldn't get on the Jubilee line, as it was suspended, as it frequently was past then. Annoyed, I got a bus down the A5, otherwise known as Edgware Road. We were told we had to get off the bus at Edgware Road station, where one of the bombs had been detonated, and the scenes around there will never leave me. The panic in the eyes of the police, trying to cope with what they knew was such a major event, but us commuters didn't, was very scary. I got to work and tried to contact all the London-based people I knew. My now-wife was in the train behind the one bombed in Moorgate. Had she arrived at Highbury and Islington two minutes earlier... I also remember being sat at work next to the Plaza on Oxford Street listening to the reports coming in. I think at one point there were about 12 'confirmed' bombs, including one at Leicester Square and snipers taking out people from the top of Canary Wharf. You were just wondering if somewhere on Oxford Street was next. A lesson in how quickly misinformation spreads at such times, I suppose.

Diana's death was another big one. I was working at Spiders at the time and got home at about 3am to see the news on all the TV stations. You kind of knew it was bigger than they were letting on. All they'd say was she had cut her legs badly, but there was no way she'd escaped with just that. I ended up going to bed about two minutes before her death.

Remember on one programme it saying a schoolgirl had saved some lives as she had just been studying tsunamis at school and told everyone to run. Unfortunately not all heeded her but a lot around her did.

 

[Quill]

More immediate was obviously the 9/11 attacks. I was working in the PA newsroom at the time. Was an unforgettable day, and you knew as soon as the second plane hit that the world was changed forever.

Yeah, when it was just the one plane that had hit, you could've put it down to being some horrendous accident, some error by a computer or a pilot causing a disaster. I mean, it happened before with the Empire State Building in 1945.

The moment the second plane hit, the world as it was known was completely gone. It was an event that will never happen again.

 

[Asterix]

Yeah, when it was just the one plane that had hit, you could've put it down to being some horrendous accident, some error by a computer or a pilot causing a disaster.

The moment the second plane hit, the world as it was known was completely gone. It was an event that will never happen again.

Prior to that, a normal hijacking saw the plane parked in a deserted corner of Stansted. Negotiators move in, passengers and crew inconvenienced, but usually survive. The public perception being, please don't let me be the one shot at the top of the stairs. But now? Sat on a guided missile? Have a go.

As you say, it won't happen again.

 

[Febbos]

I think the enormity of some situations doesn't really hit you until long after the event. The tsunami in southern Asia, for example, didn't really hit me until a week or so after when Channel 4 showed a documentary largely comprised using tourist footage. I remember one clip in particular of a beach in Sri Lanka where the tide went out further than it had ever gone before. Load of people were on the beach intrigued by this weird phenomena, laughing away. In the background, eventually, you could the tsunami coming. I'll never forget those scenes.

I still think the enormity of the tsunami went a bit under the radar in the long run, hundreds and thousands lost their lives, massive blow both for the countries/inhabitants of the struck countries, but also for the tourism.

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Imagine if a similar disaster had happened in the US for example.

 

[RichardG]

Yeah, when it was just the one plane that had hit, you could've put it down to being some horrendous accident, some error by a computer or a pilot causing a disaster. I mean, it happened before with the Empire State Building in 1945.

The moment the second plane hit, the world as it was known was completely gone. It was an event that will never happen again.

I'd just nipped out of the office and returned to see a handful of people crowded around a television. "Rich, come and look at this, some idiot's crashed him plane into the Twin Towers," was how I found out about it. This would have been minutes after the first plane hit, and it was seen as a bit funny for a little while by some there. And almost definitely down to error. There was talk of a terrorist act but not much. Then the second plane hit... That time between the Berlin Wall falling and the Twin Towers being hit seems a lot more innocent, looking back.

 

[Quill]

I still think the enormity of the tsunami went a bit under the radar in the long run, hundreds and thousands lost their lives, massive blow both for the countries/inhabitants of the struck countries, but also for the tourism.

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Imagine if a similar disaster had happened in the US for example.

I think location definitely has a lot to do with it. People forgot about Haiti pretty quickly, as well.

 

[Des Head]

I just finished watching "United 93", haven't seen it since the release back in 2006.
Gave me both goosebumps and flashbacks to that day back in September 2001.

I was just 10, so couldn't really grasp the whole situation.
Had just gotten back from school and sat down in the living room to watch some good ol' VHS. I switched on the tele and remember seeing some replay of that second plane hitting the tower, first thinking it was some film. I remembered being very confused about it, couldn't take my eyes away at the same time. Could hear my mom talking to some friend on the phone in the kitchen and started yelling at her to come, took ages from what I recall.

"I think New York is on fire"

Still got a vivid print in my memory of her shocked facial expression when she walked in and started to realize what had happened.

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I know that most of you are older than me, so feel free to recall some memories you've got, from the same day or something completely different.

I was in a ****ty call centre in York selling credit card insurance to Morgan Stanley customers when Morgan Stanley's offices took the hit. An eerie hush started to cross the usually busy floor of about 150 people as potential suckers stopped answering the phone. Unfortunately, some dude answered the phone to me and politely suggested that I **** off and find a television, then hung up without even giving me a chance to sell him some **** he didn't need. By this point, everyone had started filtering to the canteen where we found a couple of Americans going wild, just ****ing distraught. Still not knowing what was going on I glanced to the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. This did not help the Americans and someone spewed. Anyone who wasn't crying was walking around dazed and half the building made for the smoking shelters outside in the car park, where my car was, so I took the opportunity to go home.

I'll never forget those Chilean miners getting saved, stayed up all night to watch that and I remember seeing York Minster on fire from the top of the Wolds when I were a young'un.

 

[Quill]

Also not been mentioned yet, but Grenfell.


That has and will continue to have a massive impact on this country for many years to come, and with good reason.

 

[Jimmy Graham's bald head]

The Zeebrugge ferry disaster is another childhood memory for me - probably the first disaster I remember but also the first time I recall hearing stories of real-life heroism

 

[spesupersydera]

The Aberfan disaster has always stuck with me, I was a child myself but old enough to understand the horror of it - despite having no links to S. Wales or mining it's something that will stay with me; a whole generation of one pit village wiped out by a preventable, man-made catastrophe. Some years later I read about the subsequent enquiries & tribunal, they were truly shocking reading. Reading them again today (as I just have), we would substitute shocking for unbelievable!

 

[Barchullona]

I think the enormity of some situations doesn't really hit you until long after the event. The tsunami in southern Asia, for example, didn't really hit me until a week or so after when Channel 4 showed a documentary largely comprised using tourist footage. I remember one clip in particular of a beach in Sri Lanka where the tide went out further than it had ever gone before. Load of people were on the beach intrigued by this weird phenomena, laughing away. In the background, eventually, you could the tsunami coming. I'll never forget those scenes.

More immediate was obviously the 9/11 attacks. I was working in the PA newsroom at the time. Was an unforgettable day, and you knew as soon as the second plane hit that the world was changed forever.

For the London terrorist attacks of 2005, I was on my way to work just off Oxford Street and couldn't get on the Jubilee line, as it was suspended, as it frequently was past then. Annoyed, I got a bus down the A5, otherwise known as Edgware Road. We were told we had to get off the bus at Edgware Road station, where one of the bombs had been detonated, and the scenes around there will never leave me. The panic in the eyes of the police, trying to cope with what they knew was such a major event, but us commuters didn't, was very scary. I got to work and tried to contact all the London-based people I knew. My now-wife was in the train behind the one bombed in Moorgate. Had she arrived at Highbury and Islington two minutes earlier... I also remember being sat at work next to the Plaza on Oxford Street listening to the reports coming in. I think at one point there were about 12 'confirmed' bombs, including one at Leicester Square and snipers taking out people from the top of Canary Wharf. You were just wondering if somewhere on Oxford Street was next. A lesson in how quickly misinformation spreads at such times, I suppose.

Diana's death was another big one. I was working at Spiders at the time and got home at about 3am to see the news on all the TV stations. You kind of knew it was bigger than they were letting on. All they'd say was she had cut her legs badly, but there was no way she'd escaped with just that. I ended up going to bed about two minutes before her death.

Remember watching the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution and seeing a female singer who had been banned for 20 years singing to the crowd in Wenceslas Square. Very emotional scenes.
I was in hospital 4 years or so and got talking to a chap who turned out to be Czech and his very attractive wife, who I thought was Dutch by her accent, relieved when she said a number of people thought that, who I thought must be 10-15 years younger than me but was in fact 7 or 8 years older. He was saying he came here in 1968 and I said,oh, after the Prague Spring. He seemed surprised I immediately thought of that and even more surprised when I said I remembered the scenes when a banned singer, who was pictured embracing Dubcek and banished for supporting his reforms. His wife is a massive fan of the singer Marta Kubišova(details of her struggle here. And some of our multimillionaire artists think they are brave and fighting the system and oppression). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Kubišová

Anyway he said he wasn’t here for the reasons I probably thought, that he didn’t like communism and had fled it. In fact he was here because he was a communist and had been critical of the corruption of the regime and was in danger for that. His father had been here in the war, got the impression he was a high ranking official, and when he returned to Czechoslovakia after the war was deemed to have been tainted by the West and reduced to menial jobs. When he came here in 1968 what impressed this chap most was being able to listen to jazz and blues quite freely. His wife said he was a very good instrumentalist. Settled in Nottingham for years before moving to East Yorkshire. He was a bit scathing about how we had freedoms to discuss whatever we liked and spent so much time engaged in what to him were inconsequential trivia.
Anyway, because of the wonders of the internet I could look up the singer after his wife told me her name. I remember her singing the national anthem, but can’t find a clip of that. However, before that she was introduced to the crowd who hadn’t seen her for 20 years as she was a non person, and chanted for her to sing her most popular song which had become a symbol of the underground for years

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[RichardG]

The Aberfan disaster has always stuck with me, I was a child myself but old enough to understand the horror of it - despite having no links to S. Wales or mining it's something that will stay with me; a whole generation of one pit village wiped out by a preventable, man-made catastrophe. Some years later I read about the subsequent enquiries & tribunal, they were truly shocking reading. Reading them again today (as I just have), we would substitute shocking for unbelievable!

My mum always talks of Aberfan as the news event that hit her the most. Because of that, I've watched several documentaries on it, and shocking and unbelievable sums it up. The arrogance and dispassion of some involved - some of those responsible - is difficult to watch.

A relatively minor one in the grand scheme of things is Jill Dando's death. I had a Monday off work and had just watched the lunchtime news when a News Flash came on straight afterwards, which I thought was odd. You could tell that Jennie Bond was utterly shellshocked and it all just seemed so surreal. Also, the train crash at Lockington in 1986. My mum and dad would go out every Saturday morning/lunchtime and I'd been begging them for ages to let me stay at home on my own to watch Saturday morning TV/Grandstand. I had just turned 12, and this was the first time they'd relented. When the news flash came in it utterly terrified me and I was in the house on my own desperate for them to come back.

 

[Jimmy Graham's bald head]

Dunblane. Still horrifies me today.

 

[City Man]

Remember watching the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution and seeing a female singer who had been banned for 20 years singing to the crowd in Wenceslas Square. Very emotional scenes.
I was in hospital 4 years or so and got talking to a chap who turned out to be Czech and his very attractive wife, who I thought was Dutch by her accent, relieved when she said a number of people thought that, who I thought must be 10-15 years younger than me but was in fact 7 or 8 years older. He was saying he came here in 1968 and I said,oh, after the Prague Spring. He seemed surprised I immediately thought of that and even more surprised when I said I remembered the scenes when a banned singer, who was pictured embracing Dubcek and banished for supporting his reforms. His wife is a massive fan of the singer Marta Kubišova(details of her struggle here. And some of our multimillionaire artists think they are brave and fighting the system and oppression). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Kubišová

Anyway he said he wasn’t here for the reasons I probably thought, that he didn’t like communism and had fled it. In fact he was here because he was a communist and had been critical of the corruption of the regime and was in danger for that. His father had been here in the war, got the impression he was a high ranking official, and when he returned to Czechoslovakia after the war was deemed to have been tainted by the West and reduced to menial jobs. When he came here in 1968 what impressed this chap most was being able to listen to jazz and blues quite freely. His wife said he was a very good instrumentalist. Settled in Nottingham for years before moving to East Yorkshire. He was a bit scathing about how we had freedoms to discuss whatever we liked and spent so much time engaged in what to him were inconsequential trivia.
Anyway, because of the wonders of the internet I could look up the singer after his wife told me her name. I remember her singing the national anthem, but can’t find a clip of that. However, before that she was introduced to the crowd who hadn’t seen her for 20 years as she was a non person, and chanted for her to sing her most popular song which had become a symbol of the underground for years

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Don't wish to in any way trivialise it, but she bears a striking resemblance to Deirdre Langton/Barlow.

Just sayin like

 

[Febbos]

Dunblane. Still horrifies me today.

Jesus, that is shocking indeed, 5 year olds Would have been the same age as them as well.

 

[John Ex Aberdeen now E.R.]

JFK assassination was the first one for me. First one with extensive TV coverage. (I was 7).

Mine too, we came out of Albert Ave baths after swimming and went into the shop opposite to buy some sweets and the owner told us.