Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[gatso]

And on a lighter note, The Titanic

I can only assume you missed the end of the movie

[dousche]

If I recall correctly, Oklahoma City is not in Oklahoma - is that right?

oklahoma city is in oklahoma. kansas city is in missouri

[dousche]

just trying to think of things in my (short) lifetime.... se-asia tsunami, genocide in sudan - read about it at the age that i was really getting interested in worldly current affairs and was amazed at what developed countries govts could let happen without interfering when they dont have a vested interest.

as for you old folk... creation of the state of israel?

[tikay]

exxon valdez is a good call, huge story

I'm adding the marchioness disaster

Exxon Valdez, yes, a great tale, (drunken Captain, yes?) but I'd replace it with the Torrrey Canyon, which happened in the English Channel.

The PM, Harold Wilson, ordered that to prevent it being washed/shipwrecked ashore, with it's huge cargo of thick crude oil, the RAF should be charged with sinking it, mid-channel, by bombing it.

Well, talk about epic fail. The ship was marooned, stationery except for tidal push, in the Channel. They bombed it for days & days, & failed to hit it once! Eventually, they sunk it, to much red-faced embarrassment. Subsequently, I realised that all this talk of pinpoint bombing techniques was sheer tosh, a point proven when the RAF tried to disable the Falklands Airstrip, which took about a dozen attempts.

[tikay]

Ken Bigley ... now there was a story.

Who was Ken Bigley?

[tikay]

exxon valdez is a good call, huge story

I'm adding the marchioness disaster

A wee bit parochial?

the marchioness? possibly, I kinda assumed it was a pretty big story nationwide but guess not from your response

Oh no, it was a big story - especially the court case(s?), but since then there's been hundreds of lives lost in bigger sea disasters.

Just IMO it's not a BIG story.

I'd say Zebrugge was a bigger story than Marchioness

Bugger. This List will have to be bigger than 10.

A perfect tale of how one small mistake can have such devestating consequences. The whole thing rolled over in seconds, poof, gone.

[WarBwastard]

Around school leaving age for me (late 80's), which is a great time in anyones life, there was a series of disasters sort of annually which I still recall pretty vividly.  It was also around the time the European map seemed to change over night.  There was a succession of huge political events which meant nothing to me at the time, but far more so now in retrospect, interlaced with far less significant domestic but more personal disasters which I can recall vividly.

The Herald of Free Enterprise going down in 1987 was awful -  more appalling to me at the time than something like Tiananmen Square two years later in 1989 because it was so much easier to imagine being involved in it - as was Hillsbrough -  whereas the struggles of those Chinese students couldn't have been further away from my life in the Cotswalds geographically or metaphorically.  

The Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 was another event that sticks in my mind.  Finally from that era, something which was relevant to me at the time because it involved football not because of it's wider significance, was the riot in Zagreb when Red Star Belgrade played Dynamo Zagreb - the one where Zvanomir Boban sort of kung-fu kicked a Serbian riot cop because he'd realised the police were only attacking the Croatian fans.  Considered the catalyst for the Yugoslav civil war.   Again - retrospectively I think that was a huge moment in European history and an incredibly brave thing to have done, I think at the time though I just thought it was cool that a player would kick a policeman.

[tikay]

I wish I hadn't started thinking about this, things keep popping into my head now

charles and di's wedding was such a huge news item. the whole country just went irrationally mental for a few weeks. my normally sane parents camped out on the street the night before and made friends with a couple of punks with massive mohicans who were sharing the same bit of pavement

and then torville and dean's bolero in sarajevo. went way beyond the boudries of sport and into the public conscience

I think "Sport" stories are worth their own List.

Off you go, get us started.....

[dik9]

Was just reading up on the "Fat Man" Bomb, I didn't realise that America has "Lost" 60 nuclear weapons? I know they are a bit backward when it comes to war (friendly fire etc) but lost nuclear bombs?

[tikay]

America sees it's 1st black President

Bugger. That's another.

[Laxie]

If I recall correctly, Oklahoma City is not in Oklahoma - is that right?

oklahoma city is in oklahoma. kansas city is in missouri

That's right.  It's the capital of Oklahoma.  The fact that it was a local red neck when they tried to blame Middle Eastern's was what always stuck with me the most.  That's when I really became cynical of the US goverment and their press.  

America sees it's 1st black President

Bugger. That's another.

That very nearly made my list too, except I felt I was going to 'American' on ye.  lol

[tikay]

And on a lighter note, The Titanic

I can only assume you missed the end of the movie

I did. And the beginning, & the middle.

I would not have watched that if you paid me in diamonds.

I heard there was singing in it. Singing.

[tikay]

If I recall correctly, Oklahoma City is not in Oklahoma - is that right?

oklahoma city is in oklahoma. kansas city is in missouri

Whoops. But you can see my thought train. Kansas City is not in Kansas, right?

[Claw75]

exxon valdez is a good call, huge story

I'm adding the marchioness disaster

A wee bit parochial?

the marchioness? possibly, I kinda assumed it was a pretty big story nationwide but guess not from your response

Oh no, it was a big story - especially the court case(s?), but since then there's been hundreds of lives lost in bigger sea disasters.

Just IMO it's not a BIG story.

I'd say Zebrugge was a bigger story than Marchioness

Bugger. This List will have to be bigger than 10.

A perfect tale of how one small mistake can have such devestating consequences. The whole thing rolled over in seconds, poof, gone.

It was another one that hit close to home for me.  I was 11 or 12 at the time, and a boy at my school lost both his parents in the disaster. Apparently the families of the passengers just had to wait to see if their loved ones were among the survivors that returned.

[Karabiner]

as for you old folk... creation of the state of israel?

Best not get that one started again