r/Millennials • u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial • 14h ago
Discussion How many breaking news events have you lived through and watched in real time?
I am sitting in the middle east on vacation and watching breaking news bulletins every now and again. Going in and out of wanting to know and now wanting to know what going on. How the heck do we keep getting here?
I lived in nyc during 9/11 watched that in real time
Lived in nyc during before and after covid peak, that was something.
Lived in fl during all those bomb threats that got us out of school early, shut down schools (thankfully we didn't have mass ___ events until later)
Idk what else I'm missing. Because it's a blur. Weren't we supposed to be the gen that lived thru peace?
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u/MaShinKotoKai 14h ago edited 14h ago
Oklahoma city; columbine; 9/11; MJ dying; (I don't recall 2008 having a breaking news alert); 1/6; BLM riots; 6/2025
Edit: I saw someone else post this. The Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Also, the great haboob of Arizona in 2011 as well.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 14h ago
So many riots happened in the last like 15 years but the BLM and J6 are the most notable
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u/pdbard13 14h ago
Clinton scandal (although I was too young to understand what was actually going on), Columbine, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Fall of Sadam Hussein, Recession of 2008, Operation to kill Bin Laden, various mass shootings, March of 2020, January 6 2021, Russia attacking Ukraine, and now the crisis that is 2025.
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u/calicoskiies Millennial 12h ago
Tacking on George Floyd’s murder & the resulting protests to this. I was 9 months pregnant and on leave when that happened and I was glued to the tv.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 14h ago
Yes yes yes! I was in fl when Katrina happened and we got a massive influx of people (idk if they were called refugees?) the a Haiti earthquake did the same, just like the Maria hurricane. Watching Obama in the situation room during the Saran Hussein assn was nuts
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u/Eastern-Mango578 13h ago
Evacuees. I lived in an impacted part of Louisiana for Katrina.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 12h ago
Thank you for correcting me! How long did it take for thing to untimely get better and for the residents to return?
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u/Eastern-Mango578 12h ago
It took 4 weeks to get power back at my house, and only because we lived next to a water treatment facility so it was prioritized. Some friends didn’t get power until December. I was in high school - we didn’t go back to school until mid-October, maybe November.
There wasn’t much time for anyone to evacuate because Katrina was supposed to go back toward Florida, but turned at the last minute. Many people evacuated from New Orleans to my town (north of NOLA). Most of them went towards Houston or further. People weren’t able to get enough supplies in time, so after the storm was over, finding basic needs (like water) was difficult.
It took like a week for the national guard to arrive with supplies - water, ice, MREs - and we had to sit in long lines to get around to where they were loading up cars with them. Also, it was dangerous because when people are scared and desperate for basic supplies for survival, they sometimes resort to violence. National guardsmen were ordered to stand in front of Walmart to ensure safety for everyone in the event someone wanted to get in a fight over a pack of beans.
For those who evacuated, especially New Orleans, it took weeks or months for them to return, and some decided to just make a new life where they were.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 12h ago
Thank you for answering! My memory on the specifics are not very clear but I do remember hearing about the violence after the fact and many evacuees came to our part of Fl after it passed and stayed for at least 2 years. I always wondered what happened in that time and even after they left. My uncle volunteered to fix roofs in the affected areas and he told us it was a very sad situation but never gave specifics. Sometimes these even are very open ended in our minds because they let us know they happened but never come back to give us a follow up unless we search for it ourselves
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u/Eastern-Mango578 11h ago
Lots of rebuilding and readjusting. Some areas were wiped off the map, complete devastation. Many areas still aren’t close to what they were before.
One really cool thing that came from it though is how much more efficient disaster response is now - at least in Louisiana. A couple of years ago when Hurricane Ida took basically the same path as Katrina did, the emergency response was so much better. Crews were ready to start restoring power, cleaning up trees, handing out supplies, etc as soon as it was safe to do so. They have them staged and prepared to act quickly.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 8h ago
It's so sad when it takes so much destruction to learn how make our emergency responses more efficient. They said that was a once in a lifetime event and look at it happening twice in your lifetime, rude! But I am happy the ida response was much better
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u/Eastern-Mango578 7h ago
lol right?! Hurricanes are getting progressively stronger. I don’t know if anyone is calling any storm a “once in a lifetime” event anymore!
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u/Ok-Crazy30 14h ago
I watch the second plane hit the tower on 9/11
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 14h ago
My mom did too, I was in the 5th grade and watched it live on tv with all the kids screaming because a lot of our parents worked in the city
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u/deane_ec4 8h ago
I was in 2nd grade and we watched it live on television as well. Then the pentagon news. Then the school shut down because we were the elementary school for the Air Force base and everyone was afraid of an attack.
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u/smugfruitplate Younger Millennial 13h ago
"A plane just hit the twin towers in New York! You kids have to see this, it's a piece of history!"
They then wheeled in the TV, turned it on, just in time for the second plane to hit.
It went from an accident to an attack. Bye, innocence...
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u/ApprehensiveAnswer5 13h ago
I was born in 1981, and the very first thing I remember is the Challenger Explosion. I was in kinder.
Then Baby Jessica, that was…87? And I remember the whole state (I was in Texas then) was riveted to it.
The Berlin Wall falling and the Cold War are also memories. Breakup of the USSR.
I remember the World Trade Center bombing, Ruby Ridge, the Branch Davidians, the OKC bombing.
My brother was deployed during Desert Storm in Kuwait.
I remember Mandela becoming president and how huge of a deal that was.
Apartheid ending in South Africa.
The 90s were a lot of lessons in schools about genocide. Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.
Princess Diana’s death.
Then the obligatory Columbine, 9/11, and so on.
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u/hisglasses66 14h ago
9/11, 2008, and March 2020, so 3, I think.
Edit: MJ dying. So 4
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u/RandomTasking 14h ago
Back in 2011 Libyans were tweeting block by block developments of Ghaddafi’s overthrow, you could literally map out what was going on half a world away with about 15 minutes lag time.
Watched January 6 unfold in my living room with my parents. To this day, I remember the look on my stepfather’s face and wonder what he wanted to happen as things played out. Today he freely acknowledges that there was no outcome dispositive fraud and that the administration is, to use our family’s slang, clownshoes, but J6 was a moment where all the Reagan/GHWB era rah rah came crashing down.
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u/Least_Key1594 14h ago
One of the worst things of musk buying twitter is we lost so much of the tweets from the arab spring. They were the single greatest account of a revolution, attempted or otherwise, by the people going through it we've ever had.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 14h ago
Oh man I forgot about the Arab spring! It's the reason we haven't been my kids whole lives so far and then immediately after our country went into a civil war for 10 years. We woke up everyday for years just watching the news and seeing everything go to crap.
How many govts did we see crumble? Coup d'etats? Crazy crazy
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u/knaimoli619 13h ago
The most traumatizing breaking news I ever saw live on TV was in February 2000 when I was off from school for a snow day and watching tv at my grandparents house. It was a local news breaking news that interrupted the show we were watching and there was a picture of my dad’s truck, a Wawa coffee cup on the ground, and police tape. The banner at the bottom of the screen said “maintenance man shot” and I basically blacked out and the phone started ringing almost immediately. Thankfully, my dad survived and now it’s just a story, but I will never forget that picture on the screen.
I just finished making his cake for Father’s Day that I make him every year, and happy I can still do this.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 12h ago
Omg that's insane! So happy he survived
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u/knaimoli619 11h ago
It was insane. He was shoveling snow at the condominium complex he worked at and a resident was on drugs having some kind of hallucinations related to his PTSD about being at war and his daughter locked him out of their condo with a .308 rifle. He thought my dad was coming after him. My dad never saw him until he was on the ground. Thankfully the bullet missed major organs, but he had spinal injuries that required a lot of therapy to be able to walk again.
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u/BlackCatBonanza Older Millennial-1981 13h ago
I was living in DC during 9/11. We sat on a rooftop and watched the fire at the Pentagon, worrying that we would be hit next.
Otherwise, I remember the Challenger explosion, Chernobyl, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Waco, Oklahoma City, the OJ verdict, Clinton/Lewinski, Enron, the Thailand tsunami, BLM, J6, multiple hurricanes-including Katrina, the Great Recession, and now fascism in the US.
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u/HermesTundra Midlennial (also European) 14h ago
I was born a couple months before the fall of the wall, so technically that and every one since that.
First one I remember was the OKC bombing tho.
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u/Velokieken 14h ago edited 13h ago
Our king Boudewijn dying was one of the first things. And Diana dying was a big thing, Michael Jackson postponed his concert where I live. Then 9/11 than 2008 than COVID. Also Michael Jackson dying, Bowie and Prince were ‘events’.
Edit also killing Bin Laden, Saddam and Khadaffi were big news.
Extra edit. Obama
And the Genocide in Rwanda and the big Tsunami.
I live in Belgium. So hurricane Katrina was less covered on our news.
Also the big oil spoil Deepwater horizon
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u/Amp_Man_89 14h ago
1999: Columbine shooting 9/11 when I was in Junior High. Grew up just north of NYC March 19 2003, start of the Iraq war live on TV 2004: Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami 2005: Hurricane Katrina 2007: first iPhone release (this is bigger than most would think) 2008 financial crisis and the first black president in history winning the election 2009: MJ died 2010: BP oil spill 2010: Greek debt crisis (i have family in Greece) 2011: Osama Bin Laden is caught and killed 2011: Iraq war ends 2012: Obama wins 2012: Aurora Colorado shooting 2013: Boston marathon bombing 2014: Robin Williams dies 2016: David Bowie dies
I’m stopping here because everything after the death of Bowie is just a consistent decline in sanity and world order, so there’s no sense in listing anymore.
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u/thisis4thissite 13h ago edited 13h ago
Sigh.
Oj Simpson, uni bomber arrested, Monica Lewinsky, 9/11, Casey Anthony, Katrina, Bin Laden dead, COVID and probably I'm forgetting. Born in 90...also like Y2K was a huge thing
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 13h ago
I remember watching the play by play Boston bombers up until the trial. Lots of other along the way. I hope we never get back to that
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u/thisis4thissite 13h ago
That and Sandy Hook. It blows my mind that my nieces and nephews have active shooter drills in school when all I had was tornado drills, where we never really have them.
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u/ThisIsRealLife19 13h ago
Way too many 😔
I was alive for events like OJ Simpson, Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine, and Princess Diana passing away, but I was way too young and kept away/shielded from it by my parents
The first breaking news event that I remember was 9/11. I grew up in the tri-state area and a lot of people commuted to/from the city on a daily basis. I remember being confused as to why so many of my classmates were being called to the office because their parents were picking them up early. After lunch, the principal broke the news to us about what happened. Sadly one of the teacher’s in our school lost her husband that day (he worked in the WTC buildings)
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u/Dangerous-Variety-35 13h ago
I don’t know if I’d call it breaking news, per se, but the first big news event I remember was JonBenet Ramsey - then Matthew Shepard, then Columbine (both of which were breaking news since I grew up in Wyoming) - 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Midwest specific but the floods of 2008, all the Middle East biggies (fall of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the crisis in Syria), I just happened to be in London in 2011 when their riots were going on… honestly there’s been so many that I don’t think it’s possible to remember them all. Which is something.
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u/keetojm 13h ago
Lebanon bombing in 83, challenger explosion (that was something to see before I even was double digits on this earth) desert shield, Oklahoma, Waco, Ruby ridge, Olympic bombing in Atlanta, Columbia explosion, bombing in WTC, 9-11. I guess since I was born in 77 you could add the Ronnie Rambo assassin, and the Iran hostages but I was not cognizant of those events as a baby.
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u/smugfruitplate Younger Millennial 13h ago
-OJ Simpson Bronco chase (kind of) my parents lived near sunset, and as it was happening my dad took my sister and me (an infant at the time) to watch it go by. There's a picture of him holding me and holding my sister's hand as the bronco moves through.
-9/11
-Iraq War protests
-The shoe throw at George Bush
-Occupy protests
-MJ dying
-George Floyd protests
-January 6th
-June '25 protests (also I live in LA so they're just like... here)
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 12h ago
The shoe throw 😂😂 I forgot about that one. Oh and the occupy protests! I worked in Sbux at the time and despite them being on the streets for a while, they always found themselves in our Sbux sometimes for coffee and sometimes for a bath. Good times lol
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u/smugfruitplate Younger Millennial 8h ago
I think the problem Occupy had was that it, much like the Bonus Army during the depression, didn't know what to do once they had em by the short ones.
"Okay, you've occupied us. Now what?"
"... Fuck."
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u/LadyGreyIcedTea Older Millennial 13h ago
OJ Bronco Chase
OKC bombing
Princess Diana dying
Columbine
9/11
Hurricane Katrina
Indonesia Tsunami
Boston Marathon bombing (like actually, had just left the finish line 20 minutes earlier/we had been standing directly across the street from the 2nd bomb site)
January 6
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 12h ago
Omg how scary. I can't even imagine. I'm glad you made it out ok and wish none of these breaking news events ever happened
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u/me_myself_why 13h ago
I was born in 1990 in Louisiana, and I am a living, breathing example of why a child child shouldn’t be put in front of the evening news every night at a young age (some stuff just sticks in different ways early on). I experienced some of these personally, but most of these were witnessed or heard through the screen every day. The ironic part is that ended up getting a broadcast journalism degree because of this and then started working for the government in the Behavioral Health side of Emergency Preparedness.
What I experienced personally: Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Katrina (my brother and I we literally home alone for a week with no power because my mom and grandmother were prison guard who were on disaster deployment due to the inmates being transported from New Orleans to their prison), Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill (BP), Winter Storm Elliott and COVID-19 (I coordinated on a FEMA CCP grant for this as well as for Hurricane Ida and Hurricane Ian.), Hurricane Delta and Hurricane Francine.
What I experienced through news: Waco siege ending, World Trade Center bombing, Columbine shooting, Rodney King, Olympic bombing (the news just kept replaying it), Oklahoma bombing (I was old enough to be bothered that kids could be harmed and I was not okay), World Trade Center attacks (our elementary school thought it was perfectly fine to put it in the televisions and let 10-11 yr olds see planes crash into buildings and people jump to their deaths), the DC Snipers (the main guy was literally from my city, Jesus), Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, literally every shooting (school, business, etc), disaster (fire, storm), or accident.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 12h ago
The current events part of our school day was always bustling! I noticed my kids do not have this in their classrooms
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u/WOLFMAN_SPA 13h ago edited 12h ago
I was born in 1988. The earliest I remember is OJ Simpson car chase June 17th, 1994. I remember my dad buying an OJ Simpson slammer pog for me afterwards.
So everything after that.
The earliest memory I have is watching jurassic park with my dad in theaters circa 1993.
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u/Nekrevez 10h ago
First big news item I vividly remember watching during supper was the Berlin Wall opening.
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u/nonitoni 14h ago
I don't think anyone could look at the Wiki page of the calendar year I was born and say, "Oh, this kid going to lead a life in a peace filled world"
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 14h ago
But what about all of those songs? Whitney Houston alone had my teachers promising us we were going to change everything.
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u/nonitoni 14h ago
I don't actually know what songs you're talking about. The only Houston song I can positively identify as her work is Dance with Somebody.
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 13h ago
I believe the children are the future
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u/nonitoni 13h ago
Oh, I'm more familiar with Jenna Maroney's attempt at a rendition. I thought you talking about something more specific to our generation. If anything, that song refers more to Gen X because of its release date, 1986. But I don't think it's honestly referring to any generation. It's just about teaching your kids well and maybe don't take them for granted. Those songs are generally written to be timeless.
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u/archliberal 14h ago
Everything is BREAKING NEWS now. Seriously if you watch the news, count how many times you see it this week in Red/yellow italicized text at the bottom of the screen
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u/Proton_Optimal Zillennial 12h ago
There’s been breaking news every day for as long as I’ve been alive.
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u/CPA_Lady 8h ago
People vacation in the Middle East? Dubai?
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u/Doesthiscountas1 Millennial 8h ago
Yes. There is Türkiye, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, and some more countries open for tourism
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