Continuing my Storyworth project, here’s how I answered, “What’s the first major news story you can remember living through as a child?”

They say that for Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964), JFK’s assassination and Watergate were the two defining moments. For Gen Xers (1965-1980), the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. For Millennials (1981-1996), 9/11. For later generations, it seems that major events are less singular and more sprawling (perhaps comparable to the Vietnam War for Baby Boomers). And so, for Gen Z (1997-2012), the huge ripple effect created from a series of events is the 2008 financial crisis or the advent of the iPhone, and for Generation Alpha (2013-2025), the Covid-19 global pandemic.

One of the tests used to tell whether the major story or series of events is the right one that matches your demographic is that you can vividly remember exactly where you were when it happened. For example, most Boomers recall with amazing specificity exactly where they were when they heard that JFK was shot. One of the key ideas behind selecting the top news story for your generation is that each generation experiences major events that profoundly shape our perceptions of the world, often in ways we aren’t always aware of.

If I answered the question above just through the lens of what I can “remember living through as a child,” it might be things like celebrating our country’s bicentennial in 1976 or Elvis’s death in 1977. I was too young for Watergate to be relevant, but I do remember, in elementary school, leafing through a nice Time Life hardback book on JFK’s assassination that someone had donated to our Christian school. In it, I was stunned to find vivid, full-page pictures of Jack Ruby jamming his gun into Lee Harvey Oswald’s side. That picture caught all the horror of this less grainy and secondary assassination related to Kennedy’s, where Ruby’s eyes are wild and determined, and Oswald is bent over, wincing in pain. I couldn’t believe these pictures were real! This was my first introduction into the fascinating complexities and conspiracies associated with the Kennedy assassination. It was also probably the first picture I ever saw of graphic violence.

But as far as the first, major, generation-defining news story that I experienced—despite being an adult when it happened—it was the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, as I do remember exactly where I was.

It was January 28, 1986, and I was working with another employee at my boss, Bob Mixner’s, house.

Prior to this, for months, the national attention had been on the epic shuttle mission that would include the first school “teacher in space,” Christa McAuliffe. The takeoff would be watched in classrooms across the nation, and children and adults alike were mesmerized by Christa’s story. “She was selected out of 11,000 applicants to be the first ordinary private citizen and teacher in space. Her bubbly warmth, contagious enthusiasm for education, and status as an everyday mom made her a highly relatable role model.”

The day Bob invited us into his house, a little early for lunch, so we could watch the launch. Gathered around what was probably no larger than a 25-inch screen, we watched the shuttle take off. Then, at 11:38—just 73 seconds into flight—there was an explosion. Everything went silent, and there were just billows of smoke. In shock and trying to process what we were seeing, I’m sure we were all thinking, “This can’t be good.”

What we learned in the hours that followed was that all seven crew members, including Christa, were killed either instantly or shortly after the blast. And, in the ensuing weeks, we learned that the blast happened because the orbiter had “disintegrated,” something “caused by the failure of O-ring seals in cold weather,” which led to “a fuel leak,” an explosion, followed by “a massive structural breakup at 46,000 feet.”

Again, the Challenger disaster profoundly impacted a generation “because it was a live-broadcast, nationally watched tragedy that shattered the illusion of space travel as routine, turning a ‘teachable moment’ for schoolchildren into a traumatic, firsthand experience of death, intensified by the loss of civilian teacher Christa McAuliffe.” And this catastrophe was the catalyst for a psychological shift in Gen Xers and others as it “instantly transformed a symbol of human advancement into a nightmare that forced a re-evaluation of national risks and technical hubris.”[1]

[1] AI was used for several details and paragraphs in this piece.

What’s the first big news story that you remember as a child, or what was your generation-defining moment? Where were you when it happened, and how did it affect you? Please send me a note. I would love to hear from you!