The three biggest world events of your lifetime

[Only_in_f1]

I was asked this question a few days back.

For me It has to be

1) 9/11
2) Princess Di's death
3) London Bombings

Thats just mine from the top of my head.

 

[Danoff]

- Berlin Wall Collapse
- Soviet Collapse
- Texas Longhorns NCAA Football National Championship (AKA USC Collapse)

Honorable Mentions
- There was a big wave that killed people
- A black guy got elected president of the US
- They released a friggin Southpark movie!
- A rocket ship blew up
- The Cassini spacecraft achieved orbit around Saturn
- Another rocket ship blew up
- The thousands digit on the year changed
- The internet got invented (for real, not as an experiment)

 

[Duke]

I would have to say:

1) Collapse of Soviet Union
2) Rise of the internet
3) 9/11

Nothing else that has happened since 1965 has had a world-wide impact on par with those three events. The Vietnam war ending, any of the various hostile events in the various hostile places, etc. while historic, really didn't have the same world-wide impact.

 

[Holdenhsvgtsr]

1) Bathurst 1987
2) My Girlfriend broke a nail
3) The release of the Lotus Carlton

 

[High-Test]

1.) The events of September 11
2.) A nazi communist hippie alien black muslim atheist jew man from Hawaii was elected president of the United States of America.


Those are really the only two that I can recall.

Honorable mention goes to a bunch of imaginary bird worshippers going crazy in April 2008. When I was in Fargo..

 

[Danoff]

I'll give in to peer pressure. My real number 3 has to be 9/11. It narrowly bumps the Texas national championship to 4th.

 

[Rykon Zero]

Hmm...
1. 9/11. That stood out to me as to why there were planes flying into buildings in first grade.
2. The technology age really got into it's stride.
3. Well, that hasn't happened yet, so I'll wait until I make my company.

 

[Omnis]

1. 9/11
2. Ron Paul runs for President (and Sage uses "Who Is Ron Paul?" avatar)
3. Pope John Paul II dies.

Honorable Mention: NINTENDO SIXTY-FOOOOOOUR!

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

9/11
"War on terror"
Obama winning Nobel Peace Prize

 

[Famine]

Hmm...

1978 - Louise Brown born; World's first "test tube baby".
1985/6 - DNA fingerprinting created/used for the first time in a criminal trial.
1989/93 - "WorldWideWeb" created/implemented.

 

[turboash78]

1. 9/11
2. Berlin Wall Collapse
3. Challenger explosion

HM: Rider's Grey Cup win in 1989... and COD4-online

 

[YSSMAN]

Interesting way to date ourselves...

1) The Beginning Collapse of Communism (1989) --> End of the Soviet Union (1991)
2) The multiple attacks of September 11, 2001
3) The 2008 US Presidential Election

Honorable Mention: Sega Dreamcast. It still blows me away how ahead of everyone else they were with that thing.

 

[Casio]

1.) 2.) A nazi communist hippie alien black muslim atheist jew man from Hawaii Kenya was elected president of the United States of America.

Fixed.

 

[a6m5]

Off the top of my head:

1) End of the Cold War

2) 9/11

3) Internet(of today)

When you look at it like this, 9/11 is like a beginning of another Cold War. I can see why the conspiracy theorists like to believe that it was some sort of scheme. War=$$$

Edit:

No, no, no, no, no. I took a look at my list, and it is all wrong. Even going solely by how it provides access, or exchange of information, internet should be the Big winner.

 

[LSX]

1.) 9/11/01- I realized America is vulnerable. How could that happen even be possible, it was like the worst horror movie ever, sadly a real one. I guess I was naive to think something like this could not happen on such a large scale. Sure I remember when new york was bombed in the 90's, the Oklahoma bombing as well. There was never an event before that which made me pay attention to the world. There are other people out there, whom may want to harm us. It was just crazy, I was in those towers the summer before, crazy place. It was just something that made you think nothing is out of the realm of possibility and the world is not such a happy place all the time.

2.) '08 elections - I realized America is probably going to change, not for the good. I don't really want to get into that.

3.) 2/18/01- Dale Earnhardt died at Daytona. Never occurred to me how vulnerable we are as people. Watching the on board you see him following his son, then the 8 car slips out of frame as the wall approaches, then that was it. It showed me that you never know just what your going to be doing the next minute, if anything at all, no matter who you are. He was a legend regardless of if some choose to accept it or not. May seem trivial, but it was a serious event to me.

 

[Touring Mars]

1) Advent of the Internet

2) End of the Cold War

3) The Human Genome Project

Although the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were easily the most memorable and shocking 'world event' that I have been around to witness, I don't think it ought to be remembered as just a stand-alone event, much like Pearl Harbor doesn't describe WW2. Plus, I don't want to give suicidal religious zealots the satisfaction of making my Top 3.

 

[homeforsummer]

Interesting thread. I'd have to say (in chronological order):

- Fall of the Berlin Wall
- Rise of the Internet
- 9/11

With honourable mentions going (in no particular order) to:

- The Chernobyl disaster
- Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
- Princess Diana's death
- Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Lewis Hamilton's F1 Championship victories
- Ayrton Senna and Colin McRae's deaths

In terms of significance, I actually think that the Internet is has probably had the most significant impact on humankind in my lifetime. Internet media has brought news and information to so many more people and in such a different way from the normal mass-media has in the past. People can make their own news now. Sites like google and wikipedia bring knowledge to everyone that chooses to search for it, and sites like Youtube make every person who uploads a video a producer of their own media when previously this was the reserve of TV and radio companies. Anyone with an internet connection can be their own journalist, and the internet is the biggest thing to happen to music since the advent of vinyl records and gramophones. To top all that perhaps, is that significant numbers of people from all over the world can easily discuss topics like this one when twenty years ago we would never have known of each others' existance.

 

[nk4e]

1.Operation Desert Storm/Shield ( the passing of my late uncle after that)
2.Pope John Paul II dies
3.2008 Presidential Election
Honorable Mentions:
Y2K bug that burned my popcorn
Exploration of Mars in effect
Building of a Space Station

 

[Speedy Samurai]

1) my birth
2) collapse of soviet union and disco
3) the challenger explosion

 

[a6m5]

Although the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were easily the most memorable and shocking 'world event' that I have been around to witness, I don't think it ought to be remembered as just a stand-alone event, much like Pearl Harbor doesn't describe WW2. Plus, I don't want to give suicidal religious zealots the satisfaction of making my Top 3.

I had similar feeling on this as well. It still made third on my top-3, because I did see it as the beginning of another huge war. I don't like it either, but these terrorists finally did shake everyone. I'm sure the attack(s) accomplished everything they hoped for, and much more for them. But I sure hope they also realize that they made enemy of many on this planet. After 9/11, I just want the terrorists dead. Period. It is sad that it took a tragedy the size of 9/11 to wake the hell up of someone, but I'm pretty sure I'm amongst millions, if not billions of people who need a slap in the face.

 

[wfooshee]

Time for an old guy to chirp in . . . .

The Apollo missions - we really did that, with less computer power than most people have now in their phones.

The Internet - when I was in school, we had to go to the library and search books for information, but first you had to search a card catalog to see which book you needed. Think of the cards as Google, and the books as websites.

Cuban Missile Crisis - perhaps the strongest ever faceoff between East and West. We had bomb drills in school for years after that. Duck and cover!

An honorable mention goes to commercial jet air travel, whose roots are barely within my lifetime. Flying came within the reach of most average Americans rather than the wealthy elite, and the world shrank by an order of magnitude.

Another honorable mention to the space program in general. Satellite communication opened up the electronic age with messages around the world instantly, live TV from other continents. Weather forecasting as we now know it became possible, when you had a space view of the planet, rather than just phoned-in reports of conditions from all over. Velcro. Tang. The push for smaller, lighter, faster electronics. Composite materials. All from space research.

 

[mindwise]

in random order:

- Hubble Telescope
- Genetics
- the birth of my daughter

 

[maximumattack]

In no particular order

- The huge advancement in technology (mobile phones, internet, hdtv, gps)

- The conflict in the Middle East

- Diesel engines winning Le Mans

 

[Alex.]

Death of Ayrton Senna
9/11 + 7/7 (no I don't want an answer to the equation)
Barack Obama

 

[Earth]

- Discovery of Dark Energy
- Lehman Brothers Collapse
- Barrack Obama becoming U.S. president

 

[Tnerb]

'94 onwards:

- 9/11
- Rise of consumer technology + the internet
- Obama elected

 

[Denur]

- 9/11
- Cell phone and WWW
- 1st Gulf war

 

[MarcoM]

- birth of my daugther
- death of A. Senna
- 9-11

 

[mafia_boy]

In my lifetime:

1. Sydney Olympics 2000. Best feelings ever.
2. Bali Bombing.
3. 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Other mentions to:
-Diana's death
-Michael Jackson's death
-Removal of Saddam Hussein
-9/11
-Bill Clinton's affair.

 

[Sureboss]

Yugoslav conflicts, particularly the Srebrenica massacre. (Cousin was a Muslim liasion officer)
9-11
London Bombings