Okay, as we have a groovey new forum I thought I'd ask about major historical world changing type moments that have occured in your life (other than finding SimV )
So for me;
Two shuttle disasters
The end of the Cold War
A somewhat twitchy peace in N.Ireland
Several Russian/Soviet submarine disasters
The first probe leaving the Solar System
The falling of the Berlin Wall
The invention of the home computer
CDs
Mobile phones
DVDs and videos!!!
Microwave ovens
Britains first woman Prime Minister
Numerous wars (Gulf (twice), Falklands, Iran v Iraq and various others)
The Euro
The ISS and the end Mir and Skylab
The probe landing on Haleys Comet
The last Apollo missions
The operational life of Concorde
Pot noodles (I know most people hate them, but I love the mushroom one )
MP3
Digital watches and solar powered watches
Microsoft

All the above plus:
Roughly in date order

We got our first TV - maybe a bad mistake
World speed record broken by Neville Duke in a Hawker Hunter 50 years ago this September
Sound Barrier broken
V-bombers - Valiant, Victor & Vulcan
DH 110 crash at Farnborough
My first flight - August 1957 in a Miles Marathon at RAF Topcliffe
Got my gliding licence - June 1959 - RAF Hawkinge
Had a flight in a Hunter T.7 -  August 1959 at RAF Chivenor - broke sound barrier - twice - I was 16 years old  

Cuban crisis averted - very nearly WWIII
JFK assasinated - I cried
Sputnik launched - first telecommunications satellite
Yuri Gagarin/Vostok 1 - first human astronaut to orbit Earth
John Glenn/Mercury capsule - first US astronaut to orbit Earth
Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin/Apollo 11 - First moon landing
My daughter was born
Got my first R/C glider - Christmas 1979
Flew my first R/C glider - January 1980
Flight in an Extra 300 - May 3rd 2002 - special 60th birthday treat
My daughter got married - October 2002 8)

The last few years are a bit hazy. This is all I can think of right now. 8)

Directly affecting my life -

Vietnam War - especially 1970 - when my draft number came up #262.  For most of my college life I was either 1A or 1S (Student deferment), but my number never came up ...

Sept 11, 2001 - the sense of "it can happen here" hit home.  Reading about the communist spy cells of the '30s, '40s, and '50s and realizing that it still goes on - just the players change, makes an impact.  Am I still outwardly friendly, but more suspicious than ever?

Dec 2, 2002 - USS Harry S Truman, CVN-75, goes on its 2002-2003 Mediterranean tour, knowing that this will probably not be just another 6-month tour of readiness flights and operations - it wasn't.  The fact that my son was aboard wsas a semi-consolation, but with the realization that ANY US Marine officer can be called upon to take his place in the front lines with the grunts.  A friend of his was in a light recon unit, and in the midst of heavy fighting.

Of course, there are other events that I can mention, and that in the grand scheme of things have affected my life in one way or the other.  These are the "historical"  events that I can say have affected me directly to the core.

I almost missed the Challenger accident. I was only a couple weeks old when it happened

I remember the first gulf war, not much, but I did know something was happening. I even remember when Clinton was elected

The one that sticks out most in my mind would be Sept 11. Only because I was up and watching the TV at the time.

There have been other significant events in my 45 years, that I have or have not witnessed directly or indirectly, that maybe should for one reason or another, overshadow that 'far away event' including being shot at.  But I still remember, although it was still a reasonably short time ago, the film of those planes hitting the WTS, It was truely 'surreal'.   

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What a wonderful thing to say. Maybe there is some hope for this old world yet.

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Being even more pedantic I believe it was Leningrad - not Lennigrad.

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*sigh*

cut-and-paste from a few post... i'm lazy today

Two shuttle disasters
The end of the Cold War
A somewhat twitchy peace in N.Ireland
Several Russian/Soviet submarine disasters
The first probe leaving the Solar System
The falling of the Berlin Wall
CDs...
Mobile phones
DVDs
Microwave ovens
Britains first woman Prime Minister
two gulf wars, a few massacres in africa.
The Euro
The ISS and the end of Mir
The probe landing on Haleys Comet
The operational life of Concorde    
MP3
Microsoft 
First post-ww2 air-to-air kill by the dutch airforce
Bill 'i didn't have sex with that woman' Cinton
Enron, Ahold
9-11

surely i forgot a lot...

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K-MART AND WAL MART ARE EVIL PLACES WHERE THE CRAZYS COME OUT AND SCARE ME

1down, 1 to go. 

quoting from an old thread-top 10 funnest things to do in wal mart:
-walk into the fitting rooms and ask for more toilet paper
-use the security cameras as a mirror to pick your nose
-hide in a rack of clothes, and when someone comes by, wisper, "hey, pick me!"

1992: Joining the USAF.
1995: Becoming a Flight Engineer on MH-53 PaveLow's.
1999: Earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for rescueing a downed F-16 pilot in Serbia.
1999: The birth of my daughter.
2001: Winning the MacKay Trophy for rescueing our sister ship that crashed in the mountains of Afghanistan while we attempted to save a Special Forces soldier who was sick. (At the ceremony in D.C., I got to meet John Glenn, Scott Crossfield, and the Chief of Staff of the AF.).

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I can say with reasonable confidence, that I think you have never seen a movie called Captain Ron, Doug. "Stay outta the jungle boss, there's Go-rillas in there!"  This is the premise for some great cheesy American comedy.
I think it's easy to tack off the major events of MY life from a "what made the headlines" standpoint, but "what affected my life most?"  9/11 first.......I had just gotten established in a job in the aviation buisness where I was making a lot of money doing what I loved best, flying airplanes, and those A$$h0l3s  f**cked it up! No I'm not disregarding the lives that were lost. BUT this was NOT a matter of lives lost, first and foremost(more people die of heart attacks on this planet in the course of one day), the biggest issue, in my opinion, was the idea that the Western world was no longer allowed to sit back and enjoy the same basic freedoms that it had before that day. I can't even walk around my favorite LOCAL airport anymore(they put up an 8foot chain link fence), and flying(even recreational) is fast becoming a pastime for the wealthy.
The BIGGEST event in MY life though, I would consider to be the fall of the Berlin wall and the "Iron Curtain" along with it. It was the ultimate letdown. Intitially, it seemed like Utopia come of Earth, to my 20 year old naive eyes. It would now seem that many of us long for that comfort of the "old days", when the lines were very clearly drawn and things seemed much simpler.

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"guerilla" always made sense to me - "small war"  an aglicized diminutive of "guerra" in Spanish, which means "war".  "Guerrillero" would be the "small war fighter"

September 11th
Concorde
Finding SimV
Getting FS2002

Thats thirteen years!
Dan

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Yeah, but you spoke Spanish when you were 5.   

Well its the big 40 for me next year .... so if we're talking things I can remember then it's probably half the technology we take for granted, almost certainly 1 war for every year of my life, at least one very high profile and controversial death, several breakthroughs in medicine.
The things which stand out and have had a direct effect on me .....

9/11.
Death of Diana Princess of Wales.
Kidney transplants (My Mum has recently had one).
Concorde being withdrawn from service.
The first Gulf war (thought I was going to be called up and remember the first night of it  distinctly).

cheers
eno

For me there are two separate issues.
What I remember and what has happened.
Born 14 June 1987. What has happened has already been said.

The events that really stand out to me are more local. I also exclude all recent events - i.e from 9/11 onwards:


Princess Diana - that had a real affect on me.
Our first Microsoft Windows computer - a 95. It even had one of 'em new fangled cd-rom drives and a mouse! lol!

Bosnia/kosova - I remember talk about the stuff at the time.

Most of the stuff though would be things like our election of Tony Blair - no more needs to be said there and things like pileups, road crashes, horrible news items and just ones own experiences. Being only 17 I've on;y just woken up to reality in life - I'm taking in now whats going on.

Ben

December 31st 1999 16:00HRs.

I removed the last uniform and burned it that I will ever have to wear
Don't get me wrong I had an excellent military and commercial career and never once regretted it

But as of  that date I now:
-get up when I want
-eat and drink when I want
-shave when I want
-fly when I want
AND:
All of the above are subject to the approval of the old girl depending on what she wants LOL

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug