TV History Part 3

Other moments of historic TV were related to NASA. As kids in school all classes would stop so we could watch each and every launch. It was a big deal back then. I remember Apollo VIII on Christmas Eve 1968. Though I was watching the Moon orbit in my bedroom on a 12 inch black and white TV, I somehow remember the event in vivid color. After that there was Apollo XI the first Moon landing. The shuttle flights were unique for a time but no one will ever forget what we saw when Columbia and Challenger disintegrate before our eyes.

The 1st Gulf War had some people watching constantly. This was the first time a war was televised. We watched Wolf Blitzer and Bernie Shaw give us play by play updates on CNN as we watched endless streams of tracers going skyward in an attempt to shoot down the stealth bombers.

Finally the last noteworthy television images were of the Twin Towers at the World Trade center. These were powerful images still fresh in everyone’s mind. This may be the first memorable TV image for many people that are too young to have witnessed the other things I’ve written about over the last few days. I’m sure that there will be more classic historical events to view in their and my remaining lifetimes.

Now that most people carry devices with them that can record movie footage of events there is a good chance that history will rarely escape documentation. We each now have the potential of being the next Zapruder. Are you ready?