Most memorable TV moments

1. The day my family upgraded to Cinemax (submitted by Versatile)

 

Yeah... can anyone name one iconic picture that aired at the death of OBL? I can't. Only TV image I recall was folks out in the streets waving the flag. Hardly iconic.

 

The Hash Brownies episode of Barney Miller

 

A surprising number of these events happened on weekends (for instance, the Bin Laden killing broke on a Sunday night, Saddam's capture broke in the wee hours of a Sunday and the Dutchess of Wales eating a tunnel divider interrupted SNL).

The Bronco chase and the Columbine shootings were on Fridays and the Columbia breakup over Texas (not on the list) happened on a Saturday morning with me sick as a dog.

One other event that should be mentioned: The burning of the Branch Davidian compound. I caught glimpses of that on a Sony Watchman while driving somewhere.

 

Some of these were big stories, maybe even major moments in U.S. history (Katrina, the oil spill, the Japanese tsunami). But like you said, they weren't iconic moments that hit you like a sledgehammer. The oil spill, especially, just dragged on through the summer.

Having lived through Katrina, I can tell you an awful lot about what I was doing leading up to it and the couple weeks after. I can even remember the first time I turned my TV on after getting power back and picking up some of the local stations' news coverage over the air. But it wasn't a single moment. If anything, for me, that was more memorable for WWL's breathtaking radio coverage than any of the TV stuff. Listening to that was like listening to a broadcast of the apocalypse.
Maybe it was different for people in other parts of the country who turned on the news and saw New Orleans turned into Atlantis.

 

There really is some utterly bizarre stuff on that list. I don't remember where I was for Whitney Houston, and it was this year. I distinctly remember watching Richard Nixon's resignation speech, and I was 7 at the time. (It didn't make the list.)

 

No sports moments?

The World Series earthquake and USA hockey beating Russia in 1980 Olympics come right to mind.

 

Katrina for me was more of a ramp-up followed by a long-plateau event only because I've always been a fan of WWL hurricane coverage and they were on it super-early. Not a single moment.

 

"Moments" as defined as either coverage of an event actually in progress or within minutes:

1. 9/11/01
2. 11/22/63
3. 7/20/69
4. 6/6/68
5. 3/30/81
6. 1/28/86
7. 12/8/80
8. 5/2/11

Most of the shit on the list were not "moments" but continuously-developing stories (Casey Anthony, Bush/Gore, BP oil spill, etc etc etc).

A list made by and for imbeciles. The idea of Kate Middleton, Casey Anthony or Whitney Houston being on this list is preposterous.

 

Not arguing your overall point, but Casey Anthony was listed as "the verdict" which certainly was one moment. Well, about 30, but still.

 

The O.J. verdict certainly deserves to be way up high on the list. I'd even put it in the top 5, if not the top 3. In terms of an iconic, memorable moment, there's probably not a person of my generation that doesn't remember where they were when that came down.
I was in college and there were 50 people sitting in front of the TV in the dorm lobby watching it.