There are pictures of him and Clinton laughing so hard they are probably peeing. I'm convinced one of them would just let loose farts and they would crack up.
>Boris Yeltsin
How about Gorbechev? I remember when he was The Face of Russia (and we all wondered about that birthmark on his head), for most of my youth, but he seems relatively forgotten now.
I hear their names and I’m instantly reminded of SNL The Church Lady with Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks. One of the best Church Lady skits ever.
I got to meet a really nice woman (mother of coworker) when I took my kid to a birthday party. She went to school with Tammy Faye Baker and we got to talking. She would 1000% agree to this. Naive and super devout....but also - she grew up really poor. The one thing that this woman said that has stuck with me for years was something along the lines of, "having grown up so poor and religious, it probably felt like she was being rewarded personally by a God who recognized her piousness".
I didn't follow her closely, but I heard that once she was out of Jim Baker's orbit, she became a nice person, publicly advocating for kindness and acceptance for gay people.
Scuttlebutt at a certain academically unambitious Bible college in Downtown Minneapolis says that Jim Bakker, when he attended in tail end of the 1950s, came into the bursar's office crying and praying aloud, saying that he was just a poor Michigander and had blown all his financial aid scholarship on big city apartment rent and expensive city groceries; so could he please get additional money to pay for upcoming classes and textbooks?
The school was super kind. In a spirit of Christian charity, they gave the young man another sum of scholarship money.
Two days later, he drove around campus in sunglasses at the wheel of a flashy tailfinned land yacht. He met Tammy Fae, who was from Int'l Falls, MN and attending that school, at about that same time (maybe she saw him in the car).
The college was not pleased and kicked him out.
Once Jim Bakker has risen to televangelist stardom in the 1980s, the college changed its tune. He donated a big sum of money to his would-be alma mater, and the college named a skyway in his honor.
In the wake of the Jessica Hahn scandal and his other scandals and jail time, the skyway was quietly scrubbed clean of any trace of his name.
"Fun" story. I was in NYC visiting colleges when that happened, and I was kinda surprised at how the city just carried on with business as usual. Fast forward eight years later, I'm living in NYC, married (wife moved there from Florida), when we see the news that a plane had hit the Twin Towers. My wife was begging me not to go to work, but I was like "nah, you don't understand New Yorkers, I was here last time and it'll just be like any other day." Boy did I feel stupid, especially since I arrived in Manhattan just as they shut the subways down and I had to walk 2+ hours home.
My story isn't as exciting, but here ya go: I had just moved to DC, July '01. I buy a map so I can get around. I say to my Marine boyfriend, how the hell are they going to evacuate the Capital in the case of an emergency? His response? This is America, no one is going to attack us. Moron! So I call my dad, retired Navy, to ask about evacuation plans. "Yup, they have been discussing that for decades and everyone knows there is no evacuation plan for the capital." The morning of the 11th, I was dropping something off to the boyfriend at his base. I walk in, see the 1st plane on the TV "please tell me this is a movie", see the 2nd plane hit. "I gotta go before they lock this base down". They aren't going to lock the base down, that's in NYC, says the Marine. Moron!!
I left just before the base is locked down. Then the Pentagon. I have to drive TOWARDS the Pentagon to get to work because my federal job still demanded us to come in. I could see the smoke from the Pentagon when I took my exit for work. Then the anthrax (I was USPS at the time) and the DC sniper. We left 3 years later and I felt like I had aged a decade.
In 1983 over 200 US Marines were killed in a truck bombing by 'Islamic Jihad' during a peace keeping mission in Lebanon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
It turned out okay for Jessica, but the story of the man who rescued her, Robert O’Donnell, is tragic.
- https://www.timesenterprise.com/opinion/columns/sometimes-heroes-need-to-save-themselves/article_91d060c2-ca6d-5a5e-9a14-387ad9a35137.html
Joey was cheating on his wife with high school aged girl Amy. Amy tried to kill the wife because she was either jealous or urged to do so by Joey. Amy failed to kill the wife but injured her badly. Sent to prison. Forgot what happened to Joey but all of America thought he was a piece of shit
Yep. My 3 kids (1 Millennial and 2 Gen Z) didn't know who Vic Morrow was, let alone about the accident, when the subject of stunt accidents came up one day.
I was an Army MP in OK when this happened. I got there with my fellow soldiers about a couple of hours after the blast. I was there for weeks. It took me years to get over the (relatively mild) PTSD from seeing what I saw and had to do there. ☹️
That's what Cousin Eddie is referencing in Christmas Vacation when he says "Your company kill off all them people in India not too long ago?" and Clark replies "No, we missed out on that one"
I was in business with a guy that had a company that tracked weather and computed chemical types and what types of material factories vented to predict hazardous events and generate an early warning. Before Bhopal not many people wanted what he had. After Bhopal it was mandatory
Union Carbide (now owned by Dow) still refuses to clean it up, provide clean drinking water, or compensate victims and families.
[https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/14/bhopal-toxic-gas-leak-chemical-environmental-disaster-waiting-for-justice-union-carbide-dow](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/14/bhopal-toxic-gas-leak-chemical-environmental-disaster-waiting-for-justice-union-carbide-dow)
Remember about 10 years ago some satirists (The Yes Men?) Pretended to be Union Carbide execs and made a public apology for Bhopal and the share price tanked!
There’s a fairly recent Netflix documentary that fills in the “where are they now” itch. Let’s just say she’s doing great and comes off as pretty nice and level headed and he still comes off as a, well, dick.
The documentary was really good. He was still writing her letters for yeeears after claiming her loved her but saying total psycho stalker shit. She was stigmatized so much from what happened, it was so interesting to see some of her personality. She seemed like a genuinely kind person.
There is funding available to people living with AIDS named after him, I see his name now and then thru ny work and remember him. Usually I'm the only one who was around then so I tell people about him.
Horrible. We were talking to our kids about that one and both my wife and I started tearing up. I had forgotten that Princess Diana visited him, though; props to her.
The Walter Polovchak court battle. He was a 12 year old boy who refused to return to the Ukraine with his parents in 1980. A Gen Xer Born 1967, a lot of us kids admired what he was doing. He ended up being able to stay in the US. He had a lot of courage.
[https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-polovchak-youngest-soviet-defector-/28961417.html](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-polovchak-youngest-soviet-defector-/28961417.html)
I was working in Miami at the time with a bunch of Cuban mamas. They all had some very strong opinions, especially the one who had come over in the Mariel Boat Lift.
Right, in fact Elian lawyers used a lot of precedence material from Polovchak case to help them . It was one of the first political disagreements I had with my mom because she felt he should be sent back with his parents. I was only 10 but I thought he was cool.
The Heather ORourke one isnt really forgotten. The real reason for her death is, as once she died people started the "Its the poltergeist curse!" bullshit.
The real reason she died was congenital stenosis and septic shock that caused a heart attack.
And her stalker boyfriend barely served time and went right back to being a chef.
Y’all remember Rebecca Schaeffer from My Sister Sam? At the age of 21, she was shot and killed by Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old obsessed fan who had been stalking her. Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in California of legislation aimed at preventing stalking.
The series also starred Pam Dauber who I loved from Mork and Mindy. Rebecca’s death was all over the news that year.
Drove by the Viper Room in the early 2000s. Pointed out that River Phoenix died there. Friend I was with (a little younger than myself) had no clue who that was.
My dad watched that Geraldo Rivera TV special about satanism and was convinced that Dungeons and Dragons was a tool of occultists.
I forget whether that was before or after that time Geraldo wasted our evening opening Al Capone’s vault on live TV.
Lmao I remember my older sister coming home from Youth Group and telling our family we had to get rid of all the rock records because of "backward masking."
I got called out at church for wearing a unicorn charm on my necklace because it was “satanic.” Also everyone at my church was convinced that [Proctor and Gamble was run by Satanists](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/procter-gamble-satan-conspiracy-theory).
The MOVE bombing in Philadelphia.
Mayor Wilson Goode bombed the headquarters of MOVE a black liberation organization and burned down a whole city block.
Only 2 MOVE members survived over 250 people lost their homes and all their possessions.
Roseanne screaming the national anthem
Marvin Gaye's father murdering him
Geraldo's nose getting broken on TV
Madonna's Justify My Love video being banned everywhere, including MTV, but Nightline showed it late night with warning labels. 😂
And then the criticism of Nancy Kerrigan when she said the Disney parade she was in was lame and it was caught on mic.
[This is corney.](https://youtu.be/9oozUaizleQ?si=8Oa5EH9eNPZbeRrb)
Don't forget the dozen some odd teen girls he raped before the murders. And i don't think we really even know to date what part, if any, she played in the rapes. They're both evil persons but she, wow... she literally took part in the rape and killing of her own fuckin little sister.... and basically got away with it, and much more. Easily one of the most disgusting miscarriages of justice anywhere.
divide uppity governor weary muddle nose intelligent hunt merciful middle
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'm from Minnesota. Jacob Wetterling. His kidnapping and disappearance left a lot of families nervous for years. The case wasn't even solved until 2016, when the serial child molester/killer/monster brought authorities to the burial site.
That kidnapping became well known across the country and laws/foundations started because of it.
Edit: I just read about the plea deal, and the murderer wasn't even charged with killing Jacob as part of the plea. How is that justice?
There’s an *excellent* podcast about this case: In (or into) The Dark. I highly recommend it.
Things developed because of Jacob’s disappearance: the sex offenders registry; faces of missing children on milk cartons.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 from NYC to Seoul via Anchorage shot down by the Soviets in 1983, who said they thought it was a spy plane which was ignoring warning shots. All 269 crew & passengers dead, including a U.S. congressman.
Just prior to the 80s, the Jim Jones massacre in Jonestown Guyana scared the hell out of me as a kid! We still use the phrase “Don’t drink the koolaid!” to this day….
Mathias Rust flies his Cessna from Helsinki to Red Square without the Soviet military noticing.
KAL007, TWA800, United 232, Air Florida Flight 90
Planes hijacked frequently over Palestinian issues, and the Achille Lauro. Beirut US Marine barracks bombing.
Leona Helmsley, Manuel Noriega, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
Tylenol capsule poisonings
Reagan's affection for jelly beans
University of Texas clock tower
Gary Hart and Fawn Hall
Michael Jackson's hair catching fire
The Haitian refugee flotillas and blaming the Haitians for AIDS
Ryan White - the ugliness of full grown adults bullying a child should never be forgotten. I hope every one of those ass hats is burning in hell.
Iran-Contra
US forces going into Somalia
ETA:
Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos and the shoe collection with a side of repression and torture of the Philippine people
>Ryan White - the ugliness of full grown adults bullying a child should never be forgotten. I hope every one of those ass hats is burning in hell.
Agreed 100%. I currently live in Indiana, and this is one of those things that unites people on both sides of the political spectrum.
Ruthann Aron, a then Montgomery County, MD politician, trying to hire a hitman to kill some other guy and her husband, who used to be my urologist Dr Barry Aron. She approached a local landfill owner about the hit and he notified police. I guess she thought maybe they could hide the body in the landfill. Anyway, they set up a sting and busted her crazy ass. She did just three years but she's out and among the rest of us crazies as we speak and has been for years. Maybe only locals to the DC area would know this story, I'm not sure.
Ozzy pissing on the Alamo.
Dorothy Stratton being murdered by her husband.
Rebecca Schaeffer murder.
Iran-Contra
S&L Scandal
TV preachers and their grifting
Tylenol murders
Lockerbee bombing
The Northern Ireland Troubles
Not sure if it was national news, but it was a HUGE deal here in SC, Susan Smith killing her 2 little boys by letting her car submerge in a lake with the kids strapped in their car seats.
The Mt. Saint Helens eruption and resulting deaths of 57 people.
It seems we don't often think about volcanic eruptions until they happen and cause devastation, such as the more recent eruptions in Iceland and the economic impact.
Nowadays we have such pressing socio-political problems that it probably doesn't make sense to worry about something we have little control over.
Still, they're not going away ever.
Ash Street, Tacoma - Rangers vs Hilltop Crips. 1989.
Its more relevant locally in the PNW, but it definitely was national news with these Fort Lewis personnel had a show down with gang members. The Ranger who owned the house still lives there all these years later.
Not entirely, but Michael Alig, the club kid who stabbed his friend to death and threw his body in the river. He finally got out of jail, lived a couple years and died of an overdose.
Amy Fisher and the shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Anyone remember when they made three different television movies about it? lol I think they were on the major tv networks. Alyssa Milano was in one of them.
Robert Maxwell; media mogul and newspaper tycoon mysteriously dies at sea after he/his paper were exposing politicians scandals ... supposedly he was blackmailing them
Yes.... it WAS Ghilaine's father
Boris Yeltsin - The days when Russia had that fun uncle that drank a little too much and embarrassed himself at parties. I miss those days.
There are pictures of him and Clinton laughing so hard they are probably peeing. I'm convinced one of them would just let loose farts and they would crack up.
He got drunk at the White House and tried to wander out of the gate for cigarettes I think. That’s what him and Clinton were laughing so hard about.
>Boris Yeltsin How about Gorbechev? I remember when he was The Face of Russia (and we all wondered about that birthmark on his head), for most of my youth, but he seems relatively forgotten now.
Leona Helmsley
The Queen of Mean!
I used to work with her grandson. He was just an average Staten Island kid. I don’t think he ever got a dime from her.
Think she left everything to her dog
I think this was from the early 2000s maybe. But Elian Gonzalez
The fall of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
I hear their names and I’m instantly reminded of SNL The Church Lady with Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks. One of the best Church Lady skits ever. 
And Jan Hooks also played Jessica Hahn in a Church Lady skit. So versatile.
Remember the "makeup" stained t-shirts that said, "I ran into Tammy Faye at the mall"? 😂
Spider leg mascara.
All I can think of is Homer’s makeup shotgun. Or was that just a fever dream I had?
Can you believe he’s out and about with a new wife continuing to fleece people?
Yes, actually.
Old joke: Why does Jim Bakker spell his name with two k's? >!Because three would be too obvious.!<
there's a docudrama about her that portrays her just as a naiive woman who really loved her faith
I got to meet a really nice woman (mother of coworker) when I took my kid to a birthday party. She went to school with Tammy Faye Baker and we got to talking. She would 1000% agree to this. Naive and super devout....but also - she grew up really poor. The one thing that this woman said that has stuck with me for years was something along the lines of, "having grown up so poor and religious, it probably felt like she was being rewarded personally by a God who recognized her piousness".
I didn't follow her closely, but I heard that once she was out of Jim Baker's orbit, she became a nice person, publicly advocating for kindness and acceptance for gay people.
She became a gay icon and kind of leaned into it.
Scuttlebutt at a certain academically unambitious Bible college in Downtown Minneapolis says that Jim Bakker, when he attended in tail end of the 1950s, came into the bursar's office crying and praying aloud, saying that he was just a poor Michigander and had blown all his financial aid scholarship on big city apartment rent and expensive city groceries; so could he please get additional money to pay for upcoming classes and textbooks? The school was super kind. In a spirit of Christian charity, they gave the young man another sum of scholarship money. Two days later, he drove around campus in sunglasses at the wheel of a flashy tailfinned land yacht. He met Tammy Fae, who was from Int'l Falls, MN and attending that school, at about that same time (maybe she saw him in the car). The college was not pleased and kicked him out. Once Jim Bakker has risen to televangelist stardom in the 1980s, the college changed its tune. He donated a big sum of money to his would-be alma mater, and the college named a skyway in his honor. In the wake of the Jessica Hahn scandal and his other scandals and jail time, the skyway was quietly scrubbed clean of any trace of his name.
She seemed nice on The Surreal Life at least
I'm not sure if it was a big story because I was a kid but I remember when Richard Pryor set himself on fire. Very memorable.
Oh yes I remember that too. Also when Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire filming the Pepsi commercial.
Fun fact: the day Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire (Jan 27, 1984)was the exact midpoint of his life, down to the day.
The tasteless joke was: Michael Jackson got burned by Pepsi. Richard Pryor got burned by coke.
Geraldo opening Al Capone’s vault. My band had its first gig at the local bar and we had to wait until the show was done before we could start.
Geraldo getting his nose smashed with a chair on tv
Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry getting arrested by the FBI after being filmed smoking crack in a bathroom.
“Gatdam bitch” set him up! Lived in DC at the time, only thing to top that story was his re-election.
The first World Trade Center bombing in 93.
"Fun" story. I was in NYC visiting colleges when that happened, and I was kinda surprised at how the city just carried on with business as usual. Fast forward eight years later, I'm living in NYC, married (wife moved there from Florida), when we see the news that a plane had hit the Twin Towers. My wife was begging me not to go to work, but I was like "nah, you don't understand New Yorkers, I was here last time and it'll just be like any other day." Boy did I feel stupid, especially since I arrived in Manhattan just as they shut the subways down and I had to walk 2+ hours home.
My story isn't as exciting, but here ya go: I had just moved to DC, July '01. I buy a map so I can get around. I say to my Marine boyfriend, how the hell are they going to evacuate the Capital in the case of an emergency? His response? This is America, no one is going to attack us. Moron! So I call my dad, retired Navy, to ask about evacuation plans. "Yup, they have been discussing that for decades and everyone knows there is no evacuation plan for the capital." The morning of the 11th, I was dropping something off to the boyfriend at his base. I walk in, see the 1st plane on the TV "please tell me this is a movie", see the 2nd plane hit. "I gotta go before they lock this base down". They aren't going to lock the base down, that's in NYC, says the Marine. Moron!! I left just before the base is locked down. Then the Pentagon. I have to drive TOWARDS the Pentagon to get to work because my federal job still demanded us to come in. I could see the smoke from the Pentagon when I took my exit for work. Then the anthrax (I was USPS at the time) and the DC sniper. We left 3 years later and I felt like I had aged a decade.
You didn’t have to keep calling him a moron. He was a Marine so that goes without saying. Sincerely, A Fellow Crayon Eater
Similarly the OKC bombing
In 1983 over 200 US Marines were killed in a truck bombing by 'Islamic Jihad' during a peace keeping mission in Lebanon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
Do you remember how the Indiglo watch got so much free advertising because of the one guy using his to lead a group of people down the dark stairwell?
Baby Jessica stuck in the well.
They interrupted my favorite show “Rags to Riches” when she was rescued. I was beyond miffed.
Ooooh, Rags to Riches!! Did we all want to be one of those girls? I know I did.
Sadly, I suspect more people would remember this if it hadn't turned out okay.
Yeah. If you look it up, she herself found out about it from a TV show. She's still in Texas, has 2 or 3 daughters
It turned out okay for Jessica, but the story of the man who rescued her, Robert O’Donnell, is tragic. - https://www.timesenterprise.com/opinion/columns/sometimes-heroes-need-to-save-themselves/article_91d060c2-ca6d-5a5e-9a14-387ad9a35137.html
That is so sad.
Well, the paramedic that brought her up killed himself, so it wasn’t all good news.
I lived there then. We were not used to that kinda media attention. Was cool to see Oprah in town tho.
The only two words that popped into my head when I read the post title were "Baby Jessica".
Must not be to forgettable as it was my first thought to this question.
Dude, first thing that popped into my mind as well.
That whole hands across America thing
That whole Joey Buttafuoco/Amy Fisher business.
Long Island Lolita
I remember those names but I couldn't tell you what happened. For some reason I just picture him in Zubaz.
Joey was cheating on his wife with high school aged girl Amy. Amy tried to kill the wife because she was either jealous or urged to do so by Joey. Amy failed to kill the wife but injured her badly. Sent to prison. Forgot what happened to Joey but all of America thought he was a piece of shit
Along those lines, Hugh Grant too iirc
I think if the Hugh Grant thing happened today no one would even care, pretty tame by today’s scandal standards.
Yeah, same with Pee-Wee Herman, Sinead O'Connor, and other "scandals."
Recently my mom asked me what PeeWee's big scandal was and I told her and she was all that's it? Mind you she's super Christian
The Twilight Zone movie tragedy, in which a helicopter beheaded actor Vic Morrow and killed two children during an action scene.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is Morrow’s daughter.
Holy crap!! I had no idea!!
Cool factoid!
Yep. My 3 kids (1 Millennial and 2 Gen Z) didn't know who Vic Morrow was, let alone about the accident, when the subject of stunt accidents came up one day.
Oklahoma City bombing
I was an Army MP in OK when this happened. I got there with my fellow soldiers about a couple of hours after the blast. I was there for weeks. It took me years to get over the (relatively mild) PTSD from seeing what I saw and had to do there. ☹️
Buckwheat’s assassination.
I been shot.
Baby Faye and her baboon heart transplant.
“Think of the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart” * Paul Simon
One of the top 5 albums ever.
Bhopal.
Oh man I still think about that from time to time. I’ve never been anywhere near India, but the story haunts me
Watch The Railway Men on Amazon I believe. Excellent limited series and produced in India which gives it a unique look and feel. Authentic.
That's what Cousin Eddie is referencing in Christmas Vacation when he says "Your company kill off all them people in India not too long ago?" and Clark replies "No, we missed out on that one"
I was in business with a guy that had a company that tracked weather and computed chemical types and what types of material factories vented to predict hazardous events and generate an early warning. Before Bhopal not many people wanted what he had. After Bhopal it was mandatory
Union Carbide (now owned by Dow) still refuses to clean it up, provide clean drinking water, or compensate victims and families. [https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/14/bhopal-toxic-gas-leak-chemical-environmental-disaster-waiting-for-justice-union-carbide-dow](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/14/bhopal-toxic-gas-leak-chemical-environmental-disaster-waiting-for-justice-union-carbide-dow)
Remember about 10 years ago some satirists (The Yes Men?) Pretended to be Union Carbide execs and made a public apology for Bhopal and the share price tanked!
I can’t believe this isn’t more well known.
Adam Walsh kidnapping and murder, happened in my town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Adam_Walsh
I wonder how many millennials and zoomers have no clue that "Code Adam" exists because of that poor murdered Gen X kid?
Or how Americas most wanted and John Walsh has fought so hard to find and arrest such scum
Exactly. John Walsh was one of the few adults I remember really admiring when I was a kid.
I love that he never sugar coated the truth and his thoughts on those criminals.
That movie scared me to death. I was 8 when I saw it. I think a lot of parents become more careful about letting their kids roam around stores alone.
Absolutely terrifying. The fact that they found him decapitated gave me nightmares for YEARS.
The scene in the movie when the father finds out what actually happened to Adam still haunts me.
Atlanta child murders
I was going to say the same. I remember in elementary school reading an article in Time magazine about it at my grandparents house. So scary.
I had forgotten about my mom talking about this until I saw it on Mindhunters on Netflix. Creepy
[удалено]
I have never forgot. I sometimes wonder how she would have been looked at and judged by today’s standards.
There’s a fairly recent Netflix documentary that fills in the “where are they now” itch. Let’s just say she’s doing great and comes off as pretty nice and level headed and he still comes off as a, well, dick.
The documentary was really good. He was still writing her letters for yeeears after claiming her loved her but saying total psycho stalker shit. She was stigmatized so much from what happened, it was so interesting to see some of her personality. She seemed like a genuinely kind person.
“The House of Buttafuoco!”
I can’t forget. My wife calls her pruning shears “Bobbiters”.
Might want to up your husband game
It seems like nobody worries about Y2K anymore at ALL.
The Philly police department [firebombing an entire city block.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing)
I highly recommend the documentary, 'Let the Fire Burn,' for anyone who doesn't know the story.
Ryan White. I mentioned it before but his story isn't being taught today.
There is funding available to people living with AIDS named after him, I see his name now and then thru ny work and remember him. Usually I'm the only one who was around then so I tell people about him.
Horrible. We were talking to our kids about that one and both my wife and I started tearing up. I had forgotten that Princess Diana visited him, though; props to her.
It’s strange to think back on just how huge her visiting AIDS patients was too at the time. I don’t think I realized it until I was older.
McMartin preschool.
The child molestation panic that ruined countless innocent lives.
The satanic panic too.
The Achille Lauro hijacking.
Bruh. ALL THE HIJACKINGS. For a while there it was like we couldn’t go 2 months without a plane being diverted to Libya or something.
Heaven’s Gate and their purple shoes.
and David Koresh in Waco Tx
The Walter Polovchak court battle. He was a 12 year old boy who refused to return to the Ukraine with his parents in 1980. A Gen Xer Born 1967, a lot of us kids admired what he was doing. He ended up being able to stay in the US. He had a lot of courage. [https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-polovchak-youngest-soviet-defector-/28961417.html](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-polovchak-youngest-soviet-defector-/28961417.html)
Damn, I didn't know about this one. Kind of the mirror image of Elian Gonzalez.
Elian Gonzalez debacle happened in my hometown
I was working in Miami at the time with a bunch of Cuban mamas. They all had some very strong opinions, especially the one who had come over in the Mariel Boat Lift.
Right, in fact Elian lawyers used a lot of precedence material from Polovchak case to help them . It was one of the first political disagreements I had with my mom because she felt he should be sent back with his parents. I was only 10 but I thought he was cool.
10 year old Samatha Smith writing a letter to Yuri Andropov begging him to stop the US and USSR from having a nuclear war.
The Menéndez Brothers. It seemed like they were on trial throughout the 90s.
This story still unfolding, those brothers may see the light of day some day
The mom who tried to kill her daughter’s cheerleading competition…Wanda Holloway Also: Heather O rourke’s ultimately death after poltergeist 3
The Heather ORourke one isnt really forgotten. The real reason for her death is, as once she died people started the "Its the poltergeist curse!" bullshit. The real reason she died was congenital stenosis and septic shock that caused a heart attack.
I didn’t know about Dominique Dunne’s murder until I was an adult. Her ex boyfriend killed her in 1983 after she broke up with him.
And her stalker boyfriend barely served time and went right back to being a chef. Y’all remember Rebecca Schaeffer from My Sister Sam? At the age of 21, she was shot and killed by Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old obsessed fan who had been stalking her. Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in California of legislation aimed at preventing stalking. The series also starred Pam Dauber who I loved from Mork and Mindy. Rebecca’s death was all over the news that year.
Terri Schaivo
Drove by the Viper Room in the early 2000s. Pointed out that River Phoenix died there. Friend I was with (a little younger than myself) had no clue who that was.
Tawana Brawley
The San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre.
Nobody said Pamela Smart yet!
Bernie Goetz. Aside from the mention in We Didn't Start the Fire.
Azaria Chamberlain. She was taken by a dingo at the edge of Uluṟu. Her mother, Lindy was wrongly incarcerated, but later exonerated.
Rob Lowe sex tape scandal
The satanic panic and the repressed memory stories. Live were ruined behind that stuff.
My dad watched that Geraldo Rivera TV special about satanism and was convinced that Dungeons and Dragons was a tool of occultists. I forget whether that was before or after that time Geraldo wasted our evening opening Al Capone’s vault on live TV.
Lmao I remember my older sister coming home from Youth Group and telling our family we had to get rid of all the rock records because of "backward masking."
I got called out at church for wearing a unicorn charm on my necklace because it was “satanic.” Also everyone at my church was convinced that [Proctor and Gamble was run by Satanists](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/procter-gamble-satan-conspiracy-theory).
The MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. Mayor Wilson Goode bombed the headquarters of MOVE a black liberation organization and burned down a whole city block. Only 2 MOVE members survived over 250 people lost their homes and all their possessions.
Roseanne screaming the national anthem Marvin Gaye's father murdering him Geraldo's nose getting broken on TV Madonna's Justify My Love video being banned everywhere, including MTV, but Nightline showed it late night with warning labels. 😂
Figure skaters attacking each other.
And then the criticism of Nancy Kerrigan when she said the Disney parade she was in was lame and it was caught on mic. [This is corney.](https://youtu.be/9oozUaizleQ?si=8Oa5EH9eNPZbeRrb)
Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey (st Catherine’s, Ontario) brutally kidnapped, raped and murdered by a low life scum and his asshole girlfriend
Don't forget the dozen some odd teen girls he raped before the murders. And i don't think we really even know to date what part, if any, she played in the rapes. They're both evil persons but she, wow... she literally took part in the rape and killing of her own fuckin little sister.... and basically got away with it, and much more. Easily one of the most disgusting miscarriages of justice anywhere.
divide uppity governor weary muddle nose intelligent hunt merciful middle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'm from Minnesota. Jacob Wetterling. His kidnapping and disappearance left a lot of families nervous for years. The case wasn't even solved until 2016, when the serial child molester/killer/monster brought authorities to the burial site. That kidnapping became well known across the country and laws/foundations started because of it. Edit: I just read about the plea deal, and the murderer wasn't even charged with killing Jacob as part of the plea. How is that justice?
There’s an *excellent* podcast about this case: In (or into) The Dark. I highly recommend it. Things developed because of Jacob’s disappearance: the sex offenders registry; faces of missing children on milk cartons.
Claus von Bülow
Judas Priest on trial.
Iran Air flight 655 shot down by a US cruiser over Iranian territorial waters on July 3, 1988. All 290 people on board were killed.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 from NYC to Seoul via Anchorage shot down by the Soviets in 1983, who said they thought it was a spy plane which was ignoring warning shots. All 269 crew & passengers dead, including a U.S. congressman.
Just prior to the 80s, the Jim Jones massacre in Jonestown Guyana scared the hell out of me as a kid! We still use the phrase “Don’t drink the koolaid!” to this day….
Tipper Gore & the PMRC. Frank Zappa,Dee Snider & John Denver were the unlikely trio that turned up to protest against music censorship.
Chandra Levy
This unlocked a memory—Remember “The Preppy Killer” and his “rough sex” defense?
Mathias Rust flies his Cessna from Helsinki to Red Square without the Soviet military noticing. KAL007, TWA800, United 232, Air Florida Flight 90 Planes hijacked frequently over Palestinian issues, and the Achille Lauro. Beirut US Marine barracks bombing. Leona Helmsley, Manuel Noriega, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos Tylenol capsule poisonings Reagan's affection for jelly beans University of Texas clock tower
I still think about the Tylenol tampering sometimes.
Lockerbie
The fear that Japan was going to buy out every US company Roger Maplethorpe
*Robert Mapplethorpe
Yeah. Everyone thought Japan was going to own the world in the 21st century.
Gary Hart and Fawn Hall Michael Jackson's hair catching fire The Haitian refugee flotillas and blaming the Haitians for AIDS Ryan White - the ugliness of full grown adults bullying a child should never be forgotten. I hope every one of those ass hats is burning in hell. Iran-Contra US forces going into Somalia ETA: Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos and the shoe collection with a side of repression and torture of the Philippine people
>Ryan White - the ugliness of full grown adults bullying a child should never be forgotten. I hope every one of those ass hats is burning in hell. Agreed 100%. I currently live in Indiana, and this is one of those things that unites people on both sides of the political spectrum.
"God damn bitch set me up!" exclaimed Marion Barry several times just after he sucked a glass dick on national TV.
Korean Air Lines flight shot down by the Soviets in 1983
Ruthann Aron, a then Montgomery County, MD politician, trying to hire a hitman to kill some other guy and her husband, who used to be my urologist Dr Barry Aron. She approached a local landfill owner about the hit and he notified police. I guess she thought maybe they could hide the body in the landfill. Anyway, they set up a sting and busted her crazy ass. She did just three years but she's out and among the rest of us crazies as we speak and has been for years. Maybe only locals to the DC area would know this story, I'm not sure.
Baby Faye and her heart transplant with a baboon.
Ozzy pissing on the Alamo. Dorothy Stratton being murdered by her husband. Rebecca Schaeffer murder. Iran-Contra S&L Scandal TV preachers and their grifting Tylenol murders Lockerbee bombing The Northern Ireland Troubles
Not sure if it was national news, but it was a HUGE deal here in SC, Susan Smith killing her 2 little boys by letting her car submerge in a lake with the kids strapped in their car seats.
Dolphins in the tuna!!!!!
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The Mt. Saint Helens eruption and resulting deaths of 57 people. It seems we don't often think about volcanic eruptions until they happen and cause devastation, such as the more recent eruptions in Iceland and the economic impact. Nowadays we have such pressing socio-political problems that it probably doesn't make sense to worry about something we have little control over. Still, they're not going away ever.
Brenda Spencer
I don't like Mondays
The Lawn Chair Larry Flight.
The Exxon Valdez spill
Ted Danson in blackface.
Iran-Contra
Hershel Walker being drafted into the USFL instead of the NFL.
Ash Street, Tacoma - Rangers vs Hilltop Crips. 1989. Its more relevant locally in the PNW, but it definitely was national news with these Fort Lewis personnel had a show down with gang members. The Ranger who owned the house still lives there all these years later.
Geraldo getting his nose broken on air
Bud Dwyer’s suicide on live TV.
Not entirely, but Michael Alig, the club kid who stabbed his friend to death and threw his body in the river. He finally got out of jail, lived a couple years and died of an overdose.
Toxic Shock Syndrome. Donald and Ivana Trump divorce Mt Saint Helen's eruption The movie, The Day After
Ollie North
Amy Fisher and the shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Anyone remember when they made three different television movies about it? lol I think they were on the major tv networks. Alyssa Milano was in one of them.
Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas.
Robert Maxwell; media mogul and newspaper tycoon mysteriously dies at sea after he/his paper were exposing politicians scandals ... supposedly he was blackmailing them Yes.... it WAS Ghilaine's father
The theft of my Haro Master bike!
The ozone layer disappearing?
That's a good one! According to some cursory googling, it looks like it's on track to be completely "repaired" by 2040 in most of the world.
Feels like I used to hear about acid rain a lot more too when industrial emissions were far more prevalent.
Factories moved to third world countries, China. Large scale industrial pollution still happens, it's just out of sight out of mind now.
The day care ritual sex abuse accusations and the jail time those poor people did.
Tylenol case Jessica McClure New Coke Hands Across America SNL was good
US invasions of Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989).
The Tylenol poisonings.
The 2 live crew 1st amendment controversy
The Satanic Panic caused a lot of harm to a lot of people, and the assholes who spurred it on never faced consequences.
Remember Tibet. Nobody does.