Oct. 29, 1929 Stock Market Crash Wall Street, N.Y.
"Panic. It is a word that describes a highly intense, contagious fear amongst a large number of people. It is a phenomenon which social psychologists are fond of studying, yet at the same time they themselves are just as prone to it as the rest of us are. One week in October 1929, there was a true panic, and many rich people became poor people in one single day." -- Historian R. Richard Savill
Dec. 7, 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan . . . No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory." -- President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Nov. 22, 1963 Assassination of John F. Kennedy Dallas, Texas
"I was in 9th grade, on my way to Algebra class when I heard that the President had been shot. On my way out of class, I was told by a friend that he was dead. For a young person, it was devastating. JFK had been a politician of our generation; he represented hope, optimism and youth. It was Camelot. Most of us believed assassinations like this couldn't and wouldn't happen, that they were a thing of the past. It forced everyone to grow up." - Commerce School Dean Carl Zeithaml
April 4, 1968 Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memphis, Tenn.
"I was in Berkeley, California walking down the street when I heard the news. His death caused so much shock -- there had been so many assassinations, it almost seemed like it was becoming a habit in American politics. People were just hearing about it for the first time and couldn't react beyond 'Oh my God.' The information was just moving like a wave down the street. Everyone was concerned it would trigger a reaction in the cities." - Architecture Prof. Richard Collins
July 20, 1969 Man lands on the moon
"I remember everyone huddled around the television for the nightly news. At that time, there was only nightly news. We heard 'One small step for man...' and thought it was wonderful. As a young teacher, it was exciting for me to be seeing us make that step as a nation. We were in great competition with the Soviet Union during that time, and it was exciting for the U.S. to be first on the moon." - Education Prof. Mary Abouzeid
November 9, 1989 - 1990 Berlin Wall comes down Berlin, Germany
"I had just come back from Berlin at the time. You had to stop and show your I.D. at every place, and there were cameras watching everything you did. There was relief when the wall came down and a lot of tears. In Berlin, they had a museum of all the things people went through to get across the wall, even mailing themselves in boxes. There was so much propaganda..." -- Sharon Goertz
August 30, 1997 Death of Princess Diana Paris, France
"I remember the shock of it all and thinking immediately about her kids and what life would be like for them without their mother's good example. She had donated so much time to worthy causes that I wondered what would happen to the legacy she left behind. We all felt like we knew her and her family -- we had watched her wedding, her pregnancy, her divorce. Anytime she did anything in a public way, it was news." -- Anonymous University employee
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