If you could be personally present to witness a historical event, as your adult self,

[kairos12]

to any event in your lifetime what would it be? You can't change the event, just be present.

As I was born in the 1950s, I would like to have been on the rope line when that SOB Nixon was dispatched from the White House.

[eShirl]

1. The Berlin Wall coming down.

[DFW]

13. I wasn't in Berlin, but I was in Germany for that

My wife (who is German) and I were watching the news in our hotel room in Hamburg, some 30 miles from the old East German border. It was a Friday night. We saw a tape of a press conference in East Berlin that had been held a couple of hours earlier. We turned to each other speechless. "Did you just hear what I think I just heard?" was on our faces.

We heard it repeated a few times in the course of a half hour. We had known the old East German regime was crumbling, and that they had to either start shooting masses of their own people in public or else let them travel freely. But it happened so quickly, even the Eastern border guards, with orders to kill anyone trying to get to the West, had no idea their leadership had decided this. Indeed, there was less than full coherency to the disseminating of the new regs by the East German leadership. Honecker had bee ousted, and Egon Krenz had no experience wielding an iron hand on a leadership level.

The next morning, Hamburg was flooded with East Germans, gawking in wonder at the country their government had spent a lifetime telling them was evil compared to their socialist paradise. The West German government had a long-standing policy of handing out 100 DM (about $65) "greeting money" to any East German visiting for the first time, so the economies of bordering towns spiked for a day. My wife and I were somewhat amused at some of the reactions of the Easterners to a town like Hamburg, which is one of the richest in Germany.

Needless to say, the initial wonder gave way to bitter reality soon enough. Greedy Westerners were digging up any document they could find to lay claim to property in the East. Greedy Easterners--usually Party hacks or Stasi agents who had long seen the writing on the wall--came presenting dubious claims as to why they should collect millions for obscure reasons from the Western government. Normal people on both sides got quickly disillusioned, as the expected overnight universal conversion to western standards never materialized, and the West got socked with a "solidarity supplement" tax of 5% of their income to help pay for rebuilding the East. This tax was supposed to only be in force as long as it was needed, but for some odd reason, now that the East has attained the level of the West, someone in the Government (such as, for example, all members of the Bundestag, who get free practically everything tax free for life once they are in) forgot to repeal the "solidarity supplement." They are as yet apparently unaware that Greece is outside the borders of the former East Germany.

These days, we now have a generation of Germans who never knew the old East German regime, and can't imagine German border guards killing Germans wanting to get from one part of Berlin to another. I was in East Berlin several times, and I can't impart to my German daughters what it was like to be in a place like that.

Today, to get from western Berlin to eastern Berlin, you just take the U-Bahn or a bus. That this was an undertaking involving a risk of violent death is inconceivable to them. They learn about it, but can't really imagine what it meant to live it. It's as removed from their reality as the Inquisition is removed today's young people in Spain. Actually, the Inquisition is probably more removed from today's Spain than it is from the heads of the "5" in those recent "5-4" Supreme Court decisions handed down by the rightist "Catholic mafia."

[Art_from_Ark]

18. I never experienced East Berlin/West Berlin firsthand,

but it sounds like the impression I got of East Berlin from the original Mission: Impossible was actually pretty accurate.

[DFW]

24. It was a place like no other I've been in

It was the one place where every time you looked over your shoulder there WAS someone there. It was against the law to have public gatherings (even in cafés and restaurants) of more than 4 people. Think about that one for a minute!

The fact that the East German soldiers marching around wore the same uniforms as the Nazis (except for the new helmets) and marched goose-stepping didn't help, either. A couple of times on the way back to West Berlin from East Berlin, I was stopped and taken into a room where I was the only one without a gun, a uniform, or the right to stand up without permission. The interrogations lasted from half an hour to an hour (what were you doing here and why?), and were apparently done at random several times a day. I refrained from telling them that I was too young to have experienced the Third Reich, so I wanted to see the closest thing left in Europe first hand.

Lovely place.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. Was Checkpoint Charlie the only entrance into East Berlin?

[DFW]

26. No, there were several

It depended on your status and your mode of transportation. I always went through Friedrichstrasse, but there were other as well. Cars went through other checkpoints. I went either by train, S-Bahn or U-Bahn.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. So how did Checkpoint Charlie gain such fame?

[DFW]

28. U. S. Military controlled entry point in the middle of town

Although civilians could cross at a number of places, the only one authorized for US military was Checkpoint Charlie. There were regular exchange visits of military forces while the Wall was in existence. You could always see busses with US military touring East Berlin and Busses with Soviet military touring West Berlin.

Actually, the crossing points were designated by letters of the alphabet, so its correct designation was "Checkpoint C," but since the military uses "Alpha," etc. for their letters, and "Charlie" is their C, Checkpoint C was always known as Checkpoint Charlie.

[jmowreader]

14. I was there!

The night the Wall opened, I was barracks sergeant ("charge of quarters" or "CQ&quot for my company. Someone came up the stairs from the TV room in the basement: "The Wall just opened! The Wall just opened!" I got my assistant to cover me and ran over to the room at Field Station headquarters where we had a secure phone so I could call the operations officer on the hill and ask what was happening...when I got there, my team chief, who was Field Station staff duty officer that night, was already on it.

After you work a night of CQ you get the next day off, so after my shift was over I ran upstairs, grabbed my 35mm camera and all the film I had, put on my best running-around-in-the-cold clothes, jumped on a train and headed out to Checkpoint Charlie. Total bedlam, in a good way. Everyone was happy including the East German border guards...and those guys were required to be permanently pissed-off. I shot up all the film I had at the checkpoint and at the Brandenburg Gate, then went to this great camera store on Grölmannstrasse and cleaned them out on Agfapan 400 film and Neofin Red developer. (Yes, I am currently kicking myself for shooting this in B&W but that's what I was using at the time.) Then I went to three other camera stores looking for more film. And then I went down there four more times in the same week. And finally I got the Potsdamer Platz opening ceremony.

[Rowdyboy]

22. Probably the most significant event of my lifetime. I agree 1000%

[trof]

33. I know the East German border guard who started it.

It's a long, long story.
His name is Harald Jager.
How I came to know him and learn about what he did is a fascinating story.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Harald Jäger was in charge of the East Berlin checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse on Nov. 9, 1989, and was the first border guard to allow East Germans to cross over to the West -- without an order from his superiors. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he describes that historic night."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-guard-who-opened-the-berlin-wall-i-gave-my-people-the-order-raise-the-barrier-a-660128.html

[riderinthestorm]

2. JFK's assassination. I'd love to see if I could spot GHW Bush.

I'd pay careful attention to the grassy knoll - just because.

We have all these tantalizing CTs out there and being there now, as an adult, with the fore-knowledge of what was about to happen would provide fascinating and insightful information that would still be very, very relevant today.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. I'd be there with a super 8 movie camera with sound

and try to run away before the FBI confiscated every camera in sight. If I couldn't change the event, I'd at least try to record a sweeping view to eliminate as much doubt as possible. I might wait until now to hand the film over to Tom Hartman to present on his show as I would trust him not to hand it over to the Feds where it might end up getting conveniently lost.

[Auggie]

29. Same here

[Throd]

4. The first Moon landing

Logistically it would be a little tough, as I would already have to be there. But it would be really cool to see the capsule land on the surface and the men pop out and start walking around.

[kairos12]

7. All you needed to be was in

Walter Cronkite's garage. At least according to the Teahaddists.

[First Speaker]

5. Hey--I *was* on the rope line that day...

...no kidding. Knew I was part of history, too...you can actually see me in a documentary in the background... As a kid, I was present at the March on Washington in 1963, JFK's funeral, and RFK's funeral train...but if I had my choice, it would either be Dallas, or Ford's Theater in 1865...

[hunter]

6. I'm here now witnessing one of the great mass extinction events of earth's history...

... through the eyes of a paleontologist.

Life doesn't get much more exciting than that!

A few million years from now the fossils of this age are going to be a fascinating mystery to the next intelligent life form.

[Mr.Bill]

8. Woodstock n/t

[Boom Sound 416]

31. 2nd that

Though just a little before my time

[femmocrat]

9. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

It is the first thing I can remember seeing on television.

[Art_from_Ark]

19. The first thing I remember seeing on TV

was either Huckleberry Hound, The Alvin Show, or a Kent cigarette commercial

[grasswire]

10. Aeolian Hall, NYC, February 12 1924

Paul Whiteman Orchestra, George Gershwin at piano, for the debut of Rhapsody In Blue.

http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/gershwin.html

[csziggy]

11. I wish I gone to watch the take off of Apollo 11

At Cape Canaveral. I did watch it on TV and ran out to watch the rocket trail from my back yard 80 miles away but that was not the same as watch the launch in person. I turned 19 that day and my parents wouldn't let me go by myself and none of my friends were interested.

I did watch the entire landing live on TV which was fun.

As for Nixon, some friends threw a party and we had a good time cheering as he left the White House.

[davidpdx]

12. The launch of the first space shuttle

I always wanted to go to Florida to see one go up. Never got the chance.

[LNM]

15. Lee's surrender to Grant, April 9th 1865

I read a book about how the generous terms of surrender may have saved our country.

[rug]

16. The storming of the Winter Palace

"We will now proceed to construct the socialist order."

Or, Alaric's sack of Rome in 410.

[bamademo]

17. I saw the test firing of Saturn Rocket which took us to moon and segregated water fountains.

I saw separate waiting rooms. I saw sit in in Huntsville Al of Woolworth's. No riots. Huntsville peacefully integrated or NASA would have pulled out.

I did visit MS and Birmingham as as child and even at 8 I knew how awfully racist it was.

[dhill926]

20. Premiere of the....

Beethoven 9th.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. The premiere of the 9th would be cool to witness

Or perhaps Beethoven's 1808 concert, which featured the premieres of his 5th and 6th symphonies, as well as the Choral Fantasy, and Beethoven performing on the piano in his Piano Concerto #4.

http://www.nicolaswaldvogel.com/page5/page5.html

[KamaAina]

21. The signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act

on the White House lawn in 1990.

I do, in fact, know people who were there.

[clarice]

30. The first manned space rocket. nt

[Boom Sound 416]

32. 1984 Olympics

[UTUSN]

34. Nothing JFK/nothing Vietnam - I lived through it, am SICK of it n/t