Let's try and get 1,000,000 replies to this post

MindRuler said:
The Heysel Drama in Brussels in 1985. :(
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Actually read about this in conjunction with Hillsborough. Absolutely crazy.

LooseCannon said:
The Assassination of Olof Palme.
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Yeah, never heard of that one before. What's the event's status in Sweden currently? In the US the assassinations of Kennedy and Lincoln are ones just about everyone knows about; McKinley's and Garfield's, in contrast, are really more like 'fun facts' you read about in a history book. And assassination attempts are about on the same level of obscurity, bar maybe Reagan's, but it also doesn't seem to be that well known these days.

Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

:ninja:
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Okay, that one we do know about! I don't know to what extent, but it's definitely something that's still "prevalent" in the public mindset.
 
Diesel 11 said:
Yeah, along this line (but not necessarily ruling out good events, if there are any).
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I assume you're familiar with the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Olympics?

Some really big ones that spring to mind would be the 1980 Bologna Bombing and the 2004 Madrid train bombings, because all these I think had some 9/11 level impact on Europe as a whole.

For Germany in particular, some iconic things I suggest you look into include:

Uprisings in East Germany on 17 June 1953

West Germany winning the 1954 Football World Cup - obviously a positive event, it's arguably the single most important moment in German sports history and had ramifications for Germany far outside the football pitch

Construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961

Hamburg Flood in 1962

Spiegel-Affair 1962

Kennedy's speech in West Berlin in 1963

Murder of Benno Ohnesorg on 7 June 1967 - this is a really big one, think Kent State

RAF terrorism in autumn of 1977, especially the kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer

1980 Oktoberfest bombing

1988 Gladbeck hostage crisis

1988 Ramstein air show disaster

Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 (you probably know of that one)

Nazi riots in Rostock and Hoyerswerda 1991

Eschede train crash 1998

Odra flood of 2002

2002 Erfurt rampage (first German school shooting)

2011 Love Parade stampede

2011 Stuttgart protests

Everything after that is too recent for me to evaluate the historical significance.

There's of course lots more, but these are most of the biggies.
 
Perun said:
The 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans were as bad as any sporting event could get.
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I believe that has been officially declared the worst motorsporting accident ever, and was directly responsible for the permanent banning of all motorsports in Switzerland.
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
I believe that has been officially declared the worst motorsporting accident ever, and was directly responsible for the permanent banning of all motorsports in Switzerland.
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Yes, I think so. There is some horrible raw footage on YouTube, better not watched.
 
On 22 August 2015 the Boyfriend and I were at the Bournemouth Airshow, which (apart from being able to wave a final bye-bye to the Vulcan) we found by-and-large quite uninspiring. The Boyfriend commented that he thought we would have been better to have gone to Shoreham.

On the way home we learned how very fortunate we were to have not been anywhere near Shoreham that day ...
 
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