Help The Journal tell your stories

These responses from our readers will be used in an upcoming special edition of The Journal. We are still soliciting responses to a list of historical events that we have printed in the newspaper and posted on the Journal’s website and Facebook.

Do you have photographs from notable events? Memorabilia? Newspaper clippings? We’d like to see what you have. We will be collecting responses through March 11.

We’ve prodded your memories of the past few decades with dozens of events — local, state, national and world — that have sparked our interest. Now we want to hear your thoughts on some of the biggest headlines of our lives.

The question “where were you when” is not intended in the literal sense of asking someone’s exact location. But rather, to share the emotions, reactions and what happened next? Who were you with and why was this event so important? How did the event impact you and those you know?

Please look through the following list of topics and share your reactions on a few. Be sure to make it clear to which event you are responding.

Or, send your thoughts, recollections, photos and memorabilia to Laurel Beager, Journal editor, by emailing to laurel@ifallsjournal.com or dropping them off at The Journal office. For more information, contact Beager at 285-7411.

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN ...

1940s

• On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and launched the United States into World War II?

1950s

• The 1950 flood hit Borderland sending lakes and rivers over their banks?

• On Oct. 13, 1954, when Smokey Bear and the cubs statue was dedicated in a park that bears his name?

1960s

• Nov. 22 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated?

• On March 8, 1965, about 3,500 Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam to mark the beginning of the American involvement in the ground war with North Vietnam and Communist forces. The number of troops would rise quickly. While Americans had been involved prior to 1965, this and the following eight years would mark the heavy American involvement in the region.

• Rainy River Community College was established in 1967?

• On Jan. 6, 1968, when the temperature in International Falls read -46? On that same day in 1909, the record low for the city was set at -55.

• On April 4, 1968, when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who had been standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., was assassinated?

• The first man walked on the moon July 20, 1969?

1970s

• Five men were arrested for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972? When President Richard Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974, after it appeared he would be impeached for involvement in the break in?

• In 1973 when Roe vs. Wade court case was decided. The case resulted in a landmark although controversial decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court decided that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman’s decision to have an abortion.

• When in 1975 Voyageurs National Park was established, setting off protests that sent some to court and others to create a large voyager statue across from the Rainy Lake Visitor Center?

• On Nov. 10, 1975, when the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, an American Great Lakes freighter, sank suddenly in Canadian waters of Lake Superior approximately 17 miles from the entrance of Whitefish Bay. Although it had reported having some difficulties before the accident, the Fitzgerald sank without sending any distress signals. Its crew of 29 died in the sinking and their bodies were never recovered.

• On Aug. 16, 1977, when singer Elvis Presley died suddenly at the age of 42?

1980s

• On Dec. 8, 1980, when John Lennon was killed?

• On Nov. 17, 1981, when fictional characters Luke and Laura, of the daytime drama General Hospital were wed? The event was watched by 30 million viewers and remains the highest-rated hour in American soap opera history.

• The Rex Hotel burned July 11, 1982. It is assumed that Kevin Ellsworth, 18, died in the fire, but his remains were not found.

• The space shuttle Challenger exploded Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members aboard including Christa McAuliffe, the first member of the Teacher in Space Project.

• In 1988, a fire nearly destroyed The Journal office on Third Street?

• On Jan. 8, 1988, when a 22-foot tall “giant” thermometer was dedicated in Smokey Bear Park?

• On Sept. 9, 1989, when union supporters came to International Falls to protest Boise Cascade’s decision to use a non-union general contract for a paper mill expansion?

• On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall, which completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin, was symbolically and physically removed as travel restrictions were lifted? Pieces of the wall had been standing since Aug. 13, 1961.

1990s

• On Jan. 7, 1990, when football great and Falls native Bronko Nagurski died?

• On Halloween, 1991, that started a blizzard across the Midwest, bringing 11.6 inches to International Falls Nov. 1 — a record for that date.

• In 1992 when Island View dissolved as an incorporated city?

• Menards Inc. opened its doors in International Falls in 1992?

• On Jan. 6, 1994, when Tonya Harding plotted an attack against her competitor Nancy Kerrigan? The widely publicized attack took place during a practice session for the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt hired Shane Stant to break Kerrigan’s right leg so that she would be unable to skate. Stant struck Kerrigan’s leg and the injury forced her to withdraw from the national championship. Harding won that event.

• June 17, 1994, when O.J. Simpson led police on a slow-speed car chase that was televised nationally. Where were you when a not-guilty verdict was read Oct. 3, 1995, in relation to the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman?

• In March 1995 when the Broncos became state hockey champions?

• On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh and accomplices detonated a bomb at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring more than 680 people?

• On July 5, 1996, a sheep named “Dolly” was born. The sheep was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell using the process of nuclear transfer. The sheep died Feb. 14, 2003.

• On Dec. 25, 1996, when 6-year old JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was killed? The murder attracted extensive media coverage.

• On Aug. 31, 1997, when Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car collision in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris, France?

• On Dec. 19, 1997, when James Cameron’s film “Titanic” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was released? The film grossed more than $600 million and spent several weeks in International Falls.

• In September of 1998 when The Daily Journal moved into renovated Pamida building?

• In late 1998 and early 1999 President Bill Clinton was under attack for lying about an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinski. The U.S. House voted to impeach Clinton in 1998, but the Senate did not have the necessary votes to remove him from office in 1999.

• In 1998 when Jesse Ventura became the 38th governor of Minnesota?

• On April 20, 1999, when at the Columbine High School in Colorado two students massacred 12 students and one teacher, and injured 21 other students? The pair committed suicide.

2000s

• Sept. 11, 2001, known now as 9/11, when 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners crashing two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, a third into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania? Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.

• At the beginning of the 2002 school year, teachers in International Falls went on strike for three weeks before reaching a settlement?

• Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol on Sept. 4, 2002, singing what would quickly become the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song, “A Moment Like This”?

• On Oct. 25, 2002, when two-term U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash just 11 days before the election in which he was seeking a third term? His wife Sheila, daughter Marcia and four others died in the crash about two miles from the Eveleth airport.

• On March 19, 2003, when President George W. Bush announced war with Iraq?

• On Feb. 1, 2004, when Janet Jackson had a “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show while performing with Justin Timberlake?

• On Dec. 26, 2004, when a series of devastating tsunamis occurred along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people in 14 countries.

• On March 21, 2005, when 16-year-old Jeffrey Weise shot and killed seven people and wounded five others at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake. Earlier that day, Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend. The killing spree ended when Weise committed suicide.

• Hurricane Katrina crossed the southern United States beginning Aug. 23, 2005, causing nearly 2,000 deaths and $81 billion in damage?

• On May 24, 2006, when a fire at Sha~Sha Resort destroyed the main building at the resort?

• On April 16, 2007, when the Virginia Tech massacre occurred? In two separate attacks, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many others before committing suicide.

• On July 20, 2007, when Falls native Tammy Faye LaValley Bakker Messner died?

• On Aug. 1, 2007, when the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed killing 13 people.

• On Nov. 4, 2008, when Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States.

• When Michael Jackson died June 25, 2009?

2010s

• On Jan. 12, 2010, when a catastrophic earthquake devastated Haiti. At least 52 aftershocks resulted from the earthquake. An estimated 316,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1 million were made homeless.

• During the BP oil spill which resulted from the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon explosion. The explosion killed 11 men working on the platform and injured 17 others. On July 15, the leak was stopped by capping the gushing wellhead, after it had released about 205.8 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

• Classes ended at the Old Falls Junior High? Where you when the old school building that was once on Fourth Street was torn down? Did you get a photo or a brick?

• When the International Falls McDonald’s restaurant opened?

• When Backus closed its doors to students?

• When Lucca’s Grocery on 11th Street and Seventh Avenue closed?

• Woolworth’s closed?

• Cine 3 in International Falls expanded to Cine 5?

• In the early 1990s the Internet became a worldwide phenomena and linked most parts of the planet?

• In the 1960s and 1970s color television exploded in America? What were some of your favorite shows when you made the transition from black and white?