I’m an educated American who is 40-ish years old and knew that everyone was watching the Challenger when it happened but just assumed it was because of the space race. Was never taught about any extraneous circumstances and didn’t have any reason to look it up…TIL.
That's crazy, I am thirty and heard stories about it from when I was young. The fact a teacher was going up was a big part of why so many children watched it live. They almost planned to send up Big Bird from Sesame Street too and people often wonder how PBS would have handled that.
I'm 34 and yeah, Challenger happened before I was born. I remember the Columbia explosion and people referring to Challenger but I didn't know about the teacher (and possibly Big Bird) until much more recently
31
u/20--character--limit 4d ago
Given that their account is 15 years old, I think it's more likely that they aren't American than a generation thing, but I could be wrong.