The media today marks the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. When I lived there in the early 1970s the newspapers sometimes would recreate the front page of the paper at the time. Much of the papers would be taken up with reminiscences of the people who survived.
This year, I went to the Web site of the Honolulu Adverstiser newspaper and there were a few stories of the observances at Pearl Harbor, attracting about 2,000 people for a moment of silence at the exact moment the attack began.
Competing with this most solemn of occasions was the news that the North Shore waves, which are at its highest in the winter, might hit 50 feet, the highest in 40 years. The newspaper has a live video stream from the North Shore. When I lived there, it was the radio that would tell us when experts expected the highest waves and we would flock to the North Shore to watch 30-footers crash onto the beach.
Back in the day it was a social event, in addition to a scientific phenomenon, so it was get out of bed or miss out. With today's technology, you don't even have to get out of bed to see the big waves.