Wham! Line/Real Life: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Person A:''' Turn on the TV!

'''Person B:''' Sure, what channel?

* [[The American Civil War|"General Lee, I have no division."]]

* "[[wikipedia:US Airways Flight 1549|We're gonna be in the Hudson.]]"

* For Augustus of [[Ancient Rome]], whoever delivered the news that Varus and his three legions had been annihilated in the Teutoburger Wald.

** While on the subject of Ancient Rome, I believe "The die is cast," is probably the premier example of an ancient historical wham line. Julius Caesar uttered it as he violated Roman law, bringing his legion across the Rubicon and into Rome...and thus died the Roman Republic.

* In [[World War II]], when France was being invaded by Germany, [[Winston Churchill]] went to Paris and on a meeting with the commanders, asked the leading general, Gamelin: "Where is the strategic reserve?" Gamelin answered: "There is none." Churchill described hearing this later as the single most shocking moment in his life.

* "Today, June 22th 1941, without declaring war, [[Nazi Germany|Hitlerite Germany]] invaded the Soviet Union."

** "I have to tell you now that no such action has been taken and consequently, this country is at war with Germany".

* [[wikipedia:Hillsborough disaster|Sports Reporter: "...what happened at Hillsborough, a tragedy, at least 53 people are feared to have been killed."]]

** [[wikipedia:1979 The Who concert disaster|"If you're gonna do an encore, keep it short, because something's happened..."]]

* "The chain reaction is self-sustaining." After the building of the first atomic reactor.

{{quote|'''Bradass87''': hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time… say, 8-9 months… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?}}

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_WUb68RQo "Snape killed Dumbledore!"]

* [[wikipedia:Just watch me|"Just Watch Me"]]

* [[Barack Obama|"Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world]] that the United States had conducted an operation that [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|killed]] [[Osama Bin Laden]], the leader of Al Qaeda."

* A low-key example, but one which definitely a wham for logic and mathematics: [[wikipedia:Russellchr(27)s paradox|"Does the set of all sets which do not contain themselves contain itself?"]] <ref> While well-known, actually a more accessible paraphrase. The real line was more like "Let w be the predicate: to be a predicate that cannot be predicated of itself. Can w be predicated of itself? From each answer its opposite follows. Therefore we must conclude that w is not a predicate."</ref>

** And similarly, [[wikipedia:G%C3%B6delchr(27)s incompleteness theorems|"Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory."]]<ref>Basically, it's an encoded form of "This statement is not provable in such-and-such theory". You can add that to the theory's axioms and create a new theory, but then there's an encoded form of "This statement is not provable in the new theory", and so on ad infinitum.</ref>

* On a more personal scale, being told that you have a life-threatening or terminal illness or that a close relative or friend has died.

* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2108014,00.html?xid=fblike "Nature Is Over"]

* A positive one: after asked when unrestricted travel between the DDR and the BRD <ref>East Germany and West Germany</ref> would be allowed again: "er, from this moment on, I think..."

* [http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-02/news/mn-41450_1_erik-menendez The greatest Perry Mason moment from a real trial]:

** Tom Paine said it first; ''"Tis time to part"''.

* "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/1/newsid_3571000/3571497.stm The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead...I repeat that, the German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead.]"

{{quote|"No, no. This is tragic. You don’t understand. Gower Champion died this morning."}}

* "We got him" after Saddam Hussein's capture.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Real Life]]