What are some things that have happened in real life that are as "edge of your seat" dramatic as TV or movies?

I second the nomination of the Cuban missile crisis. I was a young sailor in New Iberia, LA, in 1962, and those two weeks in October were easily the most tense—and often frightening—I have ever experienced.      It was unsettling to hear on the radio that the Russians were believed to be sending missiles to Cuba, but within days "believed to be" changed to "are" and President Kennedy warned Russia publicly that the United States would not permit that situation to continue. It was a bit scary, but also a bit exciting. Even in those halcyon days before video games, young men had a somewhat limited ability to grasp the distinction between imaginative excitement and real-life danger.      Monday afternoon shortly after the missile crisis began we were playing a game of flag football on base after work—pretty much regular football sans pads; we specialized in broken noses, ribs, and collarbones—when the "crisis" suddenly changed from exciting to frightening. Our team broke huddle and headed for the line of scrimmage but the other team was looking beyond us with odd looks on their faces.      We turned around and saw a train headed east just outside the chain link fence about a quarter of a mile away. A long train, flatcar after flatcar loaded with tanks and armored personnel carriers and fuel bowsers and howitzers and jeeps and trucks and ambulances...we never finished that game.      At 7:00 that night President Kennedy addressed the nation on radio to announce that the Russians had installed medium-range nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba that could reach any point in the continental United States. He said that ships were underway bearing more missiles, and he had ordered the United States Navy to quarantine Cuba and take whatever steps were necessary to prevent any more missiles from being delivered.      It was the Cold War and we were used to thinking of the Russians as "the enemy" but we were young and full of ourselves and it all seemed to be pretty abstract: mostly talk and a few "incidents" that happened somewhere on the other side of the world. Now our Commander-in-Chief was telling us that it was right next door and we were on the brink of the real thing: It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead -- months in which both our patience and our will will be tested, months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing. We learned the next morning that our enlistments had been extended "for the duration" just like our fathers and older brothers in World War II and Korea. One of my friends named Denny had been counting the days—he was down to less than two weeks and was starting to count the hours—was so outraged that he wouldn't be getting out that he left the base right after the announcement, got drunk and stayed drunk for two days, then showed up on Friday and avoided punishment by re-enlisting for two years on the spot. (He spend his re-enlistment bonus on a car to replace the junker he was driving.)      We could get Radio Havana on our AM radio and my wife understood Spanish fairly well, so we listened to a bit of Fidel's outraged speeches the next couple of nights. He would go on for hours, but after a few minutes it got too nerve-wracking for us and we would turn it off. Even though long-distance telephone calls were expensive, we talked with our families back home every day trying to reassure each other.      Those were sobering days for a young man (I turned 23 the first day of the crisis) who had no idea what the next few days or weeks held for him, his wife, or their infant son. But Russia seemed to back down, the rhetoric cooled down, and in late November or early December our involuntary extensions were canceled. I was discharged the middle of January 1963, went back to college, and resumed civilian life. (I learned later that Denny went on to make a career of the Navy and did very well, so there were a few bright spots.)      I have never forgotten those tense, frightening two weeks in October 1963. That was more than enough real-life drama for me, thank you.

The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis. Those of us who lived through it know what it means waking up in the morning and thanking the Lord for another day of life. I remember walking to school and dreading, listening for the civil defense sirens. Edge of your seat experience? No, thanks.

I wasn't alive to see it, but I've read that pizza deliveries skyrocketed during the LAPD's chase of O.J. Simpson on June 17th, 1994, as people were glued to the chase. Again, I wasn't alive to see the Waco siege first-hand, but I imagine it was pretty dramatic, especially toward the end. The same goes for the Ruby Ridge standoff as well, I would think. More recently, the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death was quite dramatic also, with several cryptic, somewhat melodramatic statements (all announcing a future statement) preceding the actual announcement of the discovery and execution of bin Laden.

A few thoughts -- Cuban missile crisis. I was about 11 at the time, was staying at a friend's home for a couple weeks while my parents were on a trip out of other country. My friend's parents were Canadian citizens and were packing up to head for the border. This was during a Cold War period where air raid drills were routine in schoolrooms, we were supposed to drop to the floor and crawl under our desks. (As if that would have done much good in a nuclear attack.) Apollo 11 - Eagle landing on the moon, complete with computer reboots during the descent and seconds of fuel to spare at the end. Apollo 13. Watergate break-in, Watergate hearings, firings of Ehrlichman/Haldeman among others, John Dean testimony, Deep Throat leaks, discovery of the Nixon tapes, the incriminating tape segment that "mysteriously" got erased, the Nixon resignation, and finally the pardons by Gerald Ford. Something new and shocking in the news practically every day for months, in an era when television news was still journalism.