It was actually a flashback to the founding of the Universal Century UC0001 that opened the show, concluding with the explosion of that station (Laplace). Then we flashed forward to current time UC0096.
Hmmm, I thought the narrator mentioned it once at the beginning but yeah it's not directly related to Banagher's story so it kind of makes sense his generation would talk about it just as part of the war.
I forget what the one line we hear from the teacher that one time we see Banagher in class was too though.