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She was a princess who never lived happily ever after - and the world loved her for it. Diana Spencer became a global celebrity when she wedded England’s Prince Charles in July 1981. But the fairy tale marriage soon unraveled, and, after no end of adulterous revelations and public separations, finally ended in divorce. But Diana remained a princess in the hearts of her millions of fans - and of the mass media, who faithful...

It was the biggest overseas military operation in the biggest war in world history - and its best kept secret as well. D Day demonstrated radio’s ability to carry news with clarity and immediacy. And while reporters like Robert Trout, Edward R. Murrow, and Richard C. Hottelet became household names, it was the ingenuity of an NBC stringer reporter named Wright Bryan, who finagled his way aboard a flight of paratroopers and...

A 31-year-old enslaved man named Nathanial “Nat” Turner, who was both literate and a preacher in the Virginia slave community, led a bloody two-day uprising in Southampton, Virginia. Known as both “preacher Nat” and “general Nat” to his followers, Turner and six other hatchet-wielding disciples began their rebellion by killing Turner’s own master, Joseph Travis, along with his wife, nine-year-old son, and a hired hand -- a...

When Ronald Reagan was elected president in November 1980, he hoped to defy an unusually grim circumstance of that office. In the seven previous even-numbered decades, every U.S. President had died in office - four times from assassin’s bullets. A few months later on March 30, 1981, as President Reagan strolled outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, he nearly met the same fate.

Broadcast audio licensed from ABC News ...

It was the darkest nightmare of every parent come to life - and it happened in the land of “It can’t happen here.” The setting was Littleton, Colorado, a comfortably middle-class suburb of Denver, a place where people come to raise a family, and where the arch over a hallway at local Columbine High School is inscribed with the motto: “The finest kids in America pass through these halls.” But on April 20, 1997 - the halls o...

It was the finale to a decade of turbulence and upheaval, but this time it was an event through which a nation could put aside its differences and stand together to marvel at the achievement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had pledged that before the sixties were over, an American would walk on the moon.

The enormity of the mission aside, one question remained, how to get a television signal 240 thousand miles from the ...

As long and vast as the history of our country may seem to us, the right of women to vote is shockingly new. Many of us had parents or grandparents who were born before women’s voting rights were codified. In fact, you just heard the famous suffragette Alice Paul report the news: The State of Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution by just ONE VOTE.. and that deciding vote was cast on August 18th of 1920.

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September 11, 2001 dawned crisp and blue in New York City. The gathering hum of a seemingly ordinary workday began taking shape in lower Manhattan. Then the ‘ordinary’ was shattered by the extraordinary. The world changing event that unfolded that morning was unimaginable and unprecedented. It was a sneak attack of epic proportions on American soil, terrifying the nation while thrusting the news media into uncharted territ...

He was a man in the prime of life when he traveled to Dallas, Texas in November 1963, on a routine political fence-mending mission to help shore up his chances for re-election as president the following year. At about twenty five minutes past noon on November 22, he was riding in an open convertible with his wife through downtown Dallas, waving to cheering crowds, when the unthinkable occurred - an unforgettable event that...

The Hindenburg was an engineering masterpiece, an airship as large and as grand as the Titanic - and as doomed. On May 6, 1937, a young radio reporter named Herbert Morrison was on hand to record the Hindenburg’s arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Instead, Morrison helped radio to broadcast one of modern history’s great disasters, as it suddenly unfolded in all its terrible glory. But even as Morrison’s eyewitness report ch...

The first reports from Los Angeles had an all-too familiar ring - a black motorist who had been stopped by police for drunk driving was pulled out of his car and beaten by several white officers. But this time, the entire incident was captured on a bystander’s video camera, then broadcast via television around the world. When the offending officers went on trial, an all-white jury saw things differently. After announcing a...

It was the election that did not decide the presidency, and the biggest media debacle since “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The 2000 campaign between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore was shaping up as a cliffhanger. Pundits predicted that its outcome would hinge on results from a few key states - Ohio, Michigan, and most of all, Florida. On election night, television news organizations staged a collective drag ra...

“War of The Worlds” is a phenomenon of a bygone era, and of a medium a hundred years old, yet its lessons resonate to this day. It’s the original “deepfake of 1938.” A radio drama about an alien invasion but presented as “breaking news,” scared the daylights out the nation. On the evening of October 30, 1938, radio listeners across the U.S. heard a startling report of mysterious creatures and terrifying war machines m...

Pandemonium reigned in downtown Dallas on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. An assassin's bullet had murdered President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Within an hour, police had arrested their lead suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and accomplished sharpshooter. On Sunday morning, November 24, with TV cameras in place, and NBC airing it live, Oswald was led through the department's basement for transport to the county...

The Space Shuttle Challenger flew nine missions into space. But its fateful tenth mission, which lasted only 73 seconds, ensured its tragic place in history. On the morning of January 28, 1986, a crew of seven boarded the Challenger, including a New Hampshire grade school teacher named Christa McAuliffe, representing the aspirations of so-called ‘ordinary’ citizens to journey into space. It was an adventure vicar...

He was an extraordinarily gifted athlete, the premier football player of his time, a California golden child who emerged from abject poverty to win the Heisman trophy in college and set records as a pro football running back. Effortless grace and a ready smile eased his transition from ex-athlete to corporate-backed celebrity. All of that changed on the night of June 13, 1992, when his ex-wife Nicole Simpson, and...

On April 19, 1995, two years to the day following the U.S. government’s botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, a rented truck pulled to the curb in front of the nine story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Inside the building, about 500 federal employees, and several hundred visitors were beginning their workday.  Then, at 9:04 a.m., came the explosion which woul...

Friday, December 14, 2012. It was a clear, crisp, and trouble-free start that morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Classrooms filled with kids excited for Christmas, just 11 days away. The school day started, as they always had, with a comforting routine. 9 A M, children settling into their classrooms. 9:10 A M, the pledge of allegiance. 9:15 A M, outside doors…locked. Then came 9:30 A M, when ...