The Oklahoma City Bombing (April 19, 1995)

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 the day and the children’s innocence was shattered. On this 10th remembrance, Brian Williams shares the story as you’ve never heard it before. Told by the by the journalists who covered it, and the parents who suffered through it.

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 her friend Ronald Goldman, were found brutally murdered. Evidence gleaned from the murder site suggested that her executioner may well have been O.J. Simpson. But when police decided to arrest Simpson two days later, an even more surreal tableaux unfolded - live on national television in front of 95-million viewers.

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 vicariously shared by millions of Americans through television, as the Challenger lifted off at 11:38a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and hurtled majestically into the sky. But less than two minutes later, horror struck in full view of all who watched.

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 jail. And, for the first time, the nation watched an historic national news event - as it happened. Written by Joe Garner and Brian Williams Contributors: Gary DeLaune, formally a reporter for KLIF Radio Dallas Bill Lord, formerly a producer for ABC News Ike Pappas, formerly a reporter for WNEW Radio New York Bob Huffaker, formerly a reporter for KRLD Radio and television and the CBS affiliate in Dallas Fred Rheinstein, formerly the field director for NBC News Chad Hagan, formerly a producer for NBC News Homer Vinso, formerly a cameraman for NBC News See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“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 moving toward New York City. But the hair-raising broadcast was not a real news bulletin—it was Orson Welles' adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic. This episode goes behind the scenes of the making of Welles' famed radio play and its impact. Welles's broadcast became a major scandal, prompting a different kind of mass panic as Americans debated the bewitching power of the radio and the country's vulnerability in a time of crisis. When the debate was over, American broadcasting had changed for good, but not for the better. Written by Joe Garner and Brian Williams Contributors: A.Brad Schwartz, broadcast historian and author of BROADCAST HYSTERIA: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (Hill & Wang, May 2015) Orson Welles Howard Koch John Houseman See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.