1

The moon landing - 650 million

The late 1960s had been a turbulent time, but on July 20, 1969, nearly everyone paused to look up at the same sky.

President Nixon watched from the White House as Apollo 11 prepared for its final descent, fulfilling a promise President Kennedy had made eight years earlier to land an American on the moon before the decade ended. When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and spoke his now-famous words , "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," an estimated 650 million people across the globe were watching, including nearly 94 percent of American households with a television set. Streets emptied, businesses closed early, and strangers gathered around store windows just to catch a glimpse.

2

"Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite" - 1.5 billion

The early 1970s were a time of enormous change in America, with the country adjusting to a new decade and Elvis Presley reinventing himself as a global performer rather than just a multi-hyphenate star.

On January 14, 1973, he took the stage at the Honolulu International Center for a show unlike anything attempted before. Broadcast live by satellite to audiences across Asia and Oceania, and later shown across Europe, the concert was the first full-length performance by a solo artist ever beamed around the planet this way. Estimates at the time put the audience at over a billion viewers worldwide. NBC later trimmed the concert into a 90-minute special that aired stateside on April 4, and it went on to become the network's highest-rated program of that entire year.

3

The state funeral of John F. Kennedy - At least 180 million

The nation was still in shock in late November 1963, reeling from the tragic death of President Kennedy in Dallas just days earlier.

As the country tried to process the loss, all three television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, made the extraordinary decision to stay on the air nonstop, some for as long as 70 consecutive hours , to cover the tragedy and the funeral that followed. On November 25, Kennedy’s flag-draped casket was carried by horse-drawn caisson from the Capitol to St. Matthew’s Cathedral and finally to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Nielsen estimated that 93 percent of American households with televisions were tuned in during the most watched moments, with at least 180 million viewers following the coverage around the world as a young John Jr. saluted his father’s casket, closing one of the darkest chapters of the nation’s history.

4

The Beatles on "Ed Sullivan"- 73 million

Just weeks after the country had said goodbye to President Kennedy, Americans were in need of something to lift their spirits again, and four young musicians from Liverpool arrived at exactly the right moment.

On February 9, 1964, John, Paul, George and Ringo took the stage on The Ed Sullivan Show for their first live performance on American soil. CBS had been flooded with requests for tickets, with even Walter Cronkite reportedly trying to snag one for his daughter. At 8 o’clock that Saturday night, roughly 73 million viewers, about 60 percent of all televisions in use that night, tuned in to watch. It remains one of the defining broadcasts in television history, and the night Beatlemania truly began in America.

5

Richard Nixon’s resignation speech - 90-110 million

The summer of 1974 had worn the country down, as the Watergate scandal dragged federal politics through months of hearings, leaked tapes, and mounting distrust.

Finally, on August 8, President Richard Nixon sat down at his Oval Office desk to address the nation one more time. In just 16 minutes, he announced he would resign the presidency effective the next day at noon, becoming the first American president in history to do so. Between 90 and 110 million viewers tuned in that night to hear him explain his decision, a staggering share of the population at the time. The following morning, Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in, closing one of the most turbulent chapters in modern American politics.

6

The M A S H finale - 106 million

The early 1980s brought a wave of nostalgia, as the country slowly climbed out of a tough recession and Ronald Reagan settled into his first term. Amidst it all, one weekly visit to a fictional Korean War hospital had become a Monday night ritual for millions of American families.

After 11 seasons, M A S H said goodbye on February 28, 1983, with a two and a half hour finale titled "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen." Streets across the country emptied, and bars held watch parties, and the New York City water department later noticed a spike in usage the moment the credits rolled, as everyone waited to use the bathroom at once. An estimated 106 million viewers tuned in on CBS, a Nielsen record that still stands as the most-watched episode of a scripted series in American television history.

7

Live Aid - 1.9 billion

By 1985, images of famine in Ethiopia had been reaching American households through the nightly news for months, stirring a wave of concern across the country.

Months after the successful "Feed the World" and "We Are the World" charity singles for the same cause, musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, from Ireland and Scotland respectively, decided just one concert alone wouldn’t be enough, so they organized something the world had never seen. On July 13, two stadiums an ocean apart, Wembley in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia , hosted dozens of the biggest names in music on the same day. Queen, U2, Madonna, Tina Turner, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Phil Collins, who famously played both shows thanks to a supersonic flight on the Concorde, took the stage before a combined crowd of well over 150,000. Nearly 1.9 billion viewers around the world watched the marathon broadcast, which helped raise more than 100 million dollars for famine relief.

8

The 1996 Summer Olympics opening ceremony - 3.5 billion

By the summer of 1996, Atlanta had spent years getting ready to host the world. Bill Clinton was in the White House, the economy was humming, and the country was in a celebratory mood as the Centennial Games kicked off in July 1996.

Inside Centennial Olympic Stadium, boxing legend Muhammad Ali, battling Parkinson’s, lit the torch with trembling hands, while Celine Dion and composer John Williams filled the night with music in front of 85,600 spectators. An estimated 3.5 billion people worldwide tuned in from home, making it one of the most watched broadcasts ever recorded.

9

The O.J. Simpson verdict - 150 million

By the fall of 1995, the country had spent more than a year gripped by a single courtroom drama playing out on cable news day after day. Few trials before or since have captured national attention quite like the murder case against O.J. Simpson, accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her companion Ron Goldman.

On the morning of October 3, after less than four hours of jury deliberation, the verdict was finally set to be read. Schools paused classes, offices set up televisions in break rooms, and phone lines went quiet across the country as everybody waited. When Simpson was found not guilty on both counts, an estimated 150 million Americans, more than half the nation, were watching or listening live, making it one of the largest single audiences in American television history for a legal proceeding.

10

The funeral of Michael Jackson - 2.5 billion

The summer of 2009 found the country still shaking off a rough recession, and pop culture needed something to hold onto. That something arrived, tragically, on June 25, when Michael Jackson passed away at age 50 after an overdose of medication prescribed by his personal physician.

Twelve days later, on July 7, his memorial filled the Staples Center in Los Angeles. A total of 17,500 tickets were given away through a lottery that drew over a million requests in a single day. Inside, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, and Jennifer Hudson performed, while his young daughter Paris gave an emotional tribute. Estimates suggest well over a billion people watched from around the globe, with the King of Pop’s farewell becoming one of the most talked-about broadcasts of the decade.

11

Leon Spinks vs. Muhammad Ali II - 2 billion

In 1978, the country was going through a rough patch, with President Carter navigating a shaky economy and gas prices creeping upward. Boxing fans, though, had their eyes fixed on New Orleans.

Seven months earlier, a young Leon Spinks had stunned the world by taking Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight crown in a split decision. On September 15, the two met again inside the Louisiana Superdome, where 63,350 fans packed in to watch a rematch live, the largest indoor crowd ever for a boxing match at the time. Ali fought a smarter, more controlled fight and reclaimed his title by unanimous decision, becoming the first three-time heavyweight champion in history. Around 90 million Americans watched on ABC, and roughly two billion people across some 80 countries followed the Battle of New Orleans as it happened.

1

George Wilson (1830): The man who refused his own pardon

In 1829, George Wilson and his accomplice James Porter robbed a U.S. mail carrier in Pennsylvania. Both were convicted in May 1830 on six counts, including putting the carrier's life in jeopardy, and sentenced to hang within weeks.

Porter was executed on schedule. But Wilson's influential friends petitioned President Andrew Jackson, who granted Wilson a formal pardon in June 1830, saving him from the gallows. Then Wilson did something that had never happened before in American history: he refused it.

The case was so unprecedented that it reached the Supreme Court in 1833, housed at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., as illustrated above. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the pardon couldn’t be valid without acceptance. However, Wilson was never executed. He served his prison sentence and was eventually pardoned a second time by President Martin Van Buren in 1841.

2

Richard Nixon (1974): The only president ever pardoned

On the night of June 17, 1972, five operatives were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Investigations revealed that President Richard Nixon had known about the cover-up and actively participated in it. Facing near-certain impeachment, Nixon became the only U.S. president ever to resign from office, stepping down in 1974.

Just 30 days later, his successor Gerald Ford announced from the Oval Office that he was granting Nixon "a full, free, and absolute pardon" for all offenses against the United States committed between 1969 and 1974. No charges had even been filed. The decision was widely condemned. Many historians believe it cost Ford the 1976 presidential election to Jimmy Carter. Nixon accepted the pardon but never admitted criminal guilt, expressing only "regret" for how he had handled the situation.

3

Iva Toguri D'Aquino (1977): The woman they called "Tokyo Rose"

Iva Toguri D'Aquino was a Los Angeles-born 25-year-old visiting a sick relative in Japan when the attack on Pearl Harbor stranded her there in December 1941. The Japanese government declared her an enemy alien and coerced her into broadcasting on Radio Tokyo's Zero Hour program.

This was a Japanese psychological warfare strategy that utilized English-speaking women, eventually all referred to collectively as " Tokyo Rose," to broadcast demoralizing messages intended to weaken Allied troop morale. After Japan's surrender, journalists identified Toguri as one of the voices.

A jury convicted her of treason in 1949, and she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She served six years. After a 1976 CBS 60 Minutes segment revealed key witnesses had lied, President Gerald Ford granted her a full and unconditional pardon in 1977, on his final day in office. It remains the only presidential pardon ever granted for a treason conviction in U.S. history.

4

Jack Johnson (2018): A champion pardoned 72 years after his death

John Arthur "Jack" Johnson was the first Black man ever to hold the world heavyweight boxing championship. In May 1913, a jury convicted him under the Mann Act (a federal law against transporting women across state lines for "immoral purposes") for traveling with his white girlfriend, whom he had since married.

Johnson skipped bail, fled to Canada, and fought two world title defenses in Paris before losing the belt in Havana in 1915. He surrendered to U.S. authorities in 1920 and served nearly a year in Kansas. He died in a car crash at age 68 in North Carolina in 1946.

After years of bipartisan lobbying and a call from actor Sylvester Stallone, President Trump signed Johnson's posthumous pardon in the Oval Office in 2018, 105 years after the conviction.

5

Samuel Mudd (1869): The doctor who set the assassin's leg

Hours after John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., one April night in 1865, Booth arrived at the Maryland farm of Dr. Samuel Mudd with a broken leg.

Mudd set the fracture and gave Booth shelter. When investigators linked Mudd to Booth, including through prior meetings in 1864, he was tried by a military commission and convicted of conspiracy. Sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor, he was sent to Fort Jefferson, a remote military prison on an island 70 miles west of Key West, Florida.

In 1867, a deadly yellow fever outbreak killed the prison's doctor. Mudd stepped in, treating patients and helping contain the epidemic. A petition signed by 299 enlisted men and officers was sent to President Andrew Johnson praising Mudd's courage. Johnson granted Mudd a full and unconditional pardon in 1869. Mudd was released on March 8 and returned to his Maryland farm. His conviction was never overturned; the pardon freed him, but the guilty verdict stood.

6

Marc Rich (2001): A fugitive pardoned on the last day

Marc Rich was a billionaire commodities trader indicted in 1983 on 65 counts, including tax evasion, wire fraud, and trading oil with Iran during the 1979–1981 hostage crisis. Before facing trial, Rich fled to Switzerland, where he remained a fugitive from U.S. justice for 17 years.

On January 20, 2001, his very last day in office, President Bill Clinton granted Rich a full pardon, bypassing the standard Justice Department review process. T he pardon ignited one of the biggest controversies of Clinton's presidency. Rich's ex-wife Denise had donated more than $1 million to Democratic causes and the Clinton Presidential Library.

A federal investigation led by prosecutor Mary Jo White was launched but ultimately found no criminal wrongdoing by Clinton. Clinton's own Justice Department had recommended against the pardon. Rich died in Switzerland in June 2013 at the age of 78, never having returned to the United States.

7

Patty Hearst (2001): From kidnapped heiress to bank robber

Patricia Hearst, the 19-year-old granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California, in 1974. She was taken by a radical militant group called the Symbionese Liberation Army.

After weeks in captivity, in which she was kept in a closet, blindfolded, she appeared in a bank surveillance video holding a rifle and participating in the robbery of a bank in San Francisco. She was captured in September 1975. Her defense argued she had been brainwashed and acted under duress. A jury rejected that argument, and she was convicted of bank robbery in 1976 and sentenced to 7 years.

President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979 after she had served approximately 22 months. She was released and married her former bodyguard. In January 2001, President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon in the final hours of his presidency.

8

Vietnam Draft Evaders (1977): The biggest blanket pardon in U.S. history

On his first full day as president in 1977, Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4483, granting an unconditional pardon to all Americans who had violated the Military Selective Service Act in the span of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The government estimated that approximately 210,000 men had been formally accused of draft violations , while hundreds of thousands more had never been charged. Many had fled to other countries, roughly 90% to Canada, where they had been welcomed as legal immigrants.

Carter had campaigned openly on the promise, calling it necessary to heal a nation still divided by the war. The pardon did not extend to military deserters. Veterans' organizations were furious. Despite the backlash, an estimated 50,000 of those eligible chose to remain in Canada permanently, never returning home.

9

Scooter Libby (2007 / 2018): The spy scandal at the heart of the White House

Lewis "Scooter" Libby served as Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney during the George W. Bush administration. In 2003, the identity of Valerie Plame (a covert CIA officer) was leaked to journalists, apparently in retaliation against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had publicly challenged the administration's case for the Iraq War.

Though Libby was not charged with the leak itself, he was convicted in 2007 of four felony counts: obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and making false statements to the FBI. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000. Later that same year, President Bush commuted Libby's prison sentence, calling it "excessive," but left the conviction, fine, and probation intact; he declined to grant a full pardon. Eleven years later, in 2018, President Donald Trump issued a full pardon, completely wiping Libby's record clean.

10

Roger Clinton (2001): The president's half-brother

Roger Clinton is the younger half-brother of President Bill Clinton. Roger was given the Secret Service code name "Headache" during his brother's administration. In 1984, Arkansas state police ran an undercover sting operation that caught Roger selling illegal drugs to an informant. He pleaded guilty in 1985 to charges of conspiracy to distribute drugs and served approximately one year in federal prison, completing his sentence in 1986.

14 years later, on his last day in office, President Clinton granted Roger a full pardon, clearing his criminal record. The pardon drew relatively little public outrage compared to the Marc Rich case.

1

Rachel Jackson: A "Bigamy" scandal (1820s)

In 1791, a young Andrew Jackson married Rachel Donelson. Both believed her first husband, Captain Lewis Robards, had successfully finalized their divorce. Apparently, Robards didn’t file the petition, making her marriage to Jackson technically bigamous. Once the divorce went through in 1794, they officially remarried.

During the 1828 presidential campaign, Jackson’s political opponents used this legal mistake against him. They branded Rachel a loose woman and a bigamist in pamphlets scattered across the country. The intense public shaming broke her spirit and deteriorated her health. She suffered a fatal heart attack just days before Jackson’s inauguration, leaving the newly elected president heartbroken and extremely bitter toward his political rivals for the rest of his life.

2

Grover Cleveland’s illegitimate child (1884)

Decades later, another personal bombshell rocked another presidential race. Republican opponents revealed that Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland, a bachelor praised for his integrity, had fathered a child out of wedlock with a widow called Maria Halpin ten years before.

Republicans paraded through the streets chanting, "Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?" Instead of denying the affair or trying to bury it, Cleveland instructed his campaign managers to do something radical: "Tell the truth." He admitted to supporting the child financially. His honesty caught his opponents off guard and won over voters who were tired of such dirty political tactics.

3

The Crédit Mobilier scandal (1872)

This particular scandal stands as one of the most shameless corporate schemes of the Gilded Age. Stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad formed a fraudulent construction company called Crédit Mobilier of America . Then, they hired themselves to build the transcontinental railroad at inflated prices, pocketing tens of millions of dollars in federal subsidies.

To prevent Congress from investigating their profit margins, Congressman Oakes Ames distributed discounted shares of the company’s stock to influential politicians, including Vice President Schuyler Colfax. When the press exposed the story in 1872, the revelation that lawmakers were bribing themselves tarnished the legacy of the Ulysses S. Grant administration.

4

The Whiskey Ring scandal (1875)

A few years later, another financial disaster hit the Grant administration. The Whiskey Ring was a widespread conspiracy involving distillers, distributors, and internal federal tax officials who stole millions of dollars in liquor taxes.

Using a complex web of bribes and falsified records, the ring defrauded the U.S. Treasury. The scandal reached the inner circle of power when President Grant’s own private secretary, Orville Babcock, was indicted as a ringleader. Grant provided a deposition in his secretary’s defense. While this saved Babcock from prison, it permanently damaged the president’s reputation.

5

The Teapot Dome scandal (1920s)

Until Watergate occurred, Teapot Dome was synonymous with political corruption. During the administration of Warren G. Harding, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall took control of valuable federal oil reserves located at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.

Instead of opening these fields up for competitive bidding among energy companies, Fall secretly leased the drilling rights to private oil tycoons in exchange for more than $400,000 in bribes.

6

The Chappaquiddick incident (1969)

By the mid-20th century, the nature of political scandals shifted. Secrets began to involve personal crisis and tragic losses.

In July 1969, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy drove his car off a narrow wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. The vehicle overturned into a tidal pond, trapping and drowning his passenger, 28-year-old campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy managed to escape but failed to report the fatal accident to the police for ten hours. Although he eventually pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, his delayed reaction ended his lifelong presidential ambitions.

7

The Pentagon Papers (1971)

In 1971, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg felt the moral obligation to leak a top-secret 7,000-page Department of Defense study detailing U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.

Published by The New York Times , the papers exposed a disturbing truth: successive administrations had systematically lied to both Congress and the American public. The documents proved that the government had expanded the war and increased troop counts while knowing that the conflict was unwinnable. The Supreme Court eventually rejected the government’s attempts to block the leaks, making a victory for freedom of the press.

8

The Watergate scandal (1972–1974)

This is, probably, the ultimate American political scandal. In June 1972, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

The break in itself was minor compared to the illegal cover-up orchestrated by President Richard Nixon and his collaborators. From paying hush money to instructing the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation, Nixon’s complicity was exposed via his own secret White House taping system. Facing impeachment and conviction by the Senate, Nixon became the first and only U.S. president to resign from office.

9

The "Keating Five" (Late 1980s)

During the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s, five U.S. Senators—John McCain, Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, and Donald Riegle—came under intense scrutiny.

The group was accused of intervening with federal banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, the chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan, who had contributed to their political campaigns. Lincoln eventually collapsed, costing American taxpayers over $3 billion. Although the Senate Ethics Committee ultimately cleared the senators of corruption, they were publicly condemned.

10

The Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair (1998)

The 20th century ended with a scandal that blended personal infidelity with a constitutional crisis. In 1998, news broke that President Bill Clinton had an intimate relationship with a 21-year-old White House intern called Monica Lewinsky.

The affair turned into a legal battle when Clinton denied the relationship under oath during an unrelated sexual harassment lawsuit. The investigation led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate ultimately acquitted him, yet he couldn’t bypass the media circus.