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Curated playlist

Peabody Award winners

  • PBSPBS carried the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings gavel to gavel and alone rebroadcast them in prime time.
  • NPRNPR's first broadcast, on the 20th of April 1971, carried live Senate hearings about the Vietnam War.
  • Frank SinatraFrank Sinatra was dropped by his record label in 1952. A movie role then brought him back to the top.
  • BBC Radio 4After a suspected catastrophic attack on Britain, Royal Navy submarine captains must check for BBC Radio 4.
  • HBOHBO's very first broadcast, in 1972, was a hockey game. Only 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania saw it.
  • ESPNESPN is based in Bristol, Connecticut, because a zoning rule banned rooftop satellite dishes.
  • Johnny CarsonUri Geller failed on Johnny Carson's show, and it made him famous. Carson had asked James Randi for help.
  • Stephen ColbertAt a 2006 dinner, Stephen Colbert roasted President Bush to a cold room. His show's ratings jumped 37% the next week.
  • Mel BrooksMel Brooks was 14 years old when he climbed onto a diving board at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate hotel in the Borscht Belt. He worked there as a pool-side tummler, an entertainer hired to keep the guests amused. On this day he wore a…
  • The New York TimesThe New York Times printed a crooked political boss's own account books in 1871.
  • The Washington PostThe Washington Post has its own ZIP Code, 20071. The newspaper was founded in 1877 in the capital.
  • Jim HensonJim Henson made the first Kermit from a halved table tennis ball and his mother's old coat.
  • CNNCNN was the first television channel to offer news around the clock. It launched in Atlanta on June 1, 1980.
  • Bing CrosbyBing Crosby had to re-record "White Christmas" in 1947 because the 1942 master had worn out.
  • History ChannelA 2017 History Channel documentary on Amelia Earhart was undone in about half an hour of Google searching.
  • Voice of AmericaVoice of America went dark in March 2025 for the first time since 1942. More than 1,300 staff were placed on leave.
  • CBSIn 1951, CBS introduced its Eye logo, inspired by a hex sign and a Shaker drawing.
  • CBS NewsCBS News first went on the air as an emergency on Pearl Harbor day. Its New York station was normally dark on weekends.
  • Walter CronkiteWalter Cronkite took off his glasses and told America President Kennedy had died.
  • Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand once filed a lawsuit that sent a crowd of strangers to look at a single photograph. In 2003 she claimed that a website documenting coastal erosion had invaded her privacy. Among its more than 12,000 images, one happened to…
  • BBC NewsIn the 1982 Falklands War, BBC News used an electronic camera in a war zone for the first time.
  • CNBCCNBC began as a low-budget satellite channel showing old movies and instructional programs.
  • LucasfilmLucasfilm began on the 10th of December 1971, when filmmaker George Lucas founded it in Marin County, California. Today it is best known for Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and for pushing the craft of special effects, sound and computer…
  • Metropolitan OperaNew York's new rich built the Metropolitan Opera after being refused boxes at the Academy of Music.
  • Fred RogersFred Rogers weighed 143 pounds for most of his adult life, and he treated the number as a private message. In a 1998 Esquire profile, he told the writer Tom Junod, "the number 143 means 'I love you.' It takes one letter to say 'I' and four…
  • NHKNHK broadcast both Tokyo Rose and Emperor Hirohito's 1945 surrender speech. It is Japan's public broadcaster.
  • BBC TelevisionBBC Television went off the air without warning on 1 September 1939. The government feared it would guide enemy planes.
  • BBCWhen a general strike halted newspapers in May 1926, the BBC became Britain's main source of news.
  • Walter LippmannJournalist Walter Lippmann gave us the word stereotype. He also named the Cold War in a 1947 book.

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