What do John F. Kennedy’s assassination, 9/11 and the first televised presidential debate in 1960 between JFK and Richard Nixon have in common?
They top the “most memorable” political moments in American radio/television history, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
These events head a list of 125 memorable political moments selected by scholars, politicians, commentators and analysts, dating to radio’s commercial debut on Election Night, 1920.
The events that received the most votes were as follows: 1) the 1963 assassination and funeral of JFK; 2) the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center; 3) the first televised JFK-Nixon debate; 4) Franklin Roosevelt’s “date that will live in infamy” speech following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941; 5) Neil Armstrong talking to the Oval Office from the moon, 1969; 6) the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago; 7) FDR’s “only thing we have to fear” inaugural address, 1933; 8) Richard Nixon’s 1952 “Checkers” speech; 9) Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech; 10) and Nixon’s 1974 “My mother was a saint” farewell speech.
The full list may be viewed online on the museum’s site here.
