Saw It With My Own Eyes Trivia Quiz

Answer: It was the resumption of BBC broadcasting following WWII

The British Broadcasting Company, better known was the BBC, began broadcasting in 1932. In 1939 it was forced to cease all television broadcasts, due to World War Two. On June 7, 1946 broadcasts resumed with Jasmine Bligh announced, "Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Blight?" She then introduced the Disney cartoon, "Mickey's Touchdown", which was the last things viewers had seen before the BBC went off the air.

A well-known urban legend has fellow BBC announcer Leslie Mitchell saying "Well, as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted...".

While this is a fine story, it is apparently not true. (Information for this question came from Wikipedia and Cavenger BBC)

Answer: Harry Truman

Harry Truman's second inauguration, on January 20, 1949, was the first to be broadcast on television. In 1925 Calvin Coolidge was the first president to have his inauguration broadcast over the radio, while in 1997, Bill Clinton was the first to be broadcast over the Internet. (Source: Smithsonian web page)

Answer: the movie interrupted the dramatic end of a football game

The New York Jets were leading the Oakland Raiders thirty-two to twenty-nine. A mere sixty-five seconds before the end of the game, the NBC cut off the game and began showing a made-for-television version of the children's classic, "Heidi". However, in that brief span of time, the Raiders acquired a surge of energy and scored an additional fourteen points, so that they won this home-game forty-three to thirty-two.

The incredible uproar that resulted from cutting the game short resulted in new guidelines for broadcasting live sports events.

Answer: A lawyer representing the US army

When Senator Joseph McCarthy's assistant David Schine was drafted into the US army, McCarthy apparently asked that he be granted "special privileges". With accusation flying back and forth between the army and McCarthy, the case was investigated and the hearings broadcast by ABC and the DuMont networks. Joseph Welch of the Boston firm of Hale and Dorr was the lead counsel for the Army.

When McCarthy suggested that Welch's colleague, Fred Fisher, might be a communist sympathizer, Welch's response came straight from the heart. "Until this moment, senator, I think I have never gauged your cruelty or recklessness...Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" The audience promptly burst into applause, leaving McCarthy viably confused. According to the web page of the Museum of Broadcast Communicating, from which this information came, this spelled the beginning of the end of McCarthy. "TV Land Magazine" rates Welch's outburst as 39 in its rating of the 100 most important moments of television.

Answer: Princess Juliana of Holland and Prince Bernhard

Nothing is closer to a fairy-tale than a royal wedding, and these have always excited the curiosity of "ordinary" people. The advent of television has allowed people to join in the festivities,and to "ooh and ah!" at elaborate gowns and magnificent jewels. Prince Ranier of Monaco and Grace Kelly had two weddings, as is required in Monaco.

The first was a private, civil, ceremony. The second, a religious ceremony held on April 19, 1956, was a High Mass conducted by the Bishop of Monaco, and viewed by 30 million people.

The July 29, 1981 wedding of Prince Charles to Diana was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and viewed by an estimated 750 million people! The traditional Shinto ceremony uniting Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito to Masako Owada was also viewed by million on June 9, 1993. Princess Juliana of Holland Prince Bernhard were married on January 9, 1937 in the Hague.

This was too early in the history of television broadcast for the marriage to be televised.

Answer: Bob Dylan

Ed Sullivan's show, originally called "The Toast of the Town", began broadcasting in 1948. CBS ran it on Sunday evenings until 1971, when the network unceremoniously canceled the program. Although Sullivan's personality was rather bland, he succeeded in bringing some of the most important acts of the time for a "really big show". Elvis Presley appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on September 8, 1956. Sullivan himself was recuperating from an accident, so Presley was introduced by Charles Laughton.

The Beatles appeared on February 9, 1964, an appearance rated number five by "TV Land Magazine" in its listing of the "100 Most Memorable TV Moments". The Rolling Stones appeared on January 15, 1967, and were told to change the words from "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". Bob Dylan never appeared on the "Ed Sullivan Show". (Information from Wikipedia)

Answer: The assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was greeting the faithful in St. Peter's Square. Riding in an open jeep, there was little distance between him and the enthusiastic crowd eager to see him in person. Like many events involving the popular John Paul II, this one was covered by live television. Suddenly, shots rang out from the crowd, and both those in the square, and those watching the event on television, saw the Pope slump over suddenly in the jeep. Surviving serious wound to his digestive tract, the Pope not only recovered, but visited his assailant, Mehmet Ali Agca, in prison.

While other assassinations or assassination attempts have taken place while the press is nearby, most have not actually been captured on live television. John Hinkley's attempt on President Ronald Reagan, which took place just seven weeks before the attempt on the Pope, was not filmed live - the cameras kicked in as the President was being bundled into a car.

The 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy took place in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles,as Kennedy was making his way to a press conference. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had attended a rally, which was televised live in Israel, but was shot while leaving the podium and out of the eye of the cameras.

Answer: The first time a perfect score of "ten" was awarded in gymnastics in the Olympics

Romanian gymnast, Nadia Comaneci, was the first gymnast ever to receive a perfect score of "ten" in an Olympic event. At the age of fourteen, while participating in the Montreal summer Olympics, Nadia electrified the crowds with her performance on the uneven bars.

The prefect score was so unusual that the electric scoreboard was unable to illuminate the number "10", and showed her score as "1.0". Comaneci went on to win six more perfect scores during the games!

Answer: All of these

The August 28, 1963 March on Washington was planned to mark the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and was one of the largest and most important marches of the Civil Rights Movement. CBS television covered the entire day's events. However, the other two major networks, ABC and NBC covered the speeches at the end of the day, culminating in King's famous speech.

As the "Museum of Broadcast Communications" says in their web page, just about anyone who was watching television in the United States that day heard the speech.

The "TV Land Magazine" survey of the "Hundred Most Memorable Moments in Television" lists the "I Have a Dream" speech of Dr. Martin Luther King as number four.

Answer: 1970

American comedian Jerry Lewis began raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association of America in 1952. The first large-scale telethon, broadcast from New York City over Labor Day week-end (the first week-end in September) was in 1966. However, it was still basically an East Coast affair.

In 1970, the Telethon was first broadcast from coast-to-coast, a major logistical operation involving 64 different television stations. Lewis raised over five million dollars that year! The Muscular Dystrophy Telethon remains one of the largest and best-known telethons in the United States, raising 1.46 billion dollars as of 2007. (Information from the Wikipedia)