In the early hours of this day, five men were arrested after they broke in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Watergate. Watergate was an office, hotel and apartment complex in Washington DC.

One of the arrested men was James W. McCord, Jr, a former CIA agent. It was discovered, on 18th June, that McCord was a security co-ordinator for President Richard Nixon's re-election committee...

This was to kick-off one of the most celebrated cases in the history of investigative reporting, and, eventually, would lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, who, it was revealed, by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, had knowledge of a secret fund which was being used to finance dirty tricks against the Democrats during Nixon's re-election campaign. The Watergate break in, it turned out, being just one of those 'tricks'.

On September 8th, President Gerald Ford, pardoned Nixon for any criminal charges.