1972: WATERGATE-NOT JUST A SALAD ANYMORE
While everyone knows that Watergate was a huge scandal that finally accomplished the once-thought-impossible task of getting Richard Nixon to retire from politics forever, people can have trouble remembering exactly what happened or even why it's called "Watergate" instead of something like "Dick Nixon Is An Asshole."
The "real" Watergate was and is a gigantic hotel/office/apartment complex in downtown D.C. that in 1972 housed the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, which at the time was busy managing the ultimately doomed McGovern campaign, still smarting from the Tom Eagleton fiasco.
For Nixon, however, the McGovern campaign was still not nearly doomed enough for his liking, so he did the sort of thing any rational man in his position would do: order six men from his Committee for the Re-Election of the President (known to almost everyone except him by the acronym CREEP) and have them break into DNCHQ, rifle around for valuable information, and leave. A team led by G. Gordon Liddy was assembled and the CREEPs went to work.
Unfortunately for Nixon, Liddy and his men were not the sort of high-tech ninja cat burglars you would normally commission to break into one of the most expensive and thus high-security office buildings in the District. In fact, they were kind of crappy at it, twice failing to get into the offices and the third time getting caught red-handed by the police. Nixon's press secretary was quick to declare the break-in a "third-rate burglary attempt" which obviously had no connection to the President, even though one burglar was a Republican security staffer whose bank account contained several checks that were clearly from the CREEP slush fund.
While this was revealed before the election, the media never really focused on Watergate until March 1973, when the cooperation of White House Counsel John Dean suddenly blew the case wide open. Nixon began severing every possible connection to anyone even vaguely involved in the case, as well as attempting to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had very publicly subpoenaed the tapes that Nixon used to record virtually all his interactions, including those with the conspirators.
Selectively edited transcripts of the tapes were eventually released, and while no incriminating evidence was found (although there were a number of suspicious gaps that had been "accidentally" erased) the transcripts did show what Nixon was like in private: mean, petty, crude, hateful and swearing more often during a typical conversation than most people drew breath. There was mounting pressure on Nixon from the GOP to resign, but Tricky Dick clung stubbornly to the presidency until it became likely that he would be indicted if he hung around much longer. Expletive deleted!
