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Today in History - 8th August

8th August 1974 - Richard Nixon announces his resignation as President

51 years ago today, Richard Nixon addressed the American people on live television, informing them that the next day he would be resigning as President. Nixon had chosen to step down before he could be impeached, and subsequently removed from office, for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, and he was succeeded by his Vice President Gerald Ford.

Nixon had become President in 1969, after defeating the Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the prior year's presidential election. He had previously served as Vice President to Dwight Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. Numerous major events happened during Nixon's time in the Oval Office, such as the scaling back of American troops' involvement in Vietnam and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, but the most notable was the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in 1969.

However, from 1972 things began to go downhill for the Nixon administration. On June 18 the Washington Post reported that the day prior 5 burglars had been caught trying to steal documents from the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington DC. Initially, some suspicion was aroused, but it was not enough to prevent Nixon from taking a landslide victory in the Presidential election of November that year.

However, the following July, a Senate investigation revealed that Nixon possessed a secret taping system in the White House, and Nixon aroused suspicion by refusing to surrender the system's recordings. Matters were made worse for Nixon in October, when his Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace, amidst an investigation into alleged money laundering and bribery. Agnew was replaced by Gerald Ford, who ascended to the presidency within a year, after the Supreme Court demanded that the secret tapes be released, revealing that Nixon had attempted to obstruct the FBI's investigation into the Watergate break-in. Nixon remains the only President in American history to have resigned from the presidency.

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