Various Stuff:
News Events

Astronaut: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Neil Armstrong: "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."

John Wayne Bobbitt testifying at the trial of his wife, Lorena, for cutting off John's penis: "She pulled on my groin area twice, I think. I felt a couple of jerks. And then, uh, uh, and after that she just, ya know, like, cut it off."

Announcer: "Reporting from Washington, here is Tom Brokaw."

Brokaw: "Good evening."

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw: "President Bill Clinton explains to the nation his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a relationship that turns out was a great deal different than the one he has been describing for seven months now. Today he testified about that relationship, the first time a president has testified to a grand jury investigating possible criminal activities. The president spent almost five-and-a-half hours with prosecutor Ken Starr and his associates, and NBC's Clair Shipman has learned he didn't answer all of their questions. Apparently the prosecutors didn't press when the President refused, and tonight, his lawyer David Kendall issued this statement saying the President made the painful admission that he had – quote – inappropriate contact with Ms. Lewinsky. As to the very few highly intrusive questions with respect to the specifics of that contact, in order to preserve personal privacy and institutional dignity, according to David Kendall, the President gave candid but not detailed answers." (August 17, 1998)

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw: "Then there is what could only be a bizarre coincidence... or something else."

NASA communicator immediately following the space shuttle Challenger disaster: "We have a report relayed through the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded." (January 28, 1986)

NASA communicator immediately following the Challenger disaster: "Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction." (January 28, 1986)

President Ronald Reagan addressing the nation following the Challenger disaster: "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us with the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God." (January 28, 1986)

Capsule communicator Charlie Hobaugh at NASA mission control: "Columbia, Houston. We see your tire pressure messages, and we did not copy your last."

Voice believed to be Shuttle Commander Rick Husband: "Roger, uh, buh... <long silence>"

Public affairs announcer James Hartsfield?: "... Communications with Columbia were lost at about 8:00 a.m., Central Time, about ten... ten minutes ago. This is mission control, Houston. Flight controllers continue to seek tracking or communications with Columbia through Merritt Island Tracking Station. Last communications with Columbia was at 8:00 a.m., Central Time, approximately above Texas as it approached the Kennedy Space Center, uh, for its landing. Flight Director Leroy Cain is now instructing controllers to, uh, get out their contingency procedures and begin to follow those. The flight [inaudible] officer reports no tracking data from the C-band radar at the Merritt Island Tracking Station has been reported of, uh, any objects." 

(Final audio communication between NASA mission control and the space shuttle Columbia before the ship was destroyed during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003, following a 16-day scientific research mission)

Police dispatcher: "I just want you to stay on the line with me. We need to know what's going on."

Peggy: "Okay."

Dispatcher: "Okay?"

Peggy: "I am on the floor..."

Dispatcher: <interrupting> "Okay, you've the kids there?"

Peggy: "... and, I've got every student in this library on the floor... (yelling) and you gotta stay on the floor!!"

Dispatcher: "Is there any way you can lock the doors?"

Peggy: "Um, smoke is coming in from out there, and I'm a little...

Dispatcher: "Okay."

<Gunshots: Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.>

Peggy: "The gun is right outside the library door. Okay, I don't think I'm gonna go out there..."

<Dispatcher and Peggy talk over each other.>

Peggy: "... I've got three children... okay? [inaudible] Okay? I've got the kids on the floor, um... I've got all the kids in the library..."

Dispatcher: <interrupting> "We have paramedics and we have fire and we have police en route." 

(9-1-1 call from a Columbine High School teacher during the gun-wielding rampage there on April 20, 1999, in Columbine, Colorado, by seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.)

CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite: "This is my last broadcast as the anchor man of the CBS Evening News. And that's the way it is, Friday, March 6, 1981."

Walter Cronkite: "For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain stand-off will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could. This is Walter Cronkite. Good night."

(an editorial commentary during the Johnson administration's handling of the Vietnam war)

Radio announcer: "We interrupt our program to bring you a special broadcast. The German news agency Transocian (sp?) said today in a broadcast that the Allied invasion had begun. I repeat, the German news agency Transocian said today in a broadcast that the Allied invasion had begun. There was no Allied confirmation."

Bernard Shaw: "George Bush, Governor of Texas, will become the 43^rd president of the United States."

CBS News anchor Dan Rather: "This is important... The race is not... yet... over."

Bernard Shaw: "We are going to take Florida back into the 'Too Close to Call' column."

David Brinkley: "Elvis Presley died today. He was 42. Apparently it was a heart attack. He was found at his home in Memphis, not breathing. His doctor pronounced him dead at 3:00 this afternoon."

Air traffic controller: "American 587, New York ...... American 686, go ahead."

Flight 686: "Yeah, just to let you know, we saw a huge, um, tremendous amount of black smoke south of Long Island."

Other ATC: "2311, cleared for take-off, 3-1 left." (Discussion that ensued after American Airlines flight 587 crashed into the Queens area of New York City on November 12, 2001, after departing from Kennedy International en route to the Dominican Republic, carrying 246 passengers and nine crew members)

(Thanks, Brian.)

Danny Rolling: "Well, I'm gonna sign off for a little bit. I got something I gotta do."

(An audio tape made by the Gainesville serial killer just before he killed his first two victims at the University of Florida in 1990)

Radio announcer Herb Morrison watching the crash of the Hindenburg, May 6, 1937: "Oh, the humanity!"

Radio announcer Herb Morrison watching the crash of the Hindenburg, May 6, 1937: "I... Listen, folks, I'm gonna have to stall for a minute because I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed."

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw: "...and when the American forces pulled away the cover that covered the hole, they were staring into the eyes of Saddam Hussein. We do not have the initial exchange between the two of them. It could be the stuff of history, however, one way or the other." (December 14, 2003)

L. Paul Bremer, U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq: "Ladies and gentlemen... we got 'im."

Crowd cheers for about 30 seconds.

Bremer: "Saddam Hussein was captured Saturday, December 13 at about 8:30 p.m. local, in a cellar in the town of Ad Dawr, which is about 15 kilometers south of Tikrit. I want to say a few words to the people of Iraq. This is a great day in Iraq's history. For decades hundreds of thousands of you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades Saddam Hussein divided you citizens against each other. For decades he threatened and attacked your neighbors. Those days are over forever. Now it is time to look to the future, to your future of hope, to a future of reconciliation. Iraq's future – your future – has never been more full of hope. The tyrant is a prisoner." (December 14, 2003)

Major General Ray Odierno: "You'll see that the place he was living at was basically two very small rooms in an adobe hut. One was a bedroom that was cluttered with, uh, clothes, uh, some new T-shirts, socks, etc., that were in there, some sandals. On the right was a very rudimentary kitchen that did have running water and a few other things. And you can see where the hole was where he was found hiding, as you see there. It was a very narrow hole. It was not very big at all, and, uh, very interesting, in fact. You could just about see some of these palace complexes from there, and I think it's rather ironic that he was in a hole in the ground across the river from these great palaces that he's built, where he robbed all the money from the Iraqi people." (December 14, 2003)

CBS News anchor Dan Rather: "Mosul... that's the place where Saddam Hussein's sons and one of his grandsons were killed, uh, some months ago, in the early summer. They went down fighting, that is to say they went down shooting and were killed in the process. And, despite all the propaganda and the legend and the myth that, well – 'Nobody's gonna take Saddam Hussein alive. He'll go down fighting, uh, he won't allow himself to be captured' – that was not to be. Um, the news conference this morning indicated not only was he captured... one doesn't want to say with some ease, but that he was captured, he did not put up a struggle, and no shots were fired." (December 14, 2003)

CBS News anchor Dan Rather: "They went out. They searched the area, uh, surrounded the area, didn't find anything, uh, their first time through. Then they found this spider hole. Uh, the early reports are that the soldiers who found the spider hole didn't think anybody could be down there because the entrance to the hole was so small, but they poked around, they found somebody, didn't recognize instantly it was Saddam Hussein, but fairly quickly, apparently somebody said, 'Ya know, this, this may be Saddam Hussein,' and then quickly they determined, uh, that it was." (December 14, 2003)

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw: "He had not been seen in public until that very brief appearance he made in the closing days of the invasion of Baghdad, and then he disappeared. Uh, and now, this is the return of Saddam Hussein, uh, to quote T.S. Eliot, this is how his role ends, not with a bang – because he fired no shots – but with kind of a whimper for this megalomaniacal tyrant of the Iraqi people for the last 30 years." (December 14, 2003)

Reporter: "Here's another late development, and this news keeps coming in as we're talking here ... President Kennedy, according to the Associated Press, and Texas Governor John Connally were shot from ambush today in Dallas, Texas, and it is not known whether either Mr. Kennedy or Governor Connally were killed."

Walter Cronkite: "From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, two o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago."

Reporter: "Here's other information just in from the correspondents traveling with the presidential party. It says President Kennedy, apparently, was shot in the head..."

Other reporter: "An important bulletin... President Kennedy was given blood transfusions just a few moments ago at Parkland Hospital in an effort to save his life."

Walter Cronkite: "Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas..."

Rodney King: "People, I just, I just wanna say, ya know, can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Um, can we stop makin' it, makin' it horrible for, for the, for the older people and the, and the, and the kids? I mean, please, we can, we can get along here. We, we all can get along. We just gotta, ya know, I mean we're all stuck here for a while. Let's, ya know, let's, let's, let's try to work it out, ya know. Let's try and work it out."

John Glenn: "Oh, that view is tremendous!" (from the capsule of one of the Mercury space flights)

Chet Huntley: "Chet Huntley, NBC News, New York."

David Brinkley: "And David Brinkley, NBC News, Washinton." (The Huntley-Brinkley Report)

Radio announcer: "We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all naval and military activity from the principal island of Oahu." (December 7, 1941)

Radio announcer: "We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. Flash: Washington: The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor." (December 7, 1941)

Radio announcer: "Headline Edition, July 8, 1947. The Army Air Forces has announced that a flying disc has been found and is now in the possession of the Army. Army officers say the missile, found sometime last week, has been inspected at Roswell, New Mexico, and sent to Wright Field, Ohio, for further inspection."

911 dispatcher: "Rockville City Police, [inaudible], this line is recorded."

Someone claiming to be the D.C.-area sniper of 2002, believed by police to be John Lee Malvo (a.k.a. Lee Boyd Malvo): "Good morning. Don't say anything. Just listen. We are the people causing the killing in your area. Look at the tarot card. It says, 'Call me God.' Do not release to the press. We have called you three times before trying to set up negotiations. We've gotten no response. People have died."

Dispatcher, interrupting: "Sir..."

Sniper suspect, attempting to continue: "If you people..."

Dispatcher, interrupting again: "I need to forward you to the Montgomery County [Maryland] Police hotline. We're not investigating the crime. Would you like the number?"

>Click<  (October 15, 2002)

(Thanks, David.)

Reporter: "Terror, horror, death. Film at 11."

Twenty-six seconds from the 1938 radio broadcast of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, which became a news event after many listeners mistakenly believed that the show, which was designed to sound like a news report, was an actual news report and that Earth was being invaded by hostile Martians. Riotous behavior ensued. The notoriety helped launch Welles' career as a creative wonder-boy.