Wednesday · November 11, 2026

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A cable channel signs on after midnight, and radio gets buried on camera

The Buggles' 1979 novelty single becomes the first image MTV ever broadcasts.

Just after midnight on August 1, 1981, a new cable channel called MTV signed on with no fanfare beyond a countdown graphic and a shot of a rocket launch. The first video it played was "Video Killed the Radio Star," a two-year-old British single by the Buggles that had already gone platinum in the UK and France but stalled at number 40 in the United States. Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, and Bruce Woolley had written a song about technology replacing an older medium. MTV opened the channel with it anyway, built on nothing but music video…

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More from August 1

Grant signs Colorado into the Union, four weeks late for the centennial

Voters ratified the constitution on July 1; the proclamation waited until August 1, 1876.

McNamara moves to merge the Pentagon's rival spy shops into one agency

The three service branches have been running separate, often conflicting intelligence operations for years.

Enterprise fights a three-hour battle and dismasts the corsair Tripoli

Sterett's schooner takes twenty killed and thirty wounded from the enemy crew without losing a single American.

A navigational error over Târgoviște sent part of the formation toward Bucharest before crews found the oil fields waiting with 88mm guns already loaded.

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More from Cold War America

Soviet jet destroys Korean Air 007 off Sakhalin; 269 dead, a US congressman among them

The Boeing 747 had drifted deep into Soviet airspace before a Su-15 pilot fired his missiles.

Viking 2 sets down on Mars, tilted on a rock at Utopia Planitia

A stray radar echo fires the thrusters early, cracking the ground beneath the lander's feet.

Sadat and Begin sit down at Camp David; Carter will need thirteen days

The Egyptian and Israeli leaders are barely speaking to each other, so the president plans to shuttle between their cabins himself.

Ford pardons Nixon, wiping away any Watergate charges before they're filed

Four weeks into his presidency, Ford closes the door on prosecuting the man he replaced.

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