President Richard M. Nixon

During a nationally televised speech on April 29, 1974, U.S. president Richard M. Nixon announces the release of 1,200 pages of edited transcripts documenting taped conversations in the White House. (The books to the right of the president contain the transcripts.) Under pressure from charges stemming from the Watergate scandal, Nixon agreed to make the conversations open to the public and to turn them over to the U.S. House of Representatives committee considering impeachment proceedings against the president. On August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned from office, the first president to do so.