U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter (seated left) and Soviet General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev signing the SALT II treaty in Vienna, June 18,
1979.

On January 2, 1980, in a strong reaction to the December 1979 Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter asks the Senate to
postpone action on the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls
the U.S. ambassador to Moscow. These actions sent a message that
the age of détente and the friendlier diplomatic and economic relations
that were established between the United States and Soviet Union
during President Richard Nixon’s administration (1969-74) had ended.

Carter feared that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which an
estimated 30,000 combat troops entered that nation and established
a puppet government, would threaten the stability of neighboring 
strategic countries such as Iran and Pakistan and could lead to the
USSR gaining control over much of the world’s oil supplies. The
Soviet actions were labeled “a serious threat to peace” by the
White House.

President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev shake hands after signing the SALT II Treaty.

President Harry S. Truman addressed the nation in the first
live, coast-to-coast television broadcast. (AP)

On September 4, 1951, President Harry S. Truman’s opening speech before a conference in San Francisco was broadcast across the nation, marking the
first time a TV program was broadcast from coast to coast. The speech
focused on Truman’s acceptance of a treaty that officially ended America’s
post-World War II occupation of Japan.

According to the CBS television network, the broadcast, via then-state-of-the-
art microwave technology, was picked up by 87 stations in 47 cities.

U.S. President Truman addresses the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco.

ED DANAHUE

Comedian Johnny Carson hosted NBC’s "Tonight Show" for the
last time on this day in 1992. He had been host for 30 years.

SANDY KOZEL

On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as
the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local 
lawmen with batons and tear gas drove them back into Selma.

TIM MAGUIRE

Buddy Holly (Charles Hardin Holley)
(September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959)

Buddy Holly was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist who along
with his band The Crickets pioneered rock with "That’ll Be the
Day," which topped the Billboard Best Sellers list.

He won a talent contest when he was five years old for singing
"Have You Ever Gone Sailing (Down the River of Memories)."

Rolling Stone ranked him as the thirteenth "Greatest Artist of
All Time." He died in a plane crash less than two years after
his career took off.