8. The Nixon Resignation
After all of his achievements, after a long and dramatic rise to the top, Richard Nixon would be uncovered and undone in one career defining act: the Watergate Break In. Five men, all aides to The White House, were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at Washington's Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972. What followed was an investigation that was until then unheard of, and lead by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. Aided by their source Mark Felt, under the pseudonym "Deep Throat', Bernstein and Woodward would eventually smoke out the link between those five men (known as "The Plumbers") and the White House. What Nixon had hoped to keep under wraps as political rumors and whispers turned into legal action, the revelation of the White House's secret recording system, and several scandals that made it almost impossible for Nixon to remain in office with dignity. On August 9, 1974; Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency in as best of a way as he could. A month and a day later, President Gerald Ford officially pardoned President Nixon of all wrong-doing involving Watergate. Little did he know that his ordeal over Watergate was far from over.