Nixon's Resignation: 30 YRS Ago Today

It was on this day in 1974 that Richard M. Nixon resigned the office of the presidency, the first American president in history to do so.

His policies as president had been rather liberal. He began arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. He eased relations with China. He established the Environmental Protection Agency, expanded Social Security and state welfare programs and tried to create a national health insurance system.

He won re-election in 1972 in a landslide, but in that same year a group of men broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, and in that break-in were the seeds of his downfall.

More background on this historic event is at NPR.

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