If These Historical Moments Weren't Caught On Camera, You Would Have Never Believed Us

Unfortunately for most historians, unless their field of study is the last century and a half, they likely cannot rely on video evidence for any of their research. Even those who study the history of the early days of the camera, like the late 1800s and early 1900s, have a dearth of photographic and video evidence at their disposal. While this makes it much harder to do their work, it also makes the older footage that is found incredibly valuable and all the more fascinating. 

It has really only been in the last decade with the rise of smartphones that video cameras have truly revolutionized the world, leaving many younger adults to wonder what life was like back before you could pause, rewind, and fast-forward everything. That is probably part of what makes older footage so compelling; because there is so much that was not caught on camera, it makes us truly appreciate the bits that were filmed, and preserved. 

Even with the lack of video footage, it's still pretty incredible what has been captured on film over the past century and a half. Would you imagine that the first nuclear explosion, the infamous Hindenburg disaster, and even the crowning of the final king of Iraq were all caught on video? If these historical moments weren't caught on camera, you would have never believed us.

On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexican desert, human history changed forever. On that day, the first nuclear explosion took place, known as the Trinity Test. Trinity was the culmination of several years of nuclear research from scientists at labs all around the country, which was collectively known as the Manhattan Project. The engineers and scientists working on the Manhattan Project created two different types of atomic bombs: one that used plutonium and one that used uranium-235. The Trinity Test was done with the plutonium-style bomb, which is the same type the Army later dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, known as "Fat Man."

The test was initiated at 5:30 a.m., and was done at an Air Force base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Nobody could have possibly prepared themselves for what they were going to see, as a gigantic 40,000-foot mushroom cloud erupted before their eyes. Incredibly, the government had several different cameras running, and they actually captured the moment of detonation The above footage was taken from cameras roughly 5.6 miles away from the explosion, but the video is absolutely breathtaking. 

The explosion had the same power as 21,000 tons of TNT, which is pretty mind-blowing. The introduction of the nuclear age undoubtedly changed human history, and it's amazing to actually have the moment on camera. Less than a month later, the U.S. would drop the successfully tested plutonium atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing thousands but eventually bringing an end to WWII.

The Apollo 11 moon landing was nothing short of incredible. Looking back, it's hard to imagine that NASA was able to accomplish this feat in 1969, less than a decade after the Russians had pioneered manned space flight itself in 1961. Yet, on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 spacecraft took off, hoping to fulfill President John Kennedy's pledge to put a man on the moon. Everything went well, and a few days later on July 20, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed the lunar module on the moon, leaving Michael Collins behind in the command module.

Aldrin and Armstrong's lunar module landed on the moon at about 4:15 p.m., and just over six hours later Armstrong was ready to set foot on the surface. At 10:56 p.m., accompanied by his now immortal phrase "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind," Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. It was an incredible moment for people around the world, and was the product of literally thousands of different minds working together.

If that was not amazing enough, NASA broadcast the moment live throughout the world, and it's estimated that about 650 million people watched it happen. It is one of the most significant pieces of modern history, and it's breathtaking to have on camera. The footage definitively shows the moon landing in all its glory, and when it aired it electrified America and shocked the world. 

Not all moments in history are positive, and one of the most tragic in recent memory was the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986. Seventeen years after man had first set foot on the moon, NASA launched the Challenger in order to put into orbit a satellite to collect information on Halley's Comet. There were a total of seven astronauts on board, including Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher and civilian.

McAuliffe was supposed to broadcast from space to inspire the millions of children back home to consider careers in science and technology. After several months of training, McAuliffe and the rest of the crew took off on a chilly January morning. Florida, normally known for its subtropical weather, was subject to a cold spell prior to the launch — which left the launch pad icy and dangerous.

This caused an O-ring to not fully seal during takeoff, which led to a leak that eventually caused the fuel tank to explode. The crew actually survived the explosion, but died from a lack of oxygen before crashing into the ocean. The event was broadcast live to the entire world, including the families of the astronauts, who watched in horror. The footage is still available and shows the destruction, as well as the initial confusion over what was happening. It was one of the most devastating moments in NASA history, and the footage will forever live in infamy. 

Though it occurred nearly a century ago, the Hindenburg disaster is still one of the most infamous disasters in history. Even today, people still reference the Hindenburg to describe a big failure, or to sarcastically mock a coworker's idea. Its real history has been long forgotten by many people, but the Hindenburg was a dirigible (airship) that was built in Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. They named the ship after Paul von Hindenburg, the former president of Germany who had appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor.

The Hindenburg took off from Frankfurt, Germany, on May 3, 1937, and made it all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to Lakehurst, New Jersey, where it arrived three days later on May 6. A veteran of trans-Atlantic travel, the Hindenburg had crossed the ocean 34 times previously. However, this time disaster struck when it tried to land at Lakehurst, and the airship burst into flames. Amazingly, part of the Hindenburg's trip and the subsequent explosion were actually caught on camera. It seems incredible, but one of the most infamous disasters in history can really be viewed today.

In the destruction, 35 people lost their lives, which was just over half of the total people on board. In the footage, you can actually see survivors running away from the crashed zeppelin as it is bursting into flames. The disaster was tragic, and the carnage is almost indescribable.

Long heralded as one of the most patriotic moments in American history, the raising of the U.S. flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima is truly an amazing spectacle to watch. Even though cameras were far from being widespread at the time and the battle was still going on, a few brave cameramen from the Marine Corps and Associated Press captured the moment on film. Joe Rosenthal with the AP took the now iconic photograph, and Sgt. William Homer Genaust of the Marines captured it on video.

Genaust used a 16mm moving picture camera that used color film inside to record the moment, and it is remarkably clear considering the circumstances it was shot under. Though he was never given the recognition of Rosenthal, Genaust's footage proved that Rosenthal's picture was authentic and not staged — a charge Rosenthal often had to defend against. Though it's brief, the video captures that very moment on February 23, 1945, when Marines Ira Hayes, Michael Strank, Harold "Pie" Keller, Harlon Block, Harold Schultz, and Franklin Sousley, raised the flag on Mount Suribachi.

Several of those Marines died during the battle, as did Genaust who was killed a few days after taking the photo while inspecting a cave. Genaust was just 37 years old when he was killed in action, but his timeless footage will live on forever.

The Second World War was one of the most destructive and horrible affairs in human history. Today, it's thought anywhere from 60–80 million people lost their lives, well over half of whom were civilians rather than soldiers. After beginning in 1939, the war ended six years later on September 2, 1945, when the Japanese finally and formally surrendered to the Allies. This followed the surrender of Germany months earlier, and the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan in August, which killed more than 100,000 combined.

The official surrender took place on board the USS Missouri, which was stationed just inside Tokyo Bay, Japan. In the amazing footage, which was captured from the deck above where the proceedings were happening, you can clearly see the Japanese delegation standing on the deck, as well as the moments Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu actually sign the agreement.

Following the Japanese signatures, the Allies all signed, starting with Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur. It's a truly stunning bit of history to watch, and it's even more incredible it was caught on camera and declassified for today. This is the exact moment when the bloodshed of the Second World War ended, a truly monumental moment for peace in all of human history. 

For many years, the Berlin Wall stood as a symbol of oppression for millions in a divided Germany. A product of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany, began construction on the wall in August 1961. The wall would eventually grow from makeshift barbed wire into a full fledged concrete barrier spanning 96 miles long. The GDR built the wall to stop the onslaught of East Germans fleeing into Allied Western Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).

Over the years, more than 170 people died trying to cross the Berlin border, while another 5,000 managed to sneak their way across in secret. Then, on November 9, 1989, in one of the biggest blunders in Soviet political history, the GDR accidentally announced the wall would be open again for free travel. Soon, thousands were pounding on the doors to exit the GDR, which authorities finally opened.

TV cameras from around the world captured what happened next, as thousands of Berliners flocked to the wall over the next few days, tearing it down and covering it with graffiti. It was shocking for the world to watch such debauchery and celebration on what was just hours earlier considered one of the most dangerous pieces of land in the world. Without the live broadcast it would have been impossible to believe in the West, and the footage is still remarkable today.

For several years, Ngo Dinh Diem was the top man in South Vietnam. Born in the Quang Binh province in the north when the country was still a French colony, Diem spurned invitations to join the communists in the north following their declaration of independence in 1945. He later became the prime minister of South Vietnam in 1954, and president the next year following a rigged referendum.

Diem's regime was known for discriminating against Buddhists, the majority religion in the country, and being incredibly corrupt and repressive. This included killing or imprisoning anyone who opposed him, often under the guise of eradicating communism. Eventually, following his violent subduing of the Buddhists in 1963, Diem was murdered by his subordinates with the support of the United States.

That's why it is so shocking to see footage of Diem having a parade thrown for him in New York City in the 1950s. Complete with a personal handshake from New York Mayor Robert Wagner, Diem was given a hero's welcome by the city after being flown in on President Dwight Eisenhower's official plane. The reason for the parade is because prior to sanctioning his murder, the U.S. actually supported Diem's regime for several years. The U.S. viewed him a bulwark against communism in Southeast Asia, and looked past his flaws to support him. The footage shows Diem smiling happily, blissfully unaware of the fate that would later befall him.

Looking back today, several decades removed from the Second World War, it's hard to imagine just how much destruction there was at the war's end. After six years of bombings, explosions, and urban combat, many areas became nothing but piles of bricks. While some combatants, like the United States, escaped the war without much domestic carnage, the same could not be said for the countries that participated in the land war on their own turf. From the Soviet Union to Britain, annihilation reigned supreme and countless structures and buildings were reduced to rubble.

Germany in particular was incredibly hard-hit, as it became the epicenter of the war in the final year. In addition to its destruction from tanks and soldiers, the Allies also concentrated a vicious bombing campaign on Germany, where they dropped more than 45,000 tons of bombs. A particularly devastating bombing happened on March 18, 1945, killing at least 3,000 civilians. In all, the Allies bombed Berlin more than 350 times.

The above footage taken from July 1945, just weeks after the fighting ended, shows the indescribable demolition. Basically every single building is destroyed or damaged in some way, and there are only the remnants of huge structures still looming over the city. Massive human chains formed around the city to clear out rubble and debris, while thousands of Allied soldiers drove around in jeeps. It's impossible to imagine the condition of Berlin without this footage, and it is incomparable to the modern city.

Though it might not seem so today, it was not too long ago that Iraq was run by a monarchy. The last Iraqi monarchy was the Hashemite Dynasty which began in 1921, after Iraq had previously served under the Ottoman Dynasty for centuries. The first Hashemite king of Iraq was Faisal I, who traced his lineage back through Hussein ibn Ali, the former king of the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia.

Faisal I died in 1933, just one year after Iraq officially gained independence from Britain, and his son Faisal II became the new Hashemite king of Iraq. However, Faisal II was only 4 years old at the time, so a regent stood in place until he turned 18. On his birthday, he was crowned in Baghdad officially as King Faisal II on May 2, 1953. Since Iraq still had a close relationship with Britain at the time, the British sent the Duke of Gloucester to the coronation as Queen Elizabeth II's representative.

The video of the coronation is pretty incredible. You can see the young king take his oath after riding to parliament in an open horse carriage, and he is surrounded by dignitaries. Faisal II was killed just a few years later in 1958 during a revolution, making this the final crowning of the Hashemite monarchy of Iraq. It's an important part of history to have on film, and it's incredible it has survived through today. 

Even though they were two of the most important political leaders of the late 1950s, it's not too often that you see pictures of former American Vice President Richard Nixon and the former Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev, together. There's a pretty good reason for that, as the Cold War between the two countries was raging. Yet, in 1959 they famously met each other in Moscow, and each took his chance at trying to embarrass the other. 

That year, the U.S. and Soviet Union opened dueling attractions in each other's countries, which were supposed to show the virtues of capitalism vs. communism. After the Soviet's opened their exhibition in New York City, Nixon traveled to Moscow to take part in the opening of the American exhibit. Khrushchev was there to show Nixon around, but what started as a simple conversation between leaders soon flared into a heated debate among rivals.

Incredibly, all of this was caught on film for posterity, and it is some wild footage. It almost looks like a comedy sketch, with Khrushchev trolling Nixon over America's alleged lack of progress, and Nixon retorting about the necessity of the "free exchange of ideas." The conversation finally ended with an uncomfortably long handshake, followed by a very jovial hand slap from Khrushchev. It's truly amazing to watch, and almost sounds implausible — until you see the footage.

Whoever said being an astronaut was all work and no play obviously never met the crew of Apollo 16 or watched them race lunar vehicles on the moon. Consisting of Commander John W. Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles M. Duke Jr., and Command Module Pilot Thomas K. Mattingly II, the Apollo 16 space mission took off just prior to 1 p.m. on April 16, 1972. Among an assortment of other objectives, Young and Duke were supposed to engage in the Lunar "Grand Prix," a test to find out the capabilities of the Lunar Roving Vehicle in low gravity. 

Not only did they engage in the Grand Prix, but they filmed the entire thing and NASA later declassified it, allowing everyone to see. The footage is astonishing and hilarious at the same time, as Young zig-zags around the moon testing out the rover's handling at low gravity. At one point, Duke remarks that "Indy's never seen a driver like this," in reference to the Indianapolis 500 car race.

Through the audio, you can hear Duke laughing and giggling as Young consistently "rooster-tails" over the craters of the moon with Duke egging him on. It's a truly amazing piece of history and footage, and shows the lighter side of one of the most revolutionary space missions.

On April 22, 1989, massive protests erupted in Beijing, China, at Tiananmen Square. They were driven by the funeral of Hu Yaobang, a former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official. Hu had been ousted from the government while advocating for economic changes to help the poor, causing a lot of anger among his supporters.

For the next month and a half following Hu's death, China was awash with anti-corruption protests, many of them centered at Tiananmen Square. The Chinese government met the protestors with incredible ferocity and violence, and by June 5 the government was completely in control of the area, threatening anyone who protested with death. Yet, amid the eerie emptiness of the square, a single man appeared looking like he was on his way to work just like any other day.

However, the man stopped in front of a line of tanks, preventing them from going any farther. He stood still as the tank driver at first was unsure of what to do, before running in front of the vehicle as the driver tried to maneuver around. With the sounds of machine guns in the background, the protestor briefly jumped on a tank, before two government officials hastily took him away. The name and fate of the protestor was never revealed by the government, leaving him to be known as Tank Man by most. It was an incredibly powerful moment during the 1989 protests, and would be impossible to believe without the video.

One of the most iconic pictures in New York City history is the "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" photo. It shows 11 ironworkers eating their lunch while hanging from a girder nearly 1,000 feet in the air above the city, seemingly oblivious to the very real danger of falling to their deaths. The photo was taken in 1932, and none of the men were strapped in with any safety equipment, making their situation all the more precarious.

While there is no known video footage to go with the famous photo, there is still some incredible surviving footage of ironworkers in New York City nearly a decade earlier in 1925. The astounding video shows several workers on top of a 26-story building in New York City, walking around on the girders and dangling off the edges. They can even be seen interacting with ships that are entering the harbor, taking off their caps and waving them in.

While it's not quite the same, it's almost like looking at the "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" photo come to life. The video is crystal clear for the time it was taken and shows the joyful expressions of the workers, who were defying death with every step with zero visible safety precautions. It's hard to imagine a time when people threw such caution to the wind and worked at those heights without safety harnesses, making the video truly unbelievable to watch. 

It might sound far-fetched, but since the 1870s there have been more than 236,000 professional baseball games played under the MLB banner. Of those 236,000 games, just 331 times has a pitcher thrown a no-hitter — a complete game without allowing a hit. And while some of them have been pretty impressive, including the 23 perfect games, none are quite as unbelievable and inspiring as Jim Abbott's from his time as a New York Yankee.

Abbott was a left-handed pitcher and former first-round draft pick of the California Angels, but that's not what made him unique. Abbott was born without a right hand. To field his position, Abbott would hold his glove with his right arm while pitching, and then he would quickly slip his left hand in after delivering the pitch. It was an extraordinarily complicated maneuver, but one Abbott made look graceful and easy.

Being a one-handed baseball player is already an amazing feat, but making it to the big leagues and pitching a no-hitter is almost incomprehensible. It happened on September 4, 1993, and he faced a potent Cleveland lineup that included future Hall of Famer Jim Thome. Though he walked a few batters he did not allow a hit, becoming one of just a special few pitchers to accomplish the feat. Luckily, the game was televised and the footage preserved, or else younger ball players might not even believe it happened. It still stands as one of baseball's most unforgettable moments.

For more than 20 years, Randy Johnson was one of the most feared pitchers in MLB. With an electrifying fastball that could exceed 100 mph and a huge 6-foot 10-inch frame, Johnson was certainly intimidating on the mound. During his career, he faced more than 17,000 batters, yet one of his strangest at bats came during an unofficial spring training exhibition game on March 24, 2001. 

A member of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Johnson was pitching to Calvin Murray of the San Francisco Giants, but the ball never made it to home plate. Halfway there it hit the unluckiest dove in history, which erupted into a puff of feathers. The dove only stayed in the air for a few seconds before hitting the ground, and the baseball continued until it hit the backstop.

Afterward, everyone was completely stunned and unsure of how to continue. The pitch ended up not counting, but the poor dove obviously lost its life. It's by far one of the most bizarre incidents to happen in an MLB game, and almost too crazy to believe without seeing. Even more incredible, the entire thing wasn't even supposed to be caught on camera. At that time, most spring training games were not filmed, and the only reason this was captured was due to the Diamondbacks' video coordinator taping the game for coaching purposes. Luckily it was, or it might not have been believable. 

Though it has been largely lost to history now, for a time in the 1930s the "Lambeth Walk" from the musical "Me and My Girl" was a very popular dance. While it might not have had the staying power of dances like the Charleston or the Lindy Hop, for a time it was incredibly popular, at least in America. Overseas in Nazi Germany it was another story, as the Nazis condemned the "Lambeth Walk" dance and falsely linked it with Jewish people.

That gave British official Charles A. Ridley an idea, and he soon transformed the song into a parody of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis called "Schichlegruber – Doing the Lambeth Walk." The movie was released in 1940 just as WWII was starting to rage, and it used footage from the Nazis' 1934 film "Triumph of the Will." Using primitive editing techniques, Ridley made it look like Nazi soldiers were playing drums and goose-stepping in rhythm with the song.

While it might seem like a relatively benign film in today's age of extreme CGI and video editing, at the time the video incensed Nazi officials who saw it, including Joseph Goebbels, who himself created the Nazis' own propaganda. Amazingly, the film has survived through today and is widely accessible. It's an incredible piece of history, and a very interesting watch today.

Fans of the film industry are undoubtedly familiar with Robert Paul, one of the earliest British filmmakers in history. Born in 1869 in London, Paul took the Thomas Edison-invented Kinetoscope and legally patented it in London under his own name in 1895. However, after the Edison Company stopped sending Paul films to play on the machine, he soon invented a camera to make his own. Next he created a projector that he dubbed the Theatrograph, which was later renamed as the Animatograph.

By the late 1890s, Paul was shooting hundreds of films to show on his projectors. Many of them captured what were ordinary aspects of life back then, including his 1898 film "A Switchback Railway." The silent film shows kids riding and having fun on a very early and very primitive roller coaster. There are no loop-the-loops or huge drops, and the passengers had to get off halfway through and run to the other side to return, but the kids look like they are having a ton of fun.

Comparing the footage with theme parks today it looks very basic, but the fact that they had mechanized roller coasters at all in 1890s Britain is pretty surprising. Most people probably associate them with modern theme parks, and it's almost startling to see one from such a long time ago. The footage is pretty clear, and serves as a perfect reminder of the simplicity of the times back then.

By the mid-1960s, The Beatles — who had started as a scrappy skiffle and rock & roll covers group in the bars of Liverpool and Hamburg at the start of the decade — were undoubtedly the biggest band in the world. Already maturing as artists, the songwriting abilities of John Lennon and Paul McCartney were already renowned, with the pair's compositions dominating the charts in records by a variety of artists on both sides of the Atlantic. And with the Fab Four making regular television appearances, world tours, and even blockbuster movies, Beatlemania had well and truly taken hold.

And nothing encapsulates the hysteria of that era quite like The Beatles' August 1965 concert at New York's Shea Stadium, where they performed a wild set of their hits for 56,000 delirious fans. Famously, the crowd's screaming was so loud that the musicians themselves were practically inaudible at times, but that didn't stop the performance from becoming legendary.

It was even a transcendent experience for the hard-working and road-weathered Beatles, especially John Lennon, who reportedly told friends that he "saw the top of the mountain" during the concert (via The Sonoma Index-Tribune). "I feel that on that show John cracked up. He went mad," Ringo Starr later recalled via "The Beatles Anthology." Though The Beatles returned to Shea Stadium the following year, increased security and organization meant that there was no replication of the concert that greeted the band on its venue debut. The Fab Four officially stopped touring in 1966, and only reunited for a private concert on the roof of the Apple Corps building in 1969, shortly before their split in 1970.

There are many "you remember where you were" moments in American history, such as the Watergate scandal and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, that are sadly slipping out of living memory. However, for most people in their late 20s and above, there is one news story that truly stands above all others in terms of its shocking memorability: the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

The horror began early, with the first plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center just as the working day began. Though initial news reports gave little indication that the incident was the beginning of a full-scale terrorist attack, the striking of the South Tower by another plane less than 20 minutes later confirmed the worst: The United States was under siege.

Two more planes were hijacked that day, one hitting the perimeter of the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, and another crash-landing in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers. The attack on the World Trade Center, however, was caught on camera from many angles across the city, and those recordings — particularly the shocking footage of the second plane hitting the South Tower — have produced the defining images of 9/11.

There have been countless breakthroughs in the world of astronomy and space exploration in recent decades, but little compares to the successful deployment by NASA of Perseverance, the rover that landed on Mars in February 2021 after more than half a year's voyage through the solar system. On successfully completing the journey and making it to Mars intact, scientists praised what would become a new era of space exploration on the Red Planet.

The famous grainy footage of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the moon in 1969 remains some of the most mind-boggling one could possibly watch, even today. But the recent images that were beamed to Earth from Perseverance offered a hitherto unbelievable insight into the surface of Mars, with the vivid color of the Red Planet and the dustiness of its surface reminding viewers strikingly that humanity really has encountered another world.

The rover is still operational, undertaking experiments as it explores the surface of Mars with the intention of collecting samples that will one day be brought back to Earth for further study.

On the afternoon of August 5, 2010, a mine in the Atacama Desert near San Jose, Chile, experienced a cave-in that left 33 workers including miners and subcontractors trapped more than 2,000 feet below ground. Two days later, as local search and rescue crews set about trying to locate any survivors, a further collapse occurred, limiting the men's potential escape options.

The group managed to attract a search probe by tapping the walls of the tunnel to attract attention. When the probe arrived, they attached a note telling those on the surface how many were there and their approximate location. The men were trapped for 17 days before making contact with rescuers, during which they miraculously managed to survive on two days' rations. In the months that followed, the plight of "Los 33" became headline news around the world, with rescuers managing to supply the men with rations and equipment to keep them going as the arduous task of extracting them continued.

Thankfully, the ordeal had a happy ending. As the world watched, all 33 miners were eventually rescued following an epic two-month attempt involving experts from across the world, including NASA scientists. Many of those rescued became celebrities in their home country and beyond, though sadly a number of them suffered long-lasting trauma as a result of their experiences.

The 2020 presidential election was one of the most brutal in American history, with the manner in which Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden were facing off against each other taking the headlines of the day. However, nothing during the campaign compares to what came after, with the election becoming notorious for Trump's failure to accept the result of the vote.

But this unprecedented postscript — which would culminate in the deadly riots at the Capitol building in Washington on January 6, 2021 — began with one of the most farcical political gaffes of all time. On November 7, 2020, Trump published a tweet stating that a press conference concerning the results of the election would take place at "Four Seasons, Philadelphia," which most people — Trump's team included — assumed meant the famous hotel. However, it soon became apparent that there had been some kind of miscommunication, and that someone backstage had actually booked Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a nondescript and otherwise anonymous business located between a sex shop and a crematorium.

But rather than reschedule or cancel the event, Trump's allies pushed on. And so later that day came live broadcasts of former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, then working as Trump's attorney, giving a bizarre press conference in front of a garden supply storage unit, outlining how the losing side planned to challenge the result of the vote. It was during this conference that Giuliani received confirmation that the election had been called for Biden, piling a final indignity on one of the most embarrassing moments in U.S. politics.