The top news story of the 20th century was America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, according to a survey by prominent U.S. journalists and scholars released last month.
The 1945 bombings, which killed thousands and led to the end of World War II, topped 99 other major stories of the century. The list was compiled for the Newseum, a museum about news gathering, in an exercise likely to kindle debate around the country.The No. 2 choice was an achievement of science, peaceful and wondrous: U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon in 1969.
Third place went to Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Participants were each asked to select the 25 most important news events, and their lists were combined to produce a final ranking of 100. That list, rearranged in chronological order, now becomes a ballot that the public can vote on.
"It was agonizing," CNN anchor and senior correspondent Judy Woodruff said of the selection process.
She, too, concluded the century's lead news event was the atomic bombing. "Because so many people died, it drove home the awful power of this new instrument," said Woodruff, who was born the following year.
"The one thing for which this century will be remembered 500 years from now was: This was the century when we began the exploration of space," said historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., whose choice for No. 1 was Armstrong's moon walk.
That event gave many a sense of infinite potential.
"People always say: If we could land on the moon, we can do anything," said Maria Elena Salinas, co-anchor at Miami-based Spanish-language cable network Univision, who also made it her first choice.
Though third on the list, Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor was No. 1 for Ben Bradlee. "I'm going to write the next one of these things in disappearing ink," said the journalist of 50-plus years.
At 77, Bradlee was alive for most events he chose from. Now vice president at-large at The Washington Post, his choices for the top 25 were as personal as they were professional.
"World War II was 25 percent of my life at one time," Bradlee said. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was No. 6 on the final list, No. 2 for Bradlee.
"He was a friend."
The Watergate scandal? The event his reporters uncovered and that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, was No. 7 for Bradlee, No. 14 on the list of 100.
The Newseum, based in Arlington, Va., is a project of The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation that promotes understanding between news media and public.
Forum spokeswoman Susan Bennett said the public can cast votes by visiting the Newseum; its traveling exhibit, NewsCapade, scheduled to visit 30 cities this year; or visit its Web site, www.newseum.org.
The sex scandal leading to President Clinton's impeachment ranked No. 53 on the final list. It was not among Woodruff's 25, however.
"When I think about the amount of time we spent on the Lewinsky story . . . ," she said. "There's so much more important going on in the world."
With his 81-year-old eyes, historian Schlesinger looked forward.
"I put DNA and penicillin and the computer and the microchip in the first 10 because they've transformed civilization. Wars vanish," Schlesinger said, and many people today can't even recall when the Civil War took place.
"Pearl Harbor will be as remote as the War of the Roses," he said, referring to the English civil war of the 15th century.
And there's no need to get hung up on the ranking, he said. "The order is essentially very artificial and fictitious," he said. "It's very hard to decide the atomic bomb is more important than getting on the moon."