Montage: Welcome for Charles Lindbergh ; President Franklin Roosevelt ; Bonus marcher ; Adolf Hitler ; Winston Churchill ; John Daly, CBS ; General Douglas MacArthur ; Radio Budapest ; President John Kennedy ; Cardinal Cushing ; Martin Luther King, Jr. ; Reid Collins, CBS
The twenties: Communist song, Internationale ; V.I. Lenin ; President Warren Harding ; Humorist W.C. Fields ; Radio commercial with song, Mean to me ; Sound of Model T Ford; Mrs. Robert Goddard describing the flight of the first rocket ; American welcoming Charles Lindbergh after his flight alone across the Atlantic ; Charles Lindbergh ; President Calvin Coolidge ; Closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange
The thirties: President Herbert Hoover ; Bonus marcher ; President Franklin Roosevelt ; Humorist Will Rogers ; Nazi song, Horst Wessel ; Adolf Hitler ; Prime minister Neville Chamberlain ; Robert Trout, CBS, reporting on the evacuation of London at the start of World War II ; Waterloo Station, London, as children are evacuated
The forties (the beginning): Nazis conquering the continent, sounds of dive bombers and air raid and German radio proclaiming victory ; Winston Churchill ; Edward R. Murrow, CBS, reporting during air raid alert in London ; Charles Lindbergh ; President Franklin Roosevelt ; British reporter describing convoy under attack in the Atlantic ; John Daly, CBS, broadcasting first report of Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ; President Franklin Roosevelt ; General Douglas MacArthur in Australia ; General Dwight D. Eisenhower, D Day, the invasion of Europe ; Edward R. Murrow, CBS, reporting on the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald
The forties (the end): Arthur Godfrey, CBS, describing President Roosevelt's funeral cortege ; Chaplain William Downey praying on Tinian Island before the departure of the first atomic bombing mission ; President Harry Truman ; Robert Trout, CBS, announcing the end of World War II ; General Douglas MacArthur accepting the Japanese surrender ; Atomic test at Binini Atoll ; Winston Churchill
The fifties: Sound of Sputnik One in space ; Korean War sounds ; U.S. spokesman telling the United Nations of the North Korean invasion of South Korea ; U.S. soldier describing combat in Korea ; Congressman Joseph Martin introducing General Dwight Eisenhower ; Eisenhower accepting the Republican presidential nomination ; Vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon ; Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II ; Kremlin bells, Moscow Radio announcing the death of Joseph Stalin ; Radio Budapest reporting the Soviet invasion of Hungary ; President Harry Truman ; Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas
The sixties: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ; Song, We shall overcome ; Chants of "black power" ; Rap Brown ; President John Kennedy ; Havana Radio broadcasting anti-American song ; Moscow Radio reporting the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba ; Ron Jenkins, KBOX, describing scene in Dallas after the shooting of President Kennedy ; Ike Pappas, WNEW, describing the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald ; Cardinal Cushing at the burial of President Kennedy
Taps ; Richard Threlkeld, CBS, Talking to soldiers in combat in Viet Nam ; Chants of "stop the war" ; President Lyndon Johnson ; Spokesman in Carnegie Hall announcing the murder of Dr. King ; Andrew West, KRKD, describing the shooting of Senator Robert Kennedy ; Reid Collins, CBS, with the countdown for the Apollo Eleven landing on the moon ; Houston Control and the astronauts guiding their spacecraft to the landing on the moon ; Neil Armstrong taking the first step on the moon ; Dr. Paul Ehrlich ; Salt Lake City Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Richard Nixon's inauguration as President ; President Richard Nixon.