I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER ACTUALLY WATCHING MUSIC VIDEOS ON MTV: MTV: From Cultural Juggernaut to … Whatever It Is Now.

MTV officially went live at midnight on August 1, 1981, with the video for the Buggles’s “Video Killed the Radio Star” and an edited clip of Neil Armstrong’s moon walk planting the MTV flag. The designer of the clip, which was initially played every hour on the channel, chose the moon landing footage because it was one of the “most famous television scene ever,” but more importantly, it was free. His first idea was the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, so let’s all give thanks for the public domain.

Flashback: Them’s Fightin’ Words: ‘Music in the ’80s Sucked.’