In 1980, Monday Night Football had a game between Miami and New England that went to overtime but not many people paid much attention to what should have been an exciting finish.
That’s because near the end of regulation, Howard Cosell made a shocking announcement: John Lennon had been murdered.
At 5:00 that day, Lennon had been shot in New York. He was rushed to the hospital but died on the way. He was only 40.
Keep in mind that this was 1980. There was no World Wide Web, no Twitter, no cellphones. Very few people even had standalone personal computers and news came one of four ways: newspapers, when they brought it to your house, radio, television and by the phone that lived on a cable attached to a wall in your house.