NPR

40 Years of 'Morning Edition': Political Stories That Lasted An Era And Beyond

In 1979, when Morning Edition debuted, the United States was entering an era in which big stories often seemed to last for months and even years — and some just never seemed to go away.
American hostages are paraded by their Iranian captors on the first day of the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Forty years ago this week, Morning Edition took the air for the first time just as a big story was breaking — one that would shock the nation and influence the next four decades of news.

It was coming from Iran, a country few Americans paid attention to at that time. A revolution had been underway that year, and on Nov. 4, 1979, a chanting crowd stormed the U.S Embassy in Tehran, taking Americans hostage.

They would hold 52 of those hostages, and the attention of the world, for the next 444 days. The crisis colored every phase of the 1980

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