The hotel still stands today, in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C., its name inscribed on the U.S. Register of Historic Place ensuring neither the building nor the story which it stands for will be forgotten any time soon. What used to refer to the cluster of luxury apartment buildings, offices, and a hotel, has come to be shorthand for political scandals (–gates) of every stripe. It started with the discovery of a break-in that led to the implication of a president, which almost led to an impeachment preempted only by a president resigning from office.

On this day, October 3, in 1974, a full month after the resignation of President Nixon, his aides went on trial. The Watergate Seven, as they were called, white house staff, were charged separately, with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, and a raft of other misdeeds.

Five of the seven were convicted, serving no more than a year and a half in prison (charges against one were overturned on appeal). Charges against Gordon Creighton Strachan, an aide to co-defenendant H.R. Haldeman, Chief of Staff for Nixon, were dropped before the trial (Haldeman himself was convicted). Kenneth Parkinson, a member of the counsel for the Committee to Re-elect the President, was acquitted at trial when it was determined Nixon’s aide G. Gordon Liddy was the chief counsel (Liddy was tried and convicted earlier).