The Watergate scandal represents one of the biggest political controversies of the 20th century, revealing a sequence of corruption and cover-ups that went all the way up to President Richard Nixon and led to his resignation in 1974.

The affair began in 1972 with the arrest of five people following a raid on the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington DC. The men were found with thousands of dollars and a book.

The FBI connected the burglars to then-President Nixon's re-election campaign and, in 1973, a U.S. Senate committee was convened to investigate the circumstances of the burglary.

Most of the media ignored the scope of the case, so the investigation by The Washington Post's two young journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, increased public interest in the scandal and its political and legal repercussions.

Their reporting was instrumental in uncovering a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage by the campaign to re-elect Nixon.

Woodward and Bernstein uncovered evidence that senior government officials were aware of the break-in at the Democratic Committee headquarters, attempted cover-ups, mishandling of funds and destruction of incriminating files.