The only thing that came close was John F. Kennedy’s assassination and its aftermath in 1963, but that was only for people aged 55 and over who experienced those events as they happened instead of replayed as an historical artefact.

The survey, by Sony Electronics and the Nielsen TV research company, rank TV moments for their impact, not just by asking people if they remembered watching them, but if they recalled where they watched it, who they were with and whether they talked to other people about what they had seen.