In the early morning of June 17, 1972, a security guard at the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C., noticed something strange. Tape had been placed over a door lock to keep it from closing. He called the police, who found five men inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The men were carrying cameras, listening devices, and burglary tools. They had been trying to spy on the political party that opposed President Richard Nixon. At first, no one connected the break-in to the president. But two persistent newspaper reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, kept digging. They discovered that the burglars were connected to Nixon's reelection campaign. Worse, they found evidence that Nixon himself had tried to obstruct the investigation by ordering government agencies to stop looking into the crime. As more evidence came out, Congress began impeachment hearings to remove Nixon from office. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned, becoming the only president in American history to quit. The scandal showed that even the most powerful person in the country must follow the law. The word "Watergate" became synonymous with political scandal.