In the early morning hours of Saturday, June 17, 1972, five intruders were arrested at the office of the Democratic National Committee, which was then housed on the sixth floor of the Watergate Office Building on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. This bizarre incident would spiral into one of the most famous political scandals in history, and ensure the everlasting fame of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two young Washington Post reporters assigned to cover the burglary. While many others also covered the developing scandal, which would ultimately lead to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon and the prosecution of many on his staff, “Woodstein,” as the pair were sometimes called, would win almost all the journalistic glory.

Robert Upshur Woodward was born on March 26, 1943, in Geneva Illinois; the man with whom his name would forever be linked was born Carl Milton Bernstein on February 14 of the following year in Washington, D.C. They grew up in comfortable, but very different circumstances. Woodward’s parents were Protestant Republicans; Bernstein’s were Jewish Communists, but each was captivated by the reporting bug. Woodward went to Yale and served in the Navy before beginning his career in journalism, and Bernstein started working at Washington newspapers before briefly attending the University of Maryland. Each would be married three times; Bernstein’s private life was especially colorful; he dated a number of famous women and married the film director and screenwriter Nora Ephron.

Woodward and Bernstein were on the local beat at The Washington Post at the time of the Watergate burglary, but they sensed a far bigger story and worked together to investigate. The burglars, most of whom had previously worked for the CIA, were linked to an organization called the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP, though often mocked as CREEP); the trail led them from shadowy corners of Washington to the White House. The two reporters worked together closely, with the more serious and reserved Woodward doing much of the investigation and Bernstein, the more gifted stylist, doing more of the writing. Aided by a secret source known as “Deep Throat,” later identified as FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, they uncovered a complex web of conspiracy to subvert the 1972 presidential election and exposed many other abuses of power.

After months of Congressional hearings, the scandal culminated in the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974, after it became apparent that he would have been impeached otherwise. A photograph taken on the previous day shows Bernstein sitting in a chair in the Washington Post newsroom, with Woodward sitting on the floor beside him, watching Nixon’s resignation speech on a flickering color television. During his speech, the grim-faced Nixon said, “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first.”

One month later, Nixon’s successor, President Gerald R. Ford, declared in a nationally televised address that he had granted “a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” As Ford had previously stated in his first address as president: “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” Woodward would later call the pardon “an act of courage.”

Woodward and Bernstein were immortalized on film in All the President’s Men (1976), a fictional take on Watergate starring Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. The movie was based on their bestselling 1974 book of the same name. Directed by Alan J. Pakula and written by William Goldman, the film is a methodical, reasonably accurate depiction of Woodward and Bernstein’s efforts, though its most famous line, “Follow the money,” uttered by Mark Felt, was the screenwriter’s invention. Winning four Oscars and a Best Picture nomination, the movie catapulted Woodstein to a new level of fame.

Ever since, the reporters have been prolific authors. Woodward has produced a series of books about presidential administrations based on inside sources; it has long been understood that those who speak to him are likely to enjoy better treatment in his books than those who do not. David Frum, a commentator, and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, observed that “We all admire heroes, but Woodward’s books teach us that those who rise to leadership are precisely those who take care to abjure heroism for themselves.” They have written extensively about the CIA, and Bernstein has published biographies of Hillary Clinton and Pope John Paul II.

The reporters, now in their early eighties, are considered by many to be the premier elder statesmen of American journalism. They helped inaugurate a new and more confrontational style of reporting that inspired countless others—for better and for worse—who followed them.

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Michael F. Bishop, a writer and historian, is the former executive director of the International Churchill Society and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.