There have been scores of memoirs and analyses written about the events we call "Watergate," but none captures the early days of that era-defining White House scandal quite like All the President's Men.

Its authors were two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting helped a "third-rate burglary" — which took place 50 years ago on June 17, 1972 — become a national obsession.

Both in their 20s at the time, they seized on a suspicious story about a bungled break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington during the presidential campaign of 1972. Over a matter of weeks, they found themselves following a trail of evidence all the way to some of the most powerful men in the federal government — ultimately including President Richard Nixon.

Nixon would resign in August 1974. Several of his most senior staffers went to prison, many others had their reputations destroyed. Nixon's Republican Party would need the better part of a decade to recover.

In the years thereafter, Woodward and Bernstein became part of the nation's shared memory and the folklore of the period. They also came to personify a sea change in American journalism.