Trivia: Regarded by millions as the paragon of on-air trustworthiness, intelligence, professionalism, and unabashed integrity, Walter Cronkite single-handedly invented American television news as a CBS correspondent during the 1950s, with the medium still in a somewhat embryonic state. A former United Press correspondent from St. Joseph, MO -- who would purportedly "go anywhere and do anything for a story, even ride a bomber or a glider into combat" -- Cronkite moved to CBS at the behest of the legendary Edward R. Murrow circa 1952, a position he held for 10 years. In that role, Cronkite carried American audiences through the Cold War, Korea, and other pivotal currents of the 1950s. He simultaneously hosted the eccentric, Sidney Lumet-directed series You Are There (CBS, 1953-1957), which featured reenactments of historical events presented as news broadcasts with Cronkite serving as anchor. As such, the venerable newsman concluded each broadcast with the now-infamous wrap-up: "What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times -- and you were there."Cronkite graduated to head anchor of the CBS Evening News in 1961, a post he retained for 20 years, until Friday, March 6, 1981, when Dan Rather inherited the job. During that time, Cronkite famously reported on such subjects as the Kennedy assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, the Vietnam-era protests, the Arab-Israeli Six Day War, Watergate, and the Menachim-Begin peace accords. In fact, a large percentage of Americans who learned of those subjects from nightly news broadcasts did so through Cronkite's efforts simply because they trusted him.Save a role in 1980s little-seen drama A Private Battle, and voiceover work as Captain New Eyes in 1993's animated We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Cronkite's feature film appearances are virtually nonexistent. His filmed work predominantly (and unsurprisingly) began after his retirement from full-time CBS work in 1981 and consists almost exclusively of hosting duties on dozens of documentary videos that intelligently treat a whirlwind of subjects, everything from South African segregation (Children of Apartheid, 1987) to welfare (Making Welfare Work, 1994) to homeland evangelical Christianity and its disturbing intersection with right-wing political factions (The Cronkite Reports: Christianity Reborn -- Prayer and Politics, 1995). Like many of his peers in the newsroom, Cronkite also made a handful of humorous guest appearances as himself on the popular CBS series Murphy Brown: one in 1989, one in 1993, and one in 1997. Cronkite died of cerebral vascular disease in July 2009.

Trivia: Rightly hailed on the CBS News website as "the most honored journalist in international reporting," Bob Simon weathered decades of global correspondence, on innumerable subjects, to achieve that honor. A Bronx native, Simon attended Brandeis University as a young man, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1962 equipped with a history degree. He enlisted in the American Foreign Service from 1964 through 1967, and joined CBS News upon release, as a Manhattan-based reporter and assignment editor. From that spot, Simon extensively covered both the domestic unrest of the late '60s and Vietnam (in the early '70s), as well as the bloody strife in Ireland and many other ongoing international conflicts. Simon's assignments from the late '60s onward include correspondent posts for CBS News' bureaus in Saigon (from 1971 to 1972), London (from 1972 to 1977), and Tel Aviv (from 1977 to 1981). He then served as CBS News State Department correspondent (from 1981 to 1982), as national correspondent for CBS News New York from 1982 to 1987, and as CBS News' premier Middle Eastern correspondent from 1987 onward. Simon made international headlines in 1991 when he and several other members of the CBS News team were captured by terrorists and held in an Iraqi prison for 40 days. Incredibly, he agreed to return to Iraq twice after that experience, wrote a book about his travails, and participated in a documentary on that country. Simon signed on as a correspondent for the Sunday-night news magazine 60 Minutes in 1996. He was instrumental in launching that series' sister program, 60 Minutes II, in 1999.Simon continued to work with CBS News and 60 Minutes for the rest of his career, and eventually brought his daughter, Tanya, into the fold as a 60 Minutes producer. He died as a passenger in a car accident in 2015, at age 73.