1972: TV's First Premium Station, HBO, Debuts
On this day in 1972, television's first premium cable station, Home Box Office, aka HBO, made its debut. The first film to run on the station was Sometimes a Great Notion, an Oscar-nominated adaptation of the second novel by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.
The movie was followed by the live transmission of a NHL hockey game from Madison Square Garden between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks.