MTV’s first music video was “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Talk about making an entrance.

When MTV launched in the United States on 1 August 1981, its first music video was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”—a fitting opening for a channel devoted to putting music on television. The song wasn’t even new. It had already reached number one in the UK in 1979, almost two years before MTV began broadcasting.