On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC. By the time it was all over and the dust had settled, Then-United States President Richard Nixon had resigned his office on August 9, 1974. The Watergate Scandal was the biggest political scandal to hit the United States in recent memory. As a result virtually every political scandal that has happened since has had the suffix "-gate" applied to its name. Even scandals that aren't political in nature can have the "-gate" suffix appended to it.