"This is a KLRN News Bulletin... A sniper with a high-powered rifle has taken up a position on the observation deck on the tower of the campus of the University of Texas. He is firing at persons within his range..."

Today, we expect there to be rolling news coverage of a breaking news event as a matter of routine.

In 1966, however, the facilities just weren't readily available for that to be a common occurrence.

SPECIAL REPORT - UT Tower Shooting: 50 Years Later

On August 1, 1966, as Charles Whitman was pointing his cache of weapons and firing freely from the top of the University of Texas Tower, public television station KLRN (years before its split to cover just the San Antonio area and the formation of KLRU) had a unique vantage point from their studios on the UT campus.

A camera was carefully placed outside the window so as not to attract attention from the sniper and his deadly accuracy. With an announcer standing by, KLRN went to the airwaves and provided what is thought to be the first live televised moment-by-moment account of a local breaking news situation directly from the scene.

The video from that day was lost to history for decades, only to be partially recovered by a blog writer who reported finding the footage discarded in the trash.

Roughly 12 minutes of video was digitally converted and posted to YouTube on the 40th anniversary of the shooting.