Using documentary footage from that October day in 1995, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story did a decent job depicting the scene in the streets of America when the O.J. Simpson verdict aired. But the show—focused on the intimate drama of the key players involved—didn’t quite capture the enormity of the moment or why it’s something our nation will probably never see again.

Record Numbers

Despite the fact that the event took place at 10:00 AM PST on a Tuesday, a record number of people tuned in to see the jury’s decision. Adults abandoned their work and students left their classrooms as 150 million viewers—57% of the country—gathered around TV screens. By comparison, only 37.8 million tuned in for Barack Obama’s historic inauguration in 2009 (also midday on a Tuesday) and 114.4 million watched the highest-rated sporting event in U.S. history: the 2015 Super Bowl. But if the verdict were to be announced today, most American workers and students wouldn’t gather together around a TV or a huge screen in Times Square. Most would be hunched over personal devices checking Twitter or Facebook or watching some kind of streaming video for the latest update. That’s how most of America watched the rescue of the Chilean miners in 2010.

The World Pressed Pause

While the number of people watching back in October 1995 is staggering, it’s far from the most astonishing statistic from the day. In his 2004 book America on Trial, O.J. Simpson legal adviser Alan Dershowitz outlined how all across the country people froze to watch the verdict. AT&T reported that phone usage dropped by 60% and electric consumption surged as Americans turned on their televisions. According to Dershowitz, water usage decreased because people skipped the bathroom rather than miss the verdict. Supreme Court justices—in session at the time—arranged to have notes with news of the verdict passed to them. Trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange dropped 41%, a meeting between the secretary of state and the director of the CIA was postponed, and President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office to watch the verdict with his staff.

Work halted in factories, post offices, and hospitals. Dershowitz writes that it was “the most unproductive half hour in U.S. business history, costing $480 million in lost output.” And in Israel, Dershowitz claims, even Jewish people unplugging their electronic to honor the holy day of Yom Kippur, turned on their TVs to watch. The global reaction wasn’t very flattering to the U.S. judicial system, but people were watching.

A Brief Show of Unity

More recent events that have brought people into the streets—the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 or the election of Barack Obama in 2008—were reactions to missions already accomplished. People read about bin Laden on Twitter or watched the 2008 election results in their houses and only once the events were decided did the streets fill with celebration. (And there were plenty of people on both occasions who were in no mood to celebrate.) But for a few brief minutes in 1995, America was a nation publicly united in anticipation. A 1995 report by Roger Rosenblatt in Time magazine captures the scene: “At least there was one moment of visible black-and-white unity last week. It occurred on Tuesday, shortly after 10 a.m. Pacific time, when crowds of citizens, gathered together in the streets like extras in a War of the Worlds movie of the 1950s, stood staring up at outdoor television screens, waiting for the word. They were united, briefly, in an anxious silence of the heart. ”