Thirty-five years ago today, viewers tuned in to see an astronaut planting a flag on the moon — a colorful, ever-changing banner for something called “MTV” — and, whether they knew it or not, witnessed the beginning of a music-industry gamechanger. When you think of the channel today, of course, you probably think of shows involving teen moms, ironic Nineties meta-horror and Nick Cannon hanging out with his famous friends; music videos are now things you watch on YouTube. But in the three-plus decades since folks starting screaming “I want my MTV!”, the network has left a lasting legacy of everything from memorable on-air personalities and mind-warping promos to selling musical styles and subcultures to the masses. It’s turned oddball characters into pop-culture icons, been a key career-booster for everyone from Madonna to Britney and invented TV genres. It even helped sway a Presidential election.

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In honor of MTV’s anniversary — and the kick-off of MTV Classic, a cable channel devoted to the revisiting and rerunning programming from the network’s glory days — we’ve singled out 35 things MTV has given us since that first Buggles clip (“Video Killed the Radio Star”) helped the channel plant its flag on the pop landscape.