'Nightline' looks back on its 45 years in anniversary episode

It's been 45 years since ABC News' iconic late-night show "Nightline" debuted on March 24, 1980. To celebrate the occasion on Monday, past and present anchors dive into its history and enduring appeal in a special episode.

The seeds for the show were sown in November 1979, when then-ABC News President Roone Arledge created "The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage" to cover the aftermath of the infamous terrorist attack on the United States embassy in Tehran.

Watch the 45th anniversary episode of "Nightline" late-night Monday, March 24, from 12:35 a.m. to 1:05 a.m. ET and streaming the next day on Hulu.

By the time the hostage crisis ended, resulting in their release 444 days later, "Nightline" and anchor Tep Koppel had forged an important relationship with the American public. He served as the show's host until 2005.

"Every night, Ted Koppel came on and did something that you'd never seen before," ABC News' Terry Moran, who anchored the show from 2005 to 2013, said of its early days.

That became a hallmark of the program -- bringing people who are worlds apart together for town hall-style conversations.

"The Iranian ambassador and the Iraqi ambassador; they wouldn't talk to each other, but they talked to me," Koppel said.

Since then, "Nightline" has never shied away from complicated conversations. That included going to South Africa during the era of apartheid -- the system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed there from the late '40s to the early '90s.

"If I had to point to one group of broadcasts as being the most significant out of 6,000 that I did over 25 years, I think I'd have to pick that one," Koppel said of the 1985 reports.

Those stories happened in the U.S. as well, with Cynthia McFadden (who co-anchored the show from 2005 to 2014) recalling her 2012 reporting on resurgent white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan.

"The experience of being at a cross burning was literally seared into me. I will never forget that day," she said. "If you thought that that kind of hate was over, we had the opportunity to show America that it was not."

"Nightline" has also examined American life through the cultural lens, sometimes taking a lighter approach to heavy topics. That included bringing Kermit the Frog and his fellow Muppets on set to discuss complexities of the 1987 stock market crash.

"When the Muppets came in, I mean, people came from every office, all over the New York headquarters to meet the Muppets," Koppel said. "They wanted to watch that interview. You know, 'How is Ted going to handle the frog?'"

Anchors like Juju Chang, who has shared anchoring duties with Byron Pitts since 2014, appreciate that the job lets them report from the field.

"I'd rather be sweating out in the street somewhere and covering a story and looking somebody in the eye and hearing their story and trying to tell it," she said.

Pitts noted that the show endures by staying true to its original mission: offering Americans a way to stay informed as their day draws to a close.

"Nightline is a place where the country can show up together and hear the truth," he said. "We provide context and clarity and comfort for the nation. And who doesn't want that before they go to sleep?"

ABC News' Kelley Robinson, Kelsey Klimara and Mack Muldofsky also contributed to this report.