On Tuesday night, the eyes of the nation won’t be on the House chamber. Congress, the Supreme Court, and most of the Cabinet won’t be assembled in one room. The House sergeant-at-arms won’t call out, “Madam speaker, the president of the United States!” And most tellingly, there won’t be thunderclaps of applause so powerful they could almost register on radar. Forget curtain calls on Broadway or home runs in the World Series, the applause roaring on Capitol Hill that one night once a year puts them all to shame.

Until now. For the first time ever, the State of the Union Address is being rescheduled due to a partisan squabble — which royally irks President Trump, since the speech is one of the bully pulpit’s biggest perks of all due to one reason: television. It transformed the annual event from stuffy address into must-see TV. Here’s how the evolution happened.