The show has only been interrupted twice in the show's 40 year history to cover a national event the first being September 11, 2001 to cover the attack on the World Trade Center and again on November 13, 2015 to cover the Paris terrorist attacks.
The January 4, 2015 episode was dedicated to longtime anchor Stuart Scott who passed away at the age of 49 from appendix cancer.
Only six times has SportsCenter covered non-sports related events they are as follows: the death of Neil Armstrong the first man to walk on the moon on August 25th, 2012, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, the death of civil rights leader Rosa Parks in 2005, the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008, the death of Osama Bin Laden and the death of former South African president Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013.