March 21, 1980…In "A House Divided," the season finale cliffhanger episode of the CBS-TV series "Dallas," J.R. Ewing, played by actor Larry Hagman, was shot. Viewers had to wait all summer, and most of the autumn because of a Hollywood actors' strike (and Hagman's own holdout), to learn whether J.R. would survive, and which of his many enemies was responsible for the shooting.
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Dallas was an American soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries.  I Love, LOVE, LOVED that show.  Never missed an episode and back in those days there was no way to tape and save it.

Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing. The show debuted in April 1978 as a five-part miniseries on the CBS network, and then was subsequently broadcast for thirteen seasons from April 2, 1978 to May 3, 1991. Dallas was included in Time magazine's 2007 list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME."^[1] The show was also famous for its cliffhangers, including the "Who shot J.R.?" mystery, and the "Dream Season", in which the entirety of season eight was revealed to have been a dream of one of the characters.