- In the summer of 1953 worked as an actor at Priscilla Beach Theatre, one of the oldest barn theatres in New England. Was told by the director that he had to get rid of his Canadian accent.
- He was awarded the O.C. (Officer of the Order of Canada) on October 23, 1997 for his services to journalism.
- On November 22, 1963, MacNeil was covering President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dallas for NBC News. After shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, MacNeil, who was with the presidential motorcade, followed crowds running onto the Grassy Knoll (he appears in a photo taken just moments after the assassination). He then headed toward the nearest building and encountered a young man leaving the Texas School Book Depository at around 12:33PM CST. He asked the man where the nearest telephone was and the man pointed and went on his way. MacNeil later learned the man he encountered might have been Lee Harvey Oswald.
- A television news anchor, he partnered with Jim Lehrer to create the landmark public television news program The MacNeil/Lehrer Report(later PBS NewsHour) in 1975.
- In 1967, MacNeil began covering American and European politics for the BBC.
- In a Sesame Street Special Report, muppet parody of the Iran-Contra scandal, MacNeil investigated a "Cookiegate" incident involving the Cookie Monster. In 1998, for Season 29's "Slimey to the Moon" story arc, MacNeil took the role of co-anchor with Kermit the Frog, as Slimey, Oscar the Grouch's pet worm, and four other worms made a landing on the Moon.
- In 2007, MacNeil hosted the PBS television miniseries America at a Crossroads, which presented independently produced documentaries about the "War on Terrorism". The series initially ran from April 15-20, with further episodes later that year.
- He was a Canadian-American journalist and writer.
- On September 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Arlington County, Virginia, MacNeil called PBS and offered to help. He joined PBS's coverage of the attacks and their aftermath, interviewing reporters and giving his thoughts on the events.
- He received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2008.
- Robert MacNeil went to boarding school at Rothesay Collegiate School and Upper Canada College, then attended Dalhousie University and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955.
- MacNeil was known to friends and family as "Robin".
- He was awarded in 1997 "Officer of the Order of Canada", one of Canada's highest civilian honors, for being "one of the most respected journalists of our time".
- Inspired by his passion for language he made the nine-part television series The Story of English in 1986 for PBS and the BBC, detailing the development of the English language.
- In director Michael Almereyda's 2000 modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, MacNeil portrayed the Player King, reimagined as a TV news reporter.
- From 1971 to 1974, he hosted the news discussion show Washington Week in Review on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
- MacNeil began working in the news field at ITV in London, then for Reuters, and then for NBC News[1] as a correspondent in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
- Youthful ambition was to become a playwright.
- New York City, New York (June 2007)
- MacNeil became a naturalized American citizen in 1997.
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