Washington (CNN) - As they furiously typed computer code through the night in a small Capitol Hill office, little did they know they were about to change the way Americans would view what has become known as the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The handful of staffers from Rep. Ed Markey's now defunct Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming had just received word from oil giant BP that they would be given a live feed of the underwater cameras monitoring the spewing oil from 8,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico. The date: May 19, 2010 - nearly one month to the day that the Deepwater Horizon well had exploded, killing 11 workers and causing oil to stream unabated into the Gulf.