The Day Television Lost Control: “The Heidi Game”

TweetShareShareIt was the football game that changed the rules of broadcasting. It was the game that showed how the democratic, decentralized people’s voice could overrule the authoritative, centralized control of network brass. It was the game where a little girl in the Swiss Alps and superstar athletes toppled how we would watch live sports forever.…

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Six Months That Changed The World

TweetShareShare You could call it the Great Cultural Earthquake. Within a brief span of six months, three separate historical events happened that completely reshaped America. If you are over 65 years of age, you might remember them: 1. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech (8/28/1963) 2. The assassination of John F. Kennedy (11/22/1963)…

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Tough and Competent: An American Legacy

TweetShareShareOn July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 craft landed on the moon. It was a momentous and heroic feat, a testament to American strength, ingenuity and persistence. Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins are historic names and this moment an “American moment.” But we wouldn’t have Apollo 11 without Apollo 1…unfortunately that moon craft…

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The Long Play (LP) Vinyl Arrives!

TweetShareShare Today is a big day in the “Vinyl is Final” world, as it’s the day that 33 1/3 rpm records debuted. This format allowed for longer recordings (around 30 minutes per side).   The LP (long play) would be a significant technological innovation for the coming “rock ‘n roll” era that relied upon “singles”…

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Heeeeeere’s The End, Johnny!

TweetShareShareThe Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was the drug of choice for late night insomniacs for three decades.The program was ranked #12 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. The undisputed King of Late Night talk show hosts,  Johnny Carson (1925-2009) made his debut on October 1, 1962 at the NBC studio…

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America Embraces Debt

TweetShareShare“Put it on my card!” It’s the American way. We buy now, pay later.  The history for card purchases is nothing new. In fact, it was first described in an Edward Bellamy utopian work titled Looking Backward (1887). Bellamy employed the term “credit card” in his work as a way for a person to spend…

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Network News is Born!

CBS News Debuted

TweetShareShareIf your over 40, you remember a day when the three big networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) dominated the television news landscape. Indeed, the 1960s and 1970s were the “golden age” of network news, featuring personalities like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and Howard K. Smith. There were also new emerging (and future) stars like Dan Rather…

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The Age of Television is Launched!

RCA introduces television to the public

TweetShareShare In the course of human history, there are few technologies that significantly reimagine everything and move culture forward exponentially. Fire. Gunpowder. The Printing Press. The Internet. And television. The world before television–the projection of visuals into the private home–reimagined how we lived. It proved, in the end, more than just an entertainment evolution. In…

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Boomers The First To Get the Point on Polio!

Jonas Salk and Polio Vaccine

TweetShareShare Polio was a feared disease in the early and mid-1900s. The crippling disease had disabled Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. But, even more so, polio was epidemic among children (who saw the lion share of the cases). In 1952 there were 58,000 new cases of poliomyelitis (with 3000 deaths). The worst part was…

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The Space Generation

TweetShareShareTHE SPACE GENERATION (b. 1950-1970): The race for “space” (between the U.S.S.R. and U.S.) occurred in the late 1950s and 1960s. The Soviets put the first satellite, man and woman in space. They performed the first space walk. America, however, quickly caught up and eventually claimed the biggest prize: putting a man on the moon…

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