Guess the year #1
Here is a year from the kitchen table of memory, and I wonder if it feels like home to you.
Mailing a letter to Grandma cost just four cents, and you licked the stamp yourself.
A shiny new satellite sent the first live TV pictures across the ocean, and folks gathered round the set to see it.
A cartoon family with a robot maid and a flying car became the first show the ABC network ever broadcast in color.
A little town in Arkansas got the very first Wal-Mart Discount City store, and nobody guessed how big it would grow.
Funny how we dreamed about flying cars while the real wonders came by mail, by satellite and down the aisles of a little store. What year do you think this was?
Show the answer
Answer: 1962. That summer the Telstar satellite carried the first live TV pictures across the Atlantic, and the first Wal-Mart opened in Rogers, Arkansas. That fall The Jetsons premiered as ABC's first color broadcast, while a stamp still cost four cents.
Sources:
- https://www.prc.gov/docs/26/26350/press/Charts.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/content/telstar-opened-era-of-global-satellite-television
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jetsons
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart
Guess the year #2
Here is a fun one: every clue below points to the same year in everyday American life.
The post office rolled out a brand-new five-digit code for addresses, part of a plan to get letters delivered faster.
Kids could bake real little cakes in a new toy oven that got its heat from a pair of ordinary light bulbs.
Families started snapping photos with a new line of cameras that took an easy, instant-loading film cartridge.
Mailing a first-class letter went up by a penny, to five cents.
Which year do you think it is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1963. That year the post office introduced ZIP Codes in July and raised the stamp to five cents in January, while the Easy-Bake Oven and Kodak's Instamatic cameras were brand new.
Sources:
- https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/july/zip-code-introduced
- https://www.museumofplay.org/toys/easy-bake-oven/
- https://www.eastman.org/blog/50th-anniversary-instamatic-1963
- https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.pdf
Guess the year #3
Here's a year I think you'll be able to picture in your head the minute you read these.
A sporty new Ford called the Mustang is unveiled at the World's Fair, and suddenly every young driver wants one.
Kellogg's starts selling Pop-Tarts, a breakfast pastry you just drop in the toaster, and there's no frosting on them yet.
Hasbro brings out G.I. Joe and calls him an "action figure," so boys can have one without anybody calling it a doll.
Mailing a letter to Grandma costs you a five-cent stamp.
What year do you think this is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1964. The Mustang was unveiled at the New York World's Fair that April, and Kellogg's started selling Pop-Tarts that September, both firsts of that year. G.I. Joe came out that year too, and a first-class stamp cost five cents.
Sources:
- https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/383777
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-Tarts
- https://www.museumofplay.org/toys/g-i-joe/
- https://www.prc.gov/docs/26/26350/press/Charts.html
Guess the year #4
Here are four clues from one year of everyday American life, and they all point to the same calendar.
Mailing a letter costs a nickel for the stamp, which makes writing to your aunt the bargain of the week.
New on grocery shelves: canned pasta shaped like little rings, sold as the neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon.
For the first time, an American astronaut steps outside his spacecraft and floats in space for 23 minutes.
A cartoon Christmas special with a jazz score and one very sorry little tree airs on CBS for the very first time.
What year do you think it is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1965. The giveaways are the first American spacewalk, the CBS premiere of that cartoon Christmas special with the sorry little tree, and the ring-shaped pasta's first year on shelves. The nickel stamp only narrows it down, but it helps.
Sources:
- https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaghettiOs
- https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/first-american-spacewalk/
- https://www.thehenryford.org/explore/blog/good-grief-a-charlie-brown-christmas-turns-50/
Guess the year #5
Here's a year I can still hear: the hum of the console TV warming up, kids laughing on the living-room floor, and the taste of stamp glue on a letter to Grandma.
A brand-new show called Star Trek first beamed onto our console TV on a Thursday night in September.
Milton Bradley's new party game Twister had us all in knots on a mat of red, yellow, green and blue circles.
America's Surveyor probe set down gently on the Moon and sent back thousands of pictures of the gray, dusty surface.
A letter to Grandma still went out for a five-cent stamp, licked and pressed on at the kitchen table.
What year do you think this was?
Show the answer
Answer: 1966. Star Trek premiered on NBC that September, Milton Bradley brought out Twister, and Surveyor 1 made America's first soft landing on the Moon that June, while a first-class stamp still cost five cents.
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_season_1
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_(game)
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/surveyor-1
- https://www.prc.gov/docs/26/26350/press/Charts.html
Guess the year #6
These four facts all come from one year of American life.
The first championship game between the NFL and AFL champions was played in mid-January at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Amana brought out a consumer Radarange, the first popular microwave oven designed for use at home.
Rolling Stone, a new rock music magazine founded in San Francisco, released its very first issue.
Mailing a first-class letter took a single five-cent stamp.
Which year do you think it is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1967. The first NFL–AFL championship game, later called Super Bowl I, was played in Los Angeles on January 15, 1967, and Rolling Stone's first issue is dated November 9, 1967. The same year Amana brought out its home Radarange, and a first-class stamp still cost five cents until January 1968.
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_I
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Corporation
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone
- https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.htm
