Guess the year #1
Can you guess the year when a small town's red telephone and a broadcast from the Moon gave America a little more hope?
Mattel's first Hot Wheels hit toy aisles: sixteen candy-colored muscle cars built to zoom down flexible plastic track.
The first-class stamp went up a penny, to six cents, so mailing a letter to Grandma cost a little more.
A small Alabama town answered the very first 911 emergency call on a bright red rotary phone at the police station.
On Christmas Eve, families watched a live broadcast from the first astronauts ever to circle the Moon.
It was a hard year in many ways, yet people kept finding new ways to look out for one another. Which year do you think it is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1968. The two clues that give it away are the first 911 call in Haleyville, Alabama, and the Christmas Eve broadcast from Apollo 8 in orbit around the Moon. Both happened in 1968, the same year the first Hot Wheels cars came out and the stamp went up to six cents.
Sources:
- https://www.museumofplay.org/toys/hot-wheels/
- https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.pdf
- https://nleomf.org/history-blotter-first-9-1-1-call-is-placed-on-feb-16-1968/
- https://www.nasa.gov/history/apollo-8-christmas-at-the-moon/
Guess the year #2
Here are three clues from everyday American life, and together they point to one single year.
Families gathered around the television late at night to watch the first walk on the Moon.
A bank on Long Island opened a new machine that let customers do their banking with a card and a secret code.
Mailing a first-class letter cost six cents for the stamp.
Which year do you think it is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1969. The first walk on the Moon, watched live on television that July, and the card-and-code banking machine that opened on Long Island that September both happened in 1969, and the six-cent stamp fits the same time.
Sources:
- https://www.nasa.gov/history/july-20-1969-one-giant-leap-for-mankind/
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/almanac-the-revolutionary-atm/
- https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.htm
