Guess the year #1
Can you guess the year from these memories of snowed-in days, beeping toys and the corner mailbox?
Kids crowded around a new round game that flashed colored lights and played tones you had to repeat back, called Simon.
A February blizzard buried southern New England in record snow, and many schools and businesses stayed closed for over a week.
Mailing a letter went up to fifteen cents, and for a while the post office used a stamp marked with a letter A.
Veterans Day is coming up this week, so a warm thank-you to everyone on our street who served.
What year do you think it was?
Show the answer
Answer: 1978. The Blizzard of '78 shut down New England that February, and Milton Bradley put Simon in toy stores the same year, while the fifteen-cent letter rate and the "A" stamp started that May.
Sources:
- https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/ralph-baer-toy-inventor/
- https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/rsi/historic-storms.xml
- https://www.prc.gov/docs/26/26350/press/Charts.html
Guess the year #2
Here are three clues from one year of everyday American life, and they all point to the same summer.
Fast-food kids' meals now come in a cardboard box shaped like a circus wagon, with a small toy tucked inside.
America's first space station comes back down to Earth, scattering pieces over the Indian Ocean and Australia.
Mailing a letter costs 15 cents, which still feels like plenty to pay someone to carry your news across the country.
Which year do you think it is? And to the veterans reading along this week, thank you.
Show the answer
Answer: 1979. McDonald's launched its first national Happy Meal, the Circus Wagon, that June, and Skylab fell back to Earth on July 11. The 15-cent stamp fit too, since that rate ran from 1978 to 1981.
Sources:
- https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/articles/happy-birthday-happy-meal
- https://www.nasa.gov/history/45-years-ago-skylab-reenters-earths-atmosphere/
- https://www.prc.gov/docs/26/26350/press/Charts.html
Guess the year #3
Can you name the year when all of these were part of everyday American life?
Little yellow sticky notes just went on sale nationwide, and soon they are stuck to every fridge and office desk.
A brand-new cable channel out of Atlanta now runs the news around the clock, all day and all night.
A volcano in Washington State erupts on a May morning and sends an ash cloud 60,000 feet into the sky.
Filling up costs about $1.19 a gallon for leaded regular, and a few cents more for unleaded.
Those little yellow notes turned out to be a fine way to leave someone a kind word. With Veterans Day a few days off, a short thank-you to a veteran you know is still one of the nicest notes there is.
What year do you think it was?
Show the answer
Answer: 1980. Three clues belong to that year alone: the little yellow sticky notes went on sale nationwide, the first around-the-clock cable news channel started, and the volcano in Washington State erupted in May. Leaded regular gas averaged about $1.19 a gallon that year.
Sources:
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/manufacturing/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/self-adhesive-note
- https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19900529/1074428/in-10-years-turners-cnn-has-redefined-television-news
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/may-18-1980-washington-state-mount-st-helens-volcano-erupts/
- https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.php?t=ptb0524
Guess the year #4
Here is a year hiding behind four everyday clues.
A brand-new reusable space shuttle made its very first trip to orbit, and families gathered around the TV to watch it lift off.
IBM rolled out its Personal Computer, a beige box that promised to put office-grade computing on a desk near you.
The price of mailing a letter went up twice in one year, landing at 20 cents a stamp just in time for holiday cards.
A gallon of unleaded regular averaged about $1.38, which was plenty to grumble about at the pump.
With Veterans Day coming up this week, a warm thank-you to everyone who served.
Which year do you think it is?
Show the answer
Answer: 1981. The space shuttle Columbia's first launch and the debut of the IBM Personal Computer both happened that year, and the 20-cent stamp arrived that November after an earlier spring increase.
Sources:
- https://www.nasa.gov/mission/sts-1/
- https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1981/
- https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.pdf
- https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.php?t=ptb0524
