Today in 1959,the Barbie doll made her debut at the American Toy Fair. According to Mattel, her full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts from Willows, Wisconsin. The first Barbie dolls cost 3-dollars. If you could find an original edition today, it might be worth up to $5,000. More than 800-million Barbies have been sold since then – at a rate of two Barbies sold every second!
Today in 1964, the first Ford Mustang rolled off of the Ford assembly line.
Today in 1965, became “Turnaround Tuesday.” This was the day that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lead another march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge – in answer to the horror of Bloody Sunday days before. About 2,000 people, more than half of them white and about a third members of the clergy, participated in the second march.
Today in 1981, Dan Rather made his debut as the anchorman of "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.”
Today in 1986, Navy divers found the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts on the ocean floor. The Challenger disaster had occurred on January 28th.
Today in 1993, Rodney King testified in California at the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of violating his civil rights.
Today in 1997, just weeks before his latest album “Life After Death” dropped, rapper Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) was shot and killed during a drive by shooting while at a stoplight in Los Angeles. The murder was brought upon between rival rappers from the East and West coast. Rapper and former friend of B.I.G., Tupac Shakur was killed in a similar incident six months prior.
Today in 1999, RJR Nabisco Holdings Corporation, the food-and-tobacco conglomerate, announced it was getting out of the cigarette business.
Today in 2012, Coke and Pepsi soda changed their formulas to avoid having to place a cancer-warning label on bottles of their products. They now add less 4-MEI, the carcinogen in question.
Today in 2021, China and Russia agreed to build a research station on or around the Moon and collaborate on lunar missions, in a move that could start another space race.