By Stan Deaton
The US Bicentennial, in 1976, happened during that sweet spot in my youth—I was old enough to watch prime-time TV (and be aware of and remember what I was watching) but not old enough to drive, which would have taken me out of the house to pursue other things in the evening besides television. This was important because one of my fondest and most vivid memories of the Bicentennial is a television program—technically it was what is known in broadcasting as an interstitial—called the Bicentennial Minute.
They were aptly named. Each episode lasted exactly one minute and came on every evening—for 916 consecutive evenings—at either 8:27 or 8:57 p.m. The series debuted on CBS on July 4, 1974—two years before the big date—and lasted through the very last day of 1976. Originally scheduled to run only through July 4, its popularity prompted CBS to extend it through the end of the year.
Its nightly premise was based on telling what happened “two hundred years ago today,” and so it narrated the (partial) story of the beginning of the American Revolution, day by day, for more than two years.
Episodes focused on an event or a person and featured a famous or sort-of famous personality every night, usually a star of a CBS program, or a politician or other public figure. The narrators were a who’s who of American entertainment and political culture: Charlton Heston (first episode), Norman Vincent Peale, Joyce Brothers, Joe Biden (October 18, 1974), Roy Clark, Esther Rolle, Sally Field, Joanne Woodward, and hundreds of others. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller appeared on July 1, 1976, and I distinctly remember Paul Newman (Christmas Day, 1975), the episode for the big night of July 4, 1976 (First Lady Betty Ford), and the last one broadcast on New Year’s Eve, 1976, featuring President Gerald Ford. I loved them all.
For those familiar with the Georgia Historical Society, the Bicentennial Minute may remind you of Today in Georgia History, and with good reason. As the GHS team and our Georgia Public Broadcasting collaborators wrote and produced our way through the yearly calendar, many of us old enough to remember the Minute were acutely aware of how popular and ubiquitous the older show had been. We hoped that if done well Today in Georgia History could make the same impact on those who watched it every day. And unlike the Bicentennial Minute, Today in Georgia History would have the advantage of living on beyond its original broadcast, thanks to the Internet. Thankfully, we were right. It’s also why GHS and GPB partnered with Georgia Power to refresh and re-broadcast Today in Georgia History for a new audience for the US250.
Even with the explosion of media—broadcast and streaming—no national entity today is producing anything like the Bicentennial Minute for the US250. Perhaps the powers that be believe that the partisan times in which we live have fractured the populace too much to consume it. Or perhaps, despite the concern over diminished attention spans, they’ve conceded the ground to Ken Burns and 12-part documentaries.
But it’s worth noting that the original Minute began broadcasting at the height of the Watergate scandal, just weeks before President Nixon resigned.
Fifty years ago, in the aftermath of the protests and unrest of the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the ongoing Cold War, and a historic presidential resignation, the American people’s confidence in the foundations of their country was badly shaken. After nearly 200 years, the ship of state had veered wildly off course.
The Bicentennial Minute used history to serve as an anchor, reminding us that the “times that tried men’s souls” during our Founding had been chaotic too. Those 916 segments reminded a troubled nation that despite the turmoil in modern America, our traditions of self-government had deep and historic roots—and offered reassurance that the world’s oldest self-governing republic would survive.