First Bicentennial Minute - July 4, 1974

Fifty years ago, the first Bicentennial Minute aired on CBS. Initially 732 one-minute messages were planned to run nightly finishing on the Bicentennial; however, 912 were produced in total with the final airing on the evening of December 31, 1976. While Charlton Heston’s actual Bicentennial Minute has been lost to time, please click on the article to view what his message to the nation might be if filmed today.