Charlie (@clong5604)

#On_This_Day 50 years ago just after 8 a.m. on June 26, 1974, that the first item marked with the Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned at the checkout of Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The night before, a team of Marsh staff had moved in to put bar codes on hundreds of items in the store while National Cash Register installed their scanners and computers. The first "shopper" was Clyde Dawson, who was head of research and development for Marsh Supermarket; the pioneer cashier who "served" him, Sharon Buchanan. Legend has it that Dawson dipped into his shopping basket and pulled out a multi-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Dawson explained later that this was not a lucky dip: he chose it because nobody had been sure that a bar code could be printed on something as small as a pack of chewing gum, and Wrigley had found a solution to the problem. Their ample reward was a place in American history. Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/