McCrossen notes that some TV announcers in the '60s also started counting down to the new year. Then we counted down the Apollo moon missions, and we started counting down the Top 40 hits on the radio. In 1961, Americans didn't count down to a disaster, but a miracle - the launch of the first crewed U.S. Yet the tides were also turning for countdowns. In 1964, a notorious campaign ad for President Lyndon B Johnson depicted a girl counting petals on a flower until an ominous voice takes over the countdown and a bomb explodes. And so this was a kind of apocalyptic countdown." "And the countdown to the dropping of the bomb and then to its detonation was televised and people could hear it. "In the 1950s, there were atomic bomb tests," McCrossen said. The calendar is still there, we're still waiting for January 1st, but the clock and midnight become especially important."īefore the 1970s, countdowns were generally associated with bad things. "But by the 20th century, it becomes a clock holiday. You woke up on January 1st, you said, 'happy new year', you went to church, perhaps, and maybe you exchanged gifts, and it was a calendar holiday," she said. These days, a New Year's Eve celebration doesn't feel complete without one thing: a countdown.īut that 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ritual to ring in the new year isn't as old as you might think.Īlexis McCrossen is a history professor at Southern Methodist University and says clock-watching is actually relatively new for Americans. Fireworks explode in Times Square on New Year's Eve on Januin New York City.
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