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Born in 1964? Here's the world you arrived into

In 1964, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" topped the charts, Mary Poppins packed theaters, a stamp cost 5¢, the average home went for about $18,900.

What things cost in 1964

A $0.30 gallon of gas in 1964 has the buying power of roughly $3.05 in 2024 dollars. A 5¢ stamp is around 51¢ today, and a $0.93 movie ticket is about $9.40.

The biggest moments of 1964

• The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, drawing a record 73 million viewers.
• President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2.
• The New York World's Fair opened in Queens, welcoming visitors beneath the giant steel Unisphere.

• Cassius Clay upset Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title in February 1964 and soon announced his new name: Muhammad Ali.
• The Surgeon General's landmark January report officially linked smoking to cancer for the first time.
• New York's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opened in November as the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Toys, TV & trends of 1964

• Hasbro launched G.I. Joe in 1964, creating the world's first "action figure."
• The Ford Mustang debuted in April 1964 and sold over 400,000 in its first year.
• New TV favorites Bewitched and Gilligan's Island both premiered in the fall of 1964.

• Jeopardy! debuted in March 1964 with Art Fleming reading the answers.
• The stop-motion special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer first aired in December 1964 and never missed a Christmas since.
• The Addams Family and The Munsters both premiered the same fall week, giving TV two spooky-but-lovable households.

The music scene

On April 4, 1964, the Beatles held all five top spots on the Billboard Hot 100 — a feat never matched since. The British Invasion they launched brought the Dave Clark Five and the Rolling Stones across the Atlantic, while Motown answered with the Supremes, whose "Where Did Our Love Go" began a run of five straight #1 hits. And 62-year-old Louis Armstrong became the oldest artist ever to top the chart, briefly knocking the Beatles off #1.

At the movies

In a delicious twist, Julie Andrews — passed over for the film of My Fair Lady after starring in it on Broadway — won the Best Actress Oscar for Mary Poppins, while My Fair Lady took Best Picture. Stanley Kubrick's dark comedy Dr. Strangelove earned raves in January, and the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night surprised critics who expected a cheap cash-in and got a classic.

Cartoons kids loved

• Jonny Quest
• Underdog
• Magilla Gorilla

Jonny Quest broke the cartoon mold in 1964 — Hanna-Barbera's prime-time adventure series used realistic art and genuine suspense instead of gags, and though it lasted only one season on ABC, it influenced action animation for decades. Underdog, voiced by mild-mannered Wally Cox, gave kids their own rhyming superhero.

The world in 1964

• World population: about 3.3 billion
• U.S. President: Lyndon B. Johnson
• Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first Games ever held in Asia.

• Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in South Africa's Rivonia Trial in June 1964.
• Nikita Khrushchev was ousted as Soviet leader in October and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December — at 35, the youngest winner at that time.

1964 birthday questions

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