World's Fairs Archives - PopHistory.org

New York World’s Fair opens

Year: 1939

Month Day: April 30

On April 30, 1939, the New York World’s Fair opens in New York City. The opening ceremony, which featured speeches by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and New York Governor Herbert Lehman, ushered in the first day of television broadcasting in New York.

Spanning 1,200 acres at Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, the fairground was marked by two imposing structures–the “Perisphere” and the “Trylon”–and exhibited such new technology as FM radio, robotics, fluorescent lighting, and a crude fax machine. Norman Bel Geddes designed a Futurama ride for General Motors, and users were transported through an idealized city of the future. Sixty-three nations participated in the fair, which enjoyed large crowds before the outbreak of World War II interrupted many of its scheduled events.

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The General Lee jumps into history in “The Dukes of Hazzard”

Year: 1978

Month Day: November 11

On November 11, 1978, a stuntman on the Georgia set of “The Dukes of Hazzard” launches the show’s iconic automobile, a 1969 Dodge Charger named the General Lee, off a makeshift dirt ramp and over a police car. That jump, 16 feet high and 82 feet long (its landing totaled the car), made TV history. Although more than 300 different General Lees appeared in the series, which ran on CBS from 1979 until 1985, this first one was the only one to play a part in every episode: That jump over the squad car ran every week at the end of the show’s opening credits.

The General Lee was a neon-orange Charger with “01” painted on the doors, a Confederate flag on the roof, and a horn that played the first 12 notes of the song “Dixie.” It belonged to the Dukes of Hazzard themselves, the cousins Bo (played by actor John Schneider) and Luke Duke (actor Tom Wopat), who used it to get out of dangerous scrapes and away from the corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg. Scenes featuring the General Lee are some of the show’s most memorable: Luke Duke sliding sideways across the car’s hood; the boys hopping feet-first through the windows (the Charger’s doors were welded shut, so the windows were the only way to get in and out); the General flying over ditches, half-open drawbridges and police cruisers.

Because practically every one of the General Lee’s stunts ended up wrecking the car, the show’s prop masters bought every 1969 Dodge Charger they could find (and there were plenty: the Chrysler Corporation sold about 85,000 in all). Then they outfitted each one for action, adding a roll cage to the inside, a protective push bar to the nose and heavy-duty shock absorbers and springs to the suspension. The prop masters also tampered with the brakes to make it easier to do the 180-degree “Bootleggers’ Turn” that so often helped the Duke boys evade Boss Hogg. Cars used for jumps also got trunks full of concrete or lead ballast to keep them from flipping over in midair.

While “The Dukes of Hazzard”was on the air, the General Lee got about 35,000 fan letters each month. Fans bought millions of remote-controlled and toy versions of the car, and some even modified their real cars to look like the Dukes’ Charger. Indianapolis DJ Travis Bell restored the original General Lee in 2006.

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First McDonald’s drive-through opens in Beijing

Year: 2007

Month Day: January 19

On January 19, 2007, Beijing, China, the capital city of the planet’s most populous nation, gets its first drive-through McDonald’s restaurant. The opening ceremony for the new two-story fast-food eatery, located next to a gas station, included traditional Chinese lion dancers and a Chinese Ronald McDonald. According to a report from The Associated Press at the time of the Beijing drive-through’s debut: “China’s double-digit economic growth has created a burgeoning market for cars, fast food and other consumer goods. The country overtook Japan last year to become the world’s second-biggest vehicle market after the U.S., with 7.2 million cars sold, a 37 percent growth.”

Fast-food chains from foreign countries first came to China in 1987, with the opening of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. The home of the Big Mac and Happy Meal arrived in China three years later. In 2005, McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain, launched its first drive-through restaurant in China, in the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, near Hong Kong. The Beijing drive-through was McDonald’s 16th Chinese drive-through. In September 2008, Chinadaily.com reported that other than America, “China is the No. 1 growth market for McDonald’s, with 960 restaurants and over 60,000 employees.”

McDonald’s opened its first drive-through in the U.S. in 1975. Before there were drive-throughs there were drive-in restaurants, where customers would place their orders at curbside speakers. Servers known as carhops, who often wore rollerskates, then would bring food orders directly to customers’ cars. Standard drive-in fare included hamburgers, hotdogs, root beer and milkshakes. Drive-ins reached the height of their popularity in the 1950s.

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