CBS broadcast 912 episodes of Bicentennial Minutes for the 1976 anniversary. The short educational segments aired nightly from July 4, 1974, through December 31, 1976.
Each segment lasted about one minute and usually explained an event or person connected with American history, especially the Revolutionary era. The format typically opened with the phrase “Two hundred years ago today” and concluded with a sign-off echoing Walter Cronkite’s familiar news style.
The series was originally expected to end on July 4, 1976, the Bicentennial’s main date. CBS extended it through the end of that year, which accounts for the final total of 912 episodes. This makes the program different from a yearlong daily calendar: it began two years before the anniversary and continued for nearly six months afterward.
Notable narrators included celebrities, First Lady Betty Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and President Gerald Ford.