Who narrated CBS’s Bicentennial Minute on July 4, 1976?

Betty Ford narrated CBS’s Bicentennial Minute on July 4, 1976.

Bicentennial Minutes were one-minute television segments broadcast nightly by CBS from July 4, 1974, through December 31, 1976. Each segment recalled an event or person from the American Revolution era, usually opening with a phrase such as “Two hundred years ago today.”

The special Independence Day segment was delivered by First Lady Betty Ford. That detail is easy to confuse with nearby broadcasts: Vice President Nelson Rockefeller narrated the July 3 segment, and President Gerald Ford narrated the final segment on December 31, 1976.

The series ran for 912 episodes and used many different narrators, often performers and CBS personalities. Its closing wording echoed Walter Cronkite’s familiar news sign-off, helping turn the short historical features into a recognizable part of the Bicentennial’s television coverage.