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or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at into a.m. on June 26th, 1974 at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

Clyde Dawson, head of research and development for the grocery chain,

walks through the store with a basket full of products.

There's a reason why Clyde is shopping at this particular location this morning.

It's been carefully selected for its close proximity to the city of Dayton,

home of National Cash Register or NCR, the company which designed the checkout counter

used in the store.

Clyde is planning to test a new technology he hopes will revolutionize the retail industry.

Clyde approaches the counter where a small crowd is gathered.

He reaches into his basket and pulls out a multi-pack of Riggly's juicy fruit chewing gum

and hands it to the cashier. He's chosen this item for its size

as a way to demonstrate that the technology his company is planning to adopt can work on even the smallest of products.

The cashier takes the pack of gum from Clyde, moves it over a special screen in the countertop.

This scans a barcode, the universal product code or UPC that has been printed on the packaging of the chewing gum.

The cash register reads the barcode and pops up a price of 67 cents.

The small crowd around the counter cheers. It may not seem like much, but a new era in

shopping has just begun. It will be many years before the UPC barcode

becomes widely adopted in retail, but that moment in the grocery store

in Ohio is still a watershed for the two men who first started developing the technology

...