In Chicago on this day in 1960, the first televised presidential debate was held between Republican Vice-President Richard Milhaus Nixon and the Democrat candidate Senator John Kennedy. There would be four televised debates that year between Nixon and Kennedy. An estimated 70 million viewers tuned into the first debate which dealt with domestic issues.

The first debate is the one everyone remembered. The majority of the people who heard it on the radio felt that Nixon had won, those who saw it on television thought that Kennedy had. Nixon had his famous ‘5ive o’clock shadow” and Kennedy just in from touring in California, was tanned, rested and ready. Kennedy was made for television, Nixon had a face for the radio. Kennedy would win an extremely close election. Nixon would finally be elected in 1968.