''Eyewitness to History'' was a Friday night

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

Television Network public affairs program. It was initially hosted by veteran broadcaster

Charles Kuralt Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American television, newspaper and radio journalist and author. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on '' The CBS Evenin ...

(1960–61), followed by

Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...

(1961–62), and then Charles Collingwood (1962–63). It aired from September 30, 1960 through July 26, 1963 in the 10:30 pm time slot. Sponsored by the

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is a tire company founded by Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled ...

, the series concentrated on the most significant news story or stories of the previous week. Major events reviewed included the Kennedy-Nixon 1960 Presidential campaign, highlights of the

Kennedy administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States, began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 p ...

, the

Bay Of Pigs The Bay of Pigs ( es, Bahía de los Cochinos) is an inlet of the Gulf of Cazones located on the southern coast of Cuba. By 1910, it was included in Santa Clara Province, and then instead to Las Villas Province by 1961, but in 1976, it was reas ...

invasion, the

space race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the tw ...

, the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

and the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

. The show's title was shortened to ''Eyewitness'' in 1961. Coincidentally, many local CBS affiliates adopted the branding "Eyewitness News" for their local newscasts in the 1960s. One of the show's producers,

Av Westin Avram Westin (July 29, 1929 – March 12, 2022) was an American television producer. He co-created the CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace. He then went to ABC where he produced World News Tonight and then 20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly ref ...

, went on to become executive producer of ''

ABC Evening News ''ABC World News Tonight'' (titled ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' for its weeknight broadcasts since September 2014) is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting ...

'' and, later, ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

''.

References

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=eyewitnessto {{DEFAULTSORT:Eyewitness To History CBS original programming 1960s American television news shows 1960 American television series debuts 1963 American television series endings