Betamax, VHS, and the Launch of the Format War

In ‘This Week in History,’ the rise of the VCR led to a corporate scramble for standard video formatting, resulting in a famous tech standoff.

After various versions of videocassettes appeared during the 1960s and early 1970s, the introduction of Betamax and VHS sparked what became known as the Format War. Leo/Shutterstock

The first Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was scheduled for June 1967 in Chicago at the original McCormick Place. McCormick Place was then a 500,000-plus-square-foot exhibition center with restaurants, banquet rooms, and a theater—the perfect spot for the inaugural exhibit that would eventually become the world’s largest annual trade show. In January 1967, a fire consumed the building, leaving the organizers of the CES scrambling for a new location. They chose the Hilton and Americana hotels in New York City.

The original McCormick Place, completed in 1960, seen in 1966 from Lake Michigan before its destruction by fire in 1967. Future CES shows were held here from 1978 until 1994. Jstennel/CC BY-SA 4.0