Happy Birthday Bar Codes

You know those bar codes you see on everything at the store? Well, those are 40 years old as of today.

Someone bought a pack of chewing gum at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, this very day. It was the first purchase of an item to be scanned into a cash register using the Universal Product Code.

That chewing gum -- a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit -- got returned (they probably had the price wrong) and it's now at The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

The Census Bureau shared that tidbit, and I thought that's something I wouldn't even think about. No way I thought that was that old.