Today in TV History: ‘A Tour of the White House With Mrs. John F. Kennedy’

Jackie Kennedy White House Tour
CBS/YouTube

The year: 1962. The location: Camelot. Well, technically, the location was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but after a 13-month, $2 million renovation that First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy spearheaded, America’s most famous address had a touch of the iconic family’s flair.

Roughly 80 million people tuned in to CBS and NBC, which co-broadcast A Tour of the White House With Mrs. John F. Kennedy, to watch the 32-year-old show how she brought history and grandeur back to the residence.

“It just seemed to me such a shame when we came here to find hardly anything of the past in the house,” she said, “hardly anything before 1902.”