The Night A Computer Predicted The Next President

The Night A Computer Predicted The Next President
400426 01: (FILE PHOTO) U.S. Air Force technicians evaluate the UNIVAC computer system in 1951 which took up 352 square feet of floor space and ran at a then-astronomical rate of 2.25 megahertz. The Air Force will be celebrating 50 years of computer usage February 1, 2002. (Photo by U.S. Air Force/Getty Images)
400426 01: (FILE PHOTO) U.S. Air Force technicians evaluate the UNIVAC computer system in 1951 which took up 352 square feet of floor space and ran at a then-astronomical rate of 2.25 megahertz. The Air Force will be celebrating 50 years of computer usage February 1, 2002. (Photo by U.S. Air Force/Getty Images)

Some milestone moments in journalism converged 60 years ago on election night in the run between Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower and Democratic Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson. It was the first coast-to-coast television broadcast of a presidential election. Walter Cronkite anchored his first election night broadcast for CBS.

And it was the first time computers were brought in to help predict the outcome. That event in 1952 helped usher in the computer age, but it wasn't exactly love at first sight.

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