Pageants on Parade (1922 - 1955)
1922 Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is the traditional end of summer in the United States.  In an effort to get crowds to stay and spend past this date, businessmen in Atlantic City, New Jersey devise a beauty contest.  One of the judges is actor John Drew.  Drew Barrymore's namesake.  A press agent coins the hyperbolic moniker 'Miss America' for the winner, Margaret Gorman.
1928 - 1932 This Miss America Pageant is discontinued because of (unproven) charges that it is fixed and (unprovable) charges that its bathing costumes are immoral.
1935 The properties in the phenomenally popular board game, Monopoly, are named after streets in Atlantic City.  This is 'good for The Pageant.'
1938 The introduction of a 'talent' element in the competition produces an outcry from contestants.
1939 Rules are introduced to preserve the 'legitimacy' of the Pageant.  An entrant must be eighteen years of age and unmarried.  Miss America may not appear at an event where alcoholic beverages are served and she must always be accompanied by a female 'traveling companion.'
1941 This year's winner later appears in the feature films Devil Bat's Daughter and An Old Fashioned Girl
1943 Miss America sells $2,500,000 worth of war bonds.
1946 Pageant 'bathing suits' become 'swimsuits' - the latter being considered genteel.
1948 The first Miss America to travel abroad gives a thumbs-down to the new bikini 'swimsuit.'
1950 There is no Miss America!  (The title is post-dated so that 1950's winner is Miss America 1951 - Whew!)
1951 The Competition gets some competition.  Miss America's refusal to pose for photographs in a swimsuit causes Catalina, a major sponsor, to break off and start a rival pageant, Miss Universe.  Also, the first Miss World Pageant is staged in London.  Neither of the new pageants has a talent competition.
1954 The Pageant is televised - to 27 million viewers
1955 Two firsts:  TV game show host Bert Parks emcees, and The Pageant's signature song, There She Is, is performed.
1961 Miss America declares that she cannot decide which presidential candidate is better looking:  John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon.  Happily, she is not yet old enough to vote.
1967 - 1972 Miss America is a fixture on the USO tours of the Far East during the Vietnam War.
1968 Miss America is a National Trampoline Champion.  A feminist group protests The Pageant by burning a brassiere.  Cause and effect?
1971 This year's winner later marries the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
1974 This Miss America, not the crowd's favourite, is subjected to catcalls during her triumphal walk down the runway.  Also this year, the scholarship prize for Miss Congeniality is discontinued when forty-six contestants vote for themselves.
1981 In seeking a more contemporary image, The Pageant fires Bert Parks and hires TV "Tarzan," Ron Ely.
1983 Vanessa Williams is the first black Miss America.  Near the end of her reign, publication of nude pictures of her, taken some time before, brings about her resignation.  Her successor, first runner-up Suzette Charles, is a former Miss New Jersey and Little Miss La Petite.
1990 The Pageant introduces the Personal Platform concept whereby each contestant chooses an "issue of importance to herself and society."  Her commitment to this issue is one of the measures by which she is judged.
1996 Bangalore, India.  Police fire rubber bullets and tear-gas at one thousand protestors outside the Miss World contest.
1997 Contestants in The Pageant are allowed to wear swimsuits "in the styles and colours of their own choosing - including two-piece designs - except string bikinis or thongs."
1998 The Miss World Pageant reaches a TV audience of over one billion viewers.
1999 Miss World USA wins $10,000 and a $50,000 modeling contract.  All who pay the $30 application fee get a "free" one-year subscription to their choice of:  Jane, Jump, Us, Teen, Mademoiselle, or Harper's Bazaar.
2000 "Best Ideas" is the theme for a Miss America Volunteers Workshop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  "Ideas do not have to be related to any particular subject."

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