Today in History
November 02, 1959
Charles Van Doren's Luck Runs Out
Thirty-year-old Columbia English professor Charles Van Doren—son of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren and novelist Dorothy Van Doren—admits to a House subcommittee investigating the rigging of TV quiz shows that he had been fed the answers while a contestant on "Twenty One." Van Doren first appeared on Twenty-One on November 28, 1956. Television viewers tuned in to see him go head to head with Herb Stempel, the show's reining champion for the previous six weeks. On the following week's program, Van Doren won out and dominated the show until March 11, 1957. The entire game show, however, had been scripted in an attempt to bolster flagging ratings and Van Doren, like his competitors before him, coached on how to behave while the cameras roll. Van Doren, after initially denying wrongdoing, admits before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce that he cheated and, along with nine other contestants, pleads guilty to second-degree perjury. The scandal that engulfs Twenty-One later inspires the 1994 movie Quiz Show.
November 2009
Today's Feature History Article
ATM - Art of the Game - Oct 08
At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, tech-savvy players gather clues in the alternate reality game "Ghosts of a Chance."
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