22 February 1879: Woolworth opens its first five-cent store
Frank Woolworth opened his Great Five Cent Store in Utica, New York, selling everything for a nickel. It failed within months. Undeterred, he opened another in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that June, and it succeeded. Woolworth grew into one of the largest retailers in the world, a pioneer of fixed low prices. Its US variety stores eventually closed in 1997, but its sporting goods arm survives as Foot Locker.
The lesson: A failed first attempt says little about the idea; persistence and location can change everything.
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
Play Sixty-40