December 27 holds a special place in the calendar thanks to several noteworthy moments from the past. Spain declared itself an official democracy on this date in 1978, and Charles Darwin embarked on his famous voyage on December 27, 1836. Nearly a hundred years after Darwin's departure, with the United States still reeling from the stock market crash that had struck three years prior, the doors of Radio City Music Hall swung open in New York City.
The vision behind Radio City Music Hall belonged to John D. Rockefeller Jr., who found himself holding a $91 million mortgage on a block of Manhattan real estate when the American economy fell apart following the 1929 stock market crash. Initially, Rockefeller had envisioned an opera house for the site, but that idea was ultimately abandoned in favor of something more "populist" in nature.
What followed was an impressive feat of marketing and corporate partnership. Rockefeller joined forces with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to build a music hall for the people — a venue where anyone could take in a quality show without breaking the bank. The collaboration turned out to be a natural fit, since RCA was already distributing NBC radio shows, which stood as the most popular form of home entertainment at that time.
In the years since it first opened its doors, Radio City Music Hall has welcomed over 300 million visitors to an enormous variety of events, from concerts to stage productions. The Hall's original designers foresaw that movies would emerge as one of Americans' best forms of escapism, and they built the venue with that future in mind — crafting it to serve as a premier showcase for major movie releases of the day and for decades to come.