Video: 'President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressing the nation about the Selective Ser...HD Stock Footage'

(Tuesday, October 29, 1940, 12:30 pm. EST; during World War II) — Secretary of War Henry Stimson stood blindfolded on the stage of the War Department’s auditorium above Constitution Avenue today and drew from an immense glass bowl the first number, 158, in the nation’s democratic lottery under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.

By his historic act, Stimson set in motion the first peacetime compulsory military service program in the history of the U.S.

Video: 'The World at War: On Our Way: U.S.A. - 1939-1942 (7 of 26)' (Oct. 29, 1940, at 6:27)

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presided at the ceremonies, and Cabinet officers, officers of the armed forces and veterans of World War I stood solemnly by as Stimson drew from the bowl the cobalt blue capsule which contained the first number.

The Secretary passed the capsule to the President, who opened it, lifted out the slip of paper on which the number was inscribed, paused, and then read into the battery of microphones connected all the radio networks of the country: “1-5-8.”

The first men would enter military service on Nov. 18, 1940.