On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton -- who'd previously operated a Ben Franklin variety store and his own Walton's Five and Dime -- opened the first Walmart (then "Wal-Mart") in Rogers, Arkansas.
Opened in 1962, the bird-like concrete and glass structure envelops visitors in a swooping, cloudlike interior covered in more than five million dime-sized porcelain tiles.