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Here it comes, the onslaught of stories about aging baby boomers now that the first babies born in 1946 are hitting retirement age. They’re still youngsters to us—we’re celebrating our 75th anniversary this year. To note the occasion, we’re reminiscing about some of our accomplishments and testing highlights. Here’s a few of the things that were happening at Consumer Reports from the end of World War II until 1964 when the boomers were making their first appearance.

1945: Blind tasting
To make sure our panelists never know the brands of the foods they taste, we give them the test servings in containers marked only with codes. We went a step further in our 1945 tests of gelatin desserts, blindfolding the panelists to eliminate the stimulus of color.

1949: Advocacy
We have advocated for national health insurance from our earliest days. A 1949 report, “Health Insurance Around the Corner?,” said, much too optimistically, that “prospects for national health insurance have never looked better.” Health-care-reform legislation passed in 2010.

1952: The best aspirin . . .
. . . is the cheapest aspirin, we noted. All aspirin must conform to U.S. Pharmacopeia specifications unless the label declares otherwise. “And yet,” we complained, “the consumer is confronted by a variety of claims and a staggering price range”—from 6 to 59 cents per 100 at the time.

1953: Early warning for cigarettes
Our engineers measured the nicotine and tar content of cigarettes. Our reports were the only source of such data for consumers. (Smoking hazards were largely unknown when we first tested cigarettes in 1938.)

1954: Whatever floats your boat
Four boat kits by Chris Craft and Roberts— two 8-foot prams and two 14-foot runabouts—were advertised as easy to make. They proved to be anything but. The instructions were hard to understand, parts didn’t fit easily, and the required sanding and finishing were sheer drudgery.

1956: Toaster testing
We found just three high-quality toasters in our test of 22 models. Four had mechanical defects, sometimes “causing the toast to char, smoke, and burst into flame if the wall plug was not removed in time.”

1956: Early safety belts
Front belts were optional in all new U.S. cars, but quality was suspect. Of 39 belt samples, two-thirds failed our simulated-crash tests. The stitching gave out, webbing slipped, and buckles and floor brackets broke.

1959: Radioactive milk
Contamination of milk from nuclear-test fallout was a major concern. Consumer Union’s multi-city surveys found disturbingly high concentrations of strontium-90, a radioactive element that can cause genetic damage and cancer. In the late 1950s, the major nuclear powers agreed to a test moratorium.

1960: Dollars and sense
To counter advertising that enticed consumers to take on more debt, we called for legislation requiring the disclosure of true annual interest charges for all consumer credit.

1963: Keeping pace
A typical late-model car can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 8 or 9 seconds. The 2006 Dodge Viper, a “bold, brash, and loud” V10-powered sports car, needed just 4.2 seconds. A tiny 1963 sedan from Dutch automaker DAF took an agonizing 28.9 seconds to reach only 50 and was “almost hazardously unable to keep up with main road traffic,” we said.

We haven’t slowed down over the past three-quarters century. To learn more about our history, read “75 years bold.” And happy birthday, retirement, or both to those aging boomers.

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