On the night of 1 December 1969, a glass jar of 366 blue capsules put every draft-age birthday in America in order. September 14 came out first. This is the story of that night, of why statisticians said the drawing was badly mixed, and of the system the lottery was meant to repair: about four thousand local boards, a list of deferments, and a Selective Service pamphlet that described the draft as a room "made uncomfortably warm" with several doors open.

Chapters
0:00 The night of the lottery
1:45 The jar
4:20 What it replaced
6:20 The doors
8:35 Who was left
10:45 The end of the draft

Sources include the Selective Service System's lottery tables; the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service, "In Pursuit of Equity: Who Serves When Not All Serve?" (1967); the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force (1970); "Channeling" (Selective Service, 1965, as printed in New Left Notes, 20 January 1967); Fienberg, "Randomization and Social Affairs: The 1970 Draft Lottery" (Science, 1971); Baskir and Strauss, "Chance and Circumstance" (1978); Oestereich v. Selective Service (1968); Gutknecht v. United States (1970); Proclamation 4483 (1977).

Archive film and photographs: U.S. National Archives, Library of Congress, LBJ and Nixon Presidential Libraries, U.S. Army and Department of Defense. Brief excerpts of the CBS News live broadcast of 1 December 1969 are used for commentary under fair use. Music by Scott Buckley (CC BY 4.0).

This film contains AI-generated narration.