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The History of Playboy

By kagarner

  • End of WWII

    V-J Day, Japan surrenders

  • Publishing of the Kinsey reports

    Sexual Behavior in the Human Male published

  • First Issue Published

    "It was as if America had been waiting for Playboy, and it in a way, it had." (Miller 44)

  • Playboy Advertising Made a Priority

    Victor Lownes brought on staff and made Playboy attractive to mainstream advertisers.

  • Fiction content upgraded

    Authors such as Vladimire Nabokov, James Baldwin, and John Steinbeck began to be printed in the magazine, making Playboy more than just a soft-core porn magazine.

  • "Playboy's Penthouse Apartment" article published

  • Hugh Hefner publicized as the "face" of Playboy

    An article describes Hefner as a man who: “likes jazz, foreign films, Ivy League clothes, gin and tonic and pretty girls – the same sort of thing Playboy readers like"

  • Playboy exceeds circulation of Esquire

    Playboy becomes the most popular men's magazine in America

  • Playboy Mansion Chicago purchased

  • First Playboy Club opens in Chicago

  • "Playboy Townhouse" article published

  • "Playboy Philosophy" began to be published

    Hefner used this outlet to discuss his views on a broad range of subjects with this 25 part installment.

  • Infamous Round Bed featured in a Playboy article

  • Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan

    Mcluhan was not the only important figure to participate in the Playboy Interview: figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Dolly Parton, and Miles Davis. The Interview worked to legitimate Playboy as a respectable magazine.

  • Penthouse magazine first published

  • Playboy Mansion West purchased

  • 1st time full-frontal nudity was shown in Playboy as a direct result of the Pubic Wars

  • "New Man" image created

  • "New Lad" image sees a return to traditional masculine values

  • The Girls Next Door premieres

  • Playboy Opens Its First Club since 1988 at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas

  • The House Bunny premieres in theaters