50 Years of Walmart Eli Reichman / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images Wal-Mart CEO Sam Walton giving pep talk to employees at opening of a store in Topeka, Kan., in 1988. On July 2, 1962 - 50 years ago today - Sam Walton opened the very first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas. Little did he know at the time that he was laying the foundation for an American institution that would reshape not just the retail industry, but America itself. 4,400 stores later, Walmart's size and reach truly boggle the mind. Walmart is the world largest private employer - only the U.S. Department of Defense and China's People's Liberation Army employ more people. Its more-than-2.1 million workers exceed the population of 15 states and the District of Columbia. Each week more than 140 million Americans shop at a Walmart, a figure that far surpasses the audience of the 2012 Super Bowl or the voter turnout of the 2008 presidential election. And though Walmart's revenues - $443 billion for the latest fiscal year - are comparable to some of the world's largest oil companies, they absolutely blow away its nearest retail competitors. Target's latest fiscal year revenues were just shy of $70 billion. As Charles Fishman wrote in his book The Wall-Mart Effect, Walmart does more business by March 3 than Target does all year. Target doesn't have a single store outside the United States; Walmart's international stores alone generate almost twice Target's total revenue. Not bad for an outfit that was no more than a lone outpost in small town Arkansas just 50 years ago. MORE: The Unexpected Effects of Walmart Coming to Town Of course, you don't become one of the most powerful private organizations in the history of human civilization without turning over a few apple carts. Walmart's relentless drive for efficiency has bankrupted companies, put downward pressure on wages, and upset a retail culture that some believe was less efficient but more personal and aesthetically pleasing. In this sense, Walmart's story is the story of American capitalism. It is the story of an unwavering pursuit of innovation and efficiency and the casualties of that pursuit. There have been winners and losers in Walmart's headlong march to the top, and along the way the firm has transmuted the global economy and America itself. Here are 10 ways that Walmart has changed the world. Next: Every Day Low Prices Every Day Low Prices David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images From the very first store in 1962, Sam Walton's philosophy was "Always Low Prices." He knew that if he could sell products people used in their daily lives at prices just a little bit cheaper then the next guy, he'd be successful. That meant doing away with intermittent sales as was common in the retail industry. Instead of offering a very good deal every once in a while, he strove to simply offer the customer the best possible price every day of the year. For goods like toothpaste and toilet paper, that people use every day, this proved an irresistible marketing strategy. Such a pricing scheme became widely popular among the big-box stores that came to dominate the American retail sector in the late twentieth century. Next: Selection