In June 1974 a package of Wrigley's gum became the first product scanned having one of these
[DOC] [TLE] eBook: Guide To Barcoding  Portable Intelligence [PAR] The Barcode (or bar code) is one of the most widely used automatic identification 
... it was not until June 26, 1974 that the first bar code on a pack of Wrigley's gum 
was ...