Hard to imagine, but there have only been five anchors of the “CBS Evening News” (six if you count the pairing of Dan Rather and Connie Chung). And it was 50 years ago today, that the original went on the air. “Walter Cronkite with the News” debuted on April 16, 1962 as a 15-minute newscast.

As Bob Schieffer explained on “Face the Nation” Sunday, the show expanded to a half hour in 1963 and became known as the “CBS Evening News.”

“Over the years, I have been asked many times, ‘what was he really like?’” said Schieffer who anchored “Evening News” in 2005-2006. “I always reply, ‘he was off camera exactly the way he was on camera.’ There are not many of those, but he was just the way you would want him to be.”