Sensational, human-interest stories were called “soft news;” they became the basis of Time, Inc. Corporation’s new magazine called People. On this day, March 4, 1974, People magazine first went on sale. Volume 1, Issue 1 was dated for the following week: March 11. Its very first issue, sold on newsstands for 35 cents each, had Mia Farrow, star of the movie The Great Gatsby on the cover, and interviews with Gloria Vanderbilt and author Alexander Solzhenitsin.