notes.husk.org/likes images.

War Lotteries, from top: 

1. On 20 July 1917, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, blindfolded, drew the first draft number in the lottery to be called up: Number 258. Those drafted were to serve in the American forces during world War I.

2. Representative Alexander Pirnie (Rep., NY) reaches into the bowl to draw the first date in the draft lottery held at Selective Service Headquarters for the war in Vietnam, Washington, D.C., December 2, 1969.

3. Judith Hillenbrand, New York State’s representative on the Youth Advisory Committee of the Selective Service System, picks a capsule in Washington, D.C. night of Dec. 1, 1969 for the birth-date drawing of the 1970 draft lottery. Opening the capsules at right is Helen F. King. Man in background is unidentified

4. Selective Service Director Curtis Tarr spins the drum containing the sequence capsules, as the draft lottery got underway in the Commerce Department auditorium. The lottery was to determine the callup order of nearly 2 million young men turning 19 this year on the basis of pairing of 365 capsules containing the days of the year and an equal number of blue capsules containing draft sequence numbers 1 through 365. February 1972. 

5, 6. Australian Vietnam Draft Lottery. The draw was done from a barrel that had been used for 50 years for Tattersall’s cup sweeps, filled with 181 numbered marbles representing the days of the year from January 1 to June 30. Alternate lotteries would have 184 balls for the dates of the rest of the year. From that first ballot, on March 10, 1965, around 2100 men would be called up.