After first opening in 1985, Blockbuster grew to 9,000 stores — opening one store every 17 hours by 1989. It eventually was killed off by mail-in and instant-streaming services, such as Netflix. At its peak, almost half of the families in the entire country were going in a Blockbuster video store every week.
Blockbuster once had the chance to buy Netflix, which was founded in 1997, for $50 million but passed on the opportunity, Business Insider reported.
