Birthdays: Elsa Lanchester, Cleo Lane, Charlie Daniels, Evelyn Waugh, Jonas Salk, Bruce Jenner, Joan Plowright, Edith Head, Chef August Escolfiere the great French Chef who created Peche Melba and moved French cuisine to the front rank of world cooking, Charles Grovesnor the founder of National Geographic magazine, Joaquin Phoenix is 47, Dennis Franz, Bill Gates is 66, Don Lusk.
1726- Jonathan Swift published "Gulliver's Travels"-"To Vex the World rather than Divert it."
1929- Composer Irving Berlin scolded George Gershwin for his lack of patriotism that he unloaded his stocks and bonds. The Great Stock Market Crash the following day bankrupted Irving Berlin but Gershwin escaped unscathed. Stick to music, Irv...
1949- Kay Kamen, Walt Disney Studios merchandising mastermind, was killed in a plane crash in the Azores. For almost two decades the Baltimore-born ad man was the mastermind behind the creation of Disney merchandising, including the wildly successful Mickey Mouse watch. By the time of his death, Disney merchandising was earning the studio $100 million a year.
1963- First day of demolition of New York’s City Pennsylvania Station, a massive Beaux Artes building. It signaled the triumph of the automobile over the train. It took three years to demolish and today it’s destruction is considered a great cultural crime. The remade Pennsylvania station was an all underground facility. One writer said:” We used to enter New York like gods, now we come in like rats.”
The angry reaction over the destruction of Penn Station fostered the creation of the New York Landmarks Commission.
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