Trump, over 200 years ago.Photo: Getty Images
Since this summer, the magazine Mental Floss has been running an online feature called “The First Time News Was Fit to Print,” in which they look up in the New York Times archives the first instances the Paper of Record mentioned people or items that are famous today (Woody Allen, for example, first appears in 1962 under the headline: “Young Men’s Hebrew Association Presents 2nd Jazz Concert”). Today they ran an all–New York edition, which reveals some gems:
• January 28, 1973: The big change in Fred Trump’s operations in recent years is the advent of his son, Donald … Donald, who was graduated first in his class from the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, joined his father about five years ago. He has what his father calls “drive.” He also possesses, in his father’s judgment, business acumen. “Donald is the smartest person I know,” he remarked admirably. “Everything he touches turns to gold.”
• November 9, 1975: Mr. Bloomberg, an intense personable Harvard M.B.A., now finds himself working 12-to-15-hour days — one man doing the work formerly done by three partners…. But that is not to say that Mr. Bloomberg is unhappy with his lot, for block trading remains one of the headiest areas in the brokerage business… For Mr. Bloomberg, who “loves the business,” lives modestly and claims he doesn’t really have the time to spend what he does draw down, the real rewards are thus far clearly psychic.
• March 30, 1979: The Comic Strip’s regular master of ceremonies, Jerry Seinfeld, will be there Monday discussing the complexities of “those little hangers they have for socks” and how embarrassed he is when he has to go to Disneyland, “because all those movable dolls know more than me.”
• September 13, 1964: Al Morgan, producer of Today, said he would not engage another woman to succeed Maureen O’Sullivan. The actress had succeeded a long line of so-called Today girls, although the tag had not been attached to her. The era of Today girls apparently is ended. Mr. Morgan said he would make more use of women already familiar to Today viewers — Aline Saarinen for discussion on art and architecture, Judith Christ for motion-picture reviews and Barbara Walters for news reporting.
Some things never change. Some do. What would really help here, though, is a timeline of all these people’s horrible hairdos over the years. We suspect Barbara’s, like Donald’s, has remained unchanged since 1964.
The First Time News Was Fit To Print [Mental Floss]
