This Week in National Press Club History
June 28, 1961: David Sarnoff, chairman of the board and president of RCA, discusses the future of space communications, and demonstrates his prowess with a telegraph key, a skill he learned as a telegrapher with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. He taps out “Greetings from the National Press Club to all the people of the world … and anyone who may be tuned in from outer space.”
June 29, 1964: National Press Club members vote 128 to 50 to readmit women journalists to the ballroom floor to cover luncheons. On May 11, they had been told they could sit down with the men, eleven days later they were told they couldn’t, but such was the fuss about that reversal, at a special meeting of all members, the matter was settled in favor of the women.
June 30, 1919: Prohibition begins at midnight in the District of Columbia, and the National Pres Club sells its beers and fine liquors to members for almost nothing.
June 30, 2011: The National Press Building is sold for $167.5 million to affiliates of AEW Capital Management and Quadrangle Development, but the sale does not affect the Club’s long-term lease of the top two floors.
July 1, 2011: Astronaut Mark Kelly, commander of the last flight of the space shuttle Endeavor, says his wife is the politician in the family, that he’s “the space guy" and sees no reason to change that now. He insists that American domination of human space flight “will continue for at least the next fifty years because we have laid the foundation for success … and for us at NASA, failure is not an option.”
July 1, 2013: Carly Fiorina, former chairman of Hewlett-Packard and CEO of Good360, says that rules and regulations coming out of Washington are choking America’s potential entrepreneurs. Only large corporations can afford the legions of attorneys, accountants and others who have the time to wade through the tens of thousands of pages of the tax code. More new and small businesses are starting and failing at an alarming rate, she says. Only in America, she believes, is it possible for someone like herself, who began typing and filing in a nine-person office, to become CEO of one of the country’s largest businesses.
This Week In National Press Club History is sponsored by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s stirring history through panel discussions, events, lobby displays and oral histories. For information on the Committee’s activities or to join it, contact Chair Gilbert Klein at [email protected].