This week in National Press Club history: Which candidate for the Reform Party spoke at the club in 1996?

This Week In National Press Club History


Oct. 19, 1973: Walter Cronkite, member of the National Press Club since 1948, receives the National Press Club’s first Fourth Estate Award. In 2015, Gwen Ifill, co-host of the PBS NewsHour, joins the distinguished recipients of the Club’s most prestigious award, including Eric Sevareid, Herb Block, Flora Lewis, Brian Lamb and Mary McGrory.

Oct. 22, 1984: The Club’s elegant Fourth Estate Restaurant opens on the 13th floor, catering to members only. The restaurant is now open to the public.

Oct. 22, 2014: Cyndi Lauper, singer and composer of the Tony Award-winning musical “Kinky Boots,” appears at a press conference at the National Press Club on the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. Once homeless herself, Lauper, co-founder and board member of the True Colors fund, argues that homeless children “are being thrown away because of who they are. You don’t know who they are going to be.” LGBT youth make up over 40% of homeless youth in the United States, she says.

Oct. 24, 1996: H. Ross Perot, the founder of two Fortune 500 information technology companies, speaks at a National Press Club luncheon as a Reform Party presidential candidate. He criticizes both his Democratic and Republican rivals, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, on ethical grounds.

This Week In National Press Club History is sponsored by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s century-plus history with special events, revolving lobby displays, panel discussions, and an oral history project. For more information on the Committee and its activities, or to join it, contact Chair Gilbert Klein at [email protected].