This Week in NPC History: National Press Club hosts Middle East leaders

Sept. 13, 1993: Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat discusses the recent Israel-Palestine accord, in one of the fastest ticket sellouts in the history of the National Press Club. Through the years, the Press Club has hosted top leaders from the Middle East, including King Abdullah of Jordan, Foreign Minister Golda Meir of Israel in 1956, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1985, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzi in 2003, and in a Club first, a two-way satellite connection interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad in 2007.

Sept. 15, 1993: Hank Aaron, the celebrated Atlanta Braves right fielder, who surpassed Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714 in 1974, appears at a Club luncheon, one of many sports figures hosted by the Club. Bowie Kuhn, recently-elected commissioner of Major League Baseball, shares his thoughts on the current and future state of professional baseball in 1969; Baltimore Orioles legend Carl Ripken Jr, appears in 2007 and talks about his book Get In The Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance That Make The Difference; and Michael Rizzo, general manager of the Washington Nationals, in 2012 discusses his team's prospects for the season, and five months later, the team advances to the playoffs, the first Washington team in 79 years to do so.

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s century-plus history with lobby displays, events (including the upcoming Sept. 18 Centennial Spelling Bee), panel discussions, and its oral history project, which currently contains 200 interviews with leading Club personalities and are available to researchers in the Club’s archives on the fourth floor.

For more information on the committee, or to join it, contact Gilbert Klein at [email protected] and visit the new Time Line at the NPC website at press.org/about/history.