Today
is Tuesday, July 17, 2012. I suppose this means that we're going to
take another trip back through time to a significant event in the
world of pop culture. Unlike other Tuesday Timeline entries where I
had several possibilities to choose from, this day had one event that
basically screamed “pick me”!
So,
I did.
Of
course, no Tuesday Timeline would be complete without taking a look
back at the other significant events that also took place on July
17th.
So,
on this date in...
180
– Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed
because they were Christians
1203
– The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault, forcing
Byzantine Emperor Alexius III Angelus flees in exile
1717
– Aside from the coolness of the date being written as 7/17/1717,
on this date, King George I sails down River Thames with a barge of
50 musicians, where George Friedric Handel's “Water Music” is
premiered
1791
– Members of the French National Guard under General Lafayette's
command open fire on a group of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars
in Paris, France, killing as many as 50 people
1794
– The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compeigne are executed ten days
prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror
1856
– The Great Train Wreck of 1856 kills over 60 people in Fort
Washington, Pennsylvania
1867
– The first school of dentistry, Harvard School of Dental Medicine,
is opened in the United States
1899
– NEC Corporation is organized at the first Japanese joint venture
with foreign capital
1912
– House Party host Art Linkletter is born in Moose Jaw,
Saskatchewan, Canada
1917
– King George V issues proclamation stating that the male
descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor
1918
– The RMS Carpathia sinks off the coast of Ireland by the German SM
U-55, killing five people...the boat was made famous six years
earlier after assisting in the Titanic rescue efforts
1932
– Altona Bloody Sunday occurs
1933
– Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe after
successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean
1938
– Douglas Corrigan earns the nickname “Wrong Way Corrigan”
after taking off from Brooklyn, New York to fly the wrong way to
Ireland
1944
– Two ammunition loaded ships crash into each other in the San
Francisco Bay outside of Port Chicago, California, killing 320 people
1945
– The three Allied Nations leaders (Joseph Stalin, Winston
Churchill, and Harry S. Truman) meet to discuss a defeated Germany's
future
1959
– Singer Billie Holliday dies in New York City at the age of 44
1976
– East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th
Indonesian province, while the opening ceremonies of the Montreal
Olympic Games are marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New
Zealand team
1981
– At the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, 114 are
killed and at least 200 injured after a walkway collapses in the
hotel's main lobby
1989
– The first flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber
1996
– TWA Flight 800 from New York City to Paris, France explodes
shortly after takeoff, killing all 230 people on board
2007
– TAM Airlines Flight 3054 crashes in San Paolo, Brazil, killing
199 people, and making it Brazil's deadliest aviation accident
2009
– The double bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels in
Jakarta kill nine people on the same day that Walter Cronkite passes
away at the age of 92
WOW...July
17 was an unusually deadly day in history. Plane crashes, partial
building collapses, and train disasters. What an unlucky day. I
suppose it's a good thing that I chose a relatively happy event in
comparison.
Before
we get to that, I want to wish the following people a happy birthday.
A happy July 17th
birthday to Phyllis Diller, Jimmy Scott, Diahann Carroll, Donald
Sutherland, Connie Hawkins, Don Kessinger, Catherine Schell, Camilla,
Duchess of Cornwall, Charlie Steiner, P.J. Soles, Lucie Arnaz, David
Hasselhoff, Angela Merkel, J. Michael Straczynski, Bryan Trottier,
Dawn Upshaw, Regina Belle, John Ventimiglia, Craig Morgan, Beth
Littleford, Bitty Schram, Andre Royo, Jason Rullo, Tony Dovolani,
Eric Moulds, Luke Bryan, Eric Winter, Marc Savard, Noah “Panda
Bear” Lennox, Mike Vogel, Natasha Hamilton (Atomic Kitten), Sarah
Jones, and Brooke Kinsella.
So,
what year are we visiting this time around?
Why,
July 17, 1955, of
course. You see, July 17, 1955 saw the dedication of a theme park
right in the heart of California...Anaheim to be exact. The park was
dedicated at 4:43 in the afternoon of that date by the very man whom
the park was named after. And, amusingly enough, that day didn't
exactly go as planned. In fact, the dedication ceremony itself was
filled with one disaster after another, leaving executives of the
park to refer to the event as “Black Sunday”. The day was so
filled with disaster that for the first decade that the park was
opened, the executives and staff of the park would insist on
celebrating the anniversary of the park on July 18 instead! These
days, it appears as though the park has accepted its original date of
dedication, as every July 17, cast members and employees of the park
are required to wear a pin celebrating the park's birthday.
Would
you like to read the original speech that was read to the public
announcing the opening of the new theme park on July 17, 1955? Here
you go!
To
all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land.
Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor
the challenge and the promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated
to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created
America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and
inspiration to all the world.
- Walt Disney, July 17, 1955
That's
right. Today's entry is all about the the magical place known as
Disneyland, Walt Disney's first theme park, and the only park that
Walt Disney directly supervised before his death in 1966. Disneyland
of course wouldn't be the only theme park (Walt Disney World opened
in Florida in October 1971, and there are now Disney theme parks in
Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, and Hong Kong), but its founding, as well as
the mishaps that occurred at the opening are worth mentioning, just
to illustrate how far the park has come.
So,
what inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland? Well, it began while
he was taking his daughters, Sharon and Diane, to Los Angeles'
Griffith Park. He watched them riding the merry-go-round there, and
the gears in his brain began to turn. Why couldn't he create a place
where both kids and adults could have a lot of fun and share some
wonderful memories?
When
Disney received quite a few letters in the mail from fans who wanted
to visit the studios, Walt Disney didn't think that the studios had
the sufficient space needed to accommodate thousands of visitors each
week. But he thought about opening up a small park near the studios
which could handle the traffic. His first concept of Disneyland
started off as a venture that he named “Mickey Mouse Park”. And,
initially, his plan only used eight acres of land. But after
visiting other theme parks all over the world for inspiration, he
quickly discovered that eight acres just wasn't enough.
He
hired a consultant, Harrison Price from the Stanford Research
Institute to research areas where he could build his park, and based
on Price's report, Disney purchased 160 acres filled with orange
groves and walnut trees in Anaheim, California. To fund the project,
Disney used the power of television, creating a new television show
with the name of “Disneyland”. It was broadcast on the
struggling ABC network, and in exchange, ABC promised to help finance
the building of the new park. By 1952, Disney had a name for his
park picked out. It was to originally be called Disneylandia, but
two years later, taking the advice of the ABC network, shortened the
name to Disneyland. The construction of the park began on July 16,
1954, and reportedly cost $17 million to build.
TRIVIA:
At the same time that Disneyland was being built, so was U.S. Route
101 (later renamed Interstate 5). Because of the traffic that
everyone expected that the completed Disneyland would bring, the
decision was made to add two more lanes to the finished design, and
was completed just before the park was set to open.
One
year plus a day later, Disneyland was ready to be opened to the
public. Although the park and its 20 attractions were scheduled to
be opened on Monday, July 18, 1955, Walt Disney had arranged for a
press conference to take place at the park itself that Sunday, and
only invited guests and the media were allowed on the premises for
the “International Press Preview”. There were 28,000 people who
attended the event, but the kicker was that only 14,000 were there
legitimately, and held real tickets. The rest had purchased
counterfeit tickets. So, that was problem number one.
The
dedication ceremony was broadcast nationally on ABC live, and it was
anchored by Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter, and Bob Cummings. But the
decision to air the dedication event on live television was plagued
with its own set of problems. Because of the large crowd that
gathered at the park, the cables that were attached to the television
cameras were constantly stepped on, and as a result, the cameras kept
cutting in and out during the shoot. Reportedly, the cameras also
caught one of the hosts, Bob Cummings, kissing one of the dancers
outside of Frontierland, which probably wouldn't have been so
scandalous had he not been married to his third wife at the time!
Later
in the day, Walt Disney began to read the inscription on the plaque
dedicating Tomorrowland when out of nowhere, Disney stopped reading
after a technician said something to him off camera, which threw him
off. It got so confusing that Disney had to start over again.
Things didn't improve any when the action shifted from Tomorrowland
to Fantasyland, where Linkletter attempted to shift coverage over to
Cummings who was on the pirate ship. But when Cummings wasn't ready,
he tried to switch back to Linkletter, who had by that point lost his
microphone, and Cummings was forced to do a play-by-play as
Linkletter searched for the microphone around Mr. Toad's Wild Ride!
If
you thought that was bad enough, get a load of some of the other
mishaps that happened that day.
- The traffic was backed up on Harbor Boulevard for hours on the day of the dedication
- It was originally planned for the planned celebrity guests to arrive on a staggered schedule every two hours, but instead the guests showed up all at once!
- The temperature on that particular day exceeded 100 F. As if that wasn't bad enough, due to a plumber's strike that was happening at the time, Disney was faced with having working drinking fountains and working bathrooms! What a choice to make!
- As expected, Disney felt it was better to have working toilets than drinking fountains, so on one of the hottest days of the year, the fountains were dry. As if things couldn't get any worse, the event ended up getting negative reaction from the invited guests...given the fact that Pepsi was one of the park's main sponsors, some believed that the out of order fountains were purposely made that way so that Pepsi could sell more of their product!
- The newly-poured asphalt wasn't fully hardened at the time of the event...it was reported that the heels of some women's shoes had gotten stuck as they walked through the park!
- Some of the vendors at the park ran out of food before the end of the day, and a gas leak ended up shutting down three attractions for the rest of the day.
It
was an absolute disaster that day. With so many mishaps, it's a
wonder that Disneyland even made it to the official grand opening at
all! The dedication event received a lot of bad publicity, and it
prompted Walt Disney to invite the attendees back to Disneyland for a
private “second day” to get the proper Disneyland experience.
Despite
the various blunders of the dedication day, the opening of the park
to the public the next day seemed to attract a lot of attention. It
was reported that people started lining up at two in the morning, and
approximately 50,000 people attended Disneyland on its official grand
opening.
And
over the course of Disneyland's 57-year-history, the park has
continued to grow. The park had three major expansions. New Orleans
Square was opened up in 1966, Bear Country (now known as Critter
Country) opened up in 1972, and in 1993, Mickey's Toon Town was
added. And of course, there are notable other features in
Disneyland, which include Main Street U.S.A., Space Mountain, and the
Walt Disney Enchanted Tiki Room. And Disneyland still attracts an
average of sixteen million visitors a year, so clearly it managed to
rise above its dismal opening to have a strong finish.
There's
a lot more trivia associated with Disneyland as well. Here are just
a few of the tidbits that I discovered in my research.
Did
you know that Doritos were invented in Disneyland in 1964? At the
Case de Fritos stand, they were created as a way to use up discarded
tortillas, and were given the name Doritos, which were Spanish for
“little golden things”. Two years later, Frito-Lay brought out
Doritos nationwide, and they have been popular ever since!
Did
you know that Nikita Khrushchev was famously denied entry into
Disneyland in 1959 due to Cold War tension? It happens to be true.
In the 1960s, the Shah of Iran was invited to Disneyland by Walt
Disney himself.
For
the park's 50th
anniversary in 2005, the eighteen month event known as the “Happiest
Homecoming on Earth” commemorated 50 years of Disney theme parks.
The park was decorated with 50 golden Mickey ears, and many
attractions were restored to their former glory to mark the occasion.
Visitors
to the park are referred to as “guests”, while the employees are
referred to as “cast members”.
Originally,
Disneyland contained a helipad which transported passengers via
helicopter from Los Angeles International Airport to the park, but
after two fatal accidents in 1968, the service was suspended.
Disneyland
spends an average of $41,000 each night the park holds a fireworks
display! That's a lot of bang for their buck, wouldn't you say?
In
May of 1981, the cost to get into Disneyland for a day was a mere
$10.75. In May of 2012, the cost was $87.00!
In
all the years of operation, Disneyland has ever only had three
unscheduled closures. The first one was in November 1963, when John
F. Kennedy was assassinated. The second was in January 1994 to
inspect the park for damages after the January 17 Northridge quake.
The third and final time so far happened on September 11, 2001,
following the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C.
Really,
I could go on and on with the trivia. I actually encourage all of
you to look at some of the facts that are associated with Disneyland,
because it is quite neat to read about.
That's
our look back on July 17, 1955. And, now I have a question to ask of
all of you.
BONUS
QUESTION: Have you ever been
to Disneyland before (I have NOT, but want to be a guest one day)?
And if you have, what are some of your memories of the place? I'm
interested in hearing your stories!
I have been to Disneyland so many times I can't remember. When I was young, my parents got divorced and my father moved to Southern California. When we went to visit him in the summer, we always went to Disneyland. It is still one of my favorite places, and I love sharing that with my children. I feel like such kid when I am there. So many great memories. I am a confessed Disney freak and more than half of my wardrobe consists of Disney t-shirts and sweatshirts!
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