1955: Opening day1 ?Gq'r2V
An aerial view of Disneyland in 1956. The entire route of the {~g(WxE
Disneyland Railroad is clearly visible as it encircles the "7R"(.
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park.Disneyland Park was opened to the public on Monday, 【July 18, S~1>q+<Q
1955】. However, a special "International Press Preview" event was I)~&6@Jn
held on Sunday, July 17, 1955, which was only open to invited guests X !5
and the media. The Special Sunday events, including the dedication, %Z-^Bu8;y
were televised nationwide and anchored by three of Walt Disney's q #f
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friends from Hollywood: Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings, and Ronald $tyF(RybG
Reagan. ABC broadcast the event live on its network; at the time, it T`g.K6$b
was one of the largest and most complex live broadcasts ever.The event DPvM|n`TW
did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation- o5 6_t{<
only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets. All major roads qvz2u]IOw
nearby were empty. The temperature was an unusually high 101 °F (38 `nccRy<l
°C), and a plumbers' strike left many of the park's 【drinking F]~ rA! g1
fountains dry】. Disney was given a choice of having working fountains uX{n#i,~L
or running toilets and he chose the latter. This, however, generated DSY:aD!
negative publicity since Pepsi sponsored the park's opening; enraged nu,#y"
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guests believed the inoperable fountains were a cynical way to sell #5GIO
soda. The asphalt that had been poured just that morning was so soft aG7QLCL
that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank in. Vendors ran out of food. A gas )rv5QH`i
leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland,Frontierland, and Fantasyland @Md%gEh;&
to close for the afternoon. Parents were throwing their children over :.['e`
the shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur 0bxB@(NO
Carrousel ^4^1)' %
The park got such bad press for the event day that Walt Disney invited J=4R" _yo
members of the press back for a private "second day" to experience the hXi^{ntw,
true Disneyland, after which Walt held a party in the Disneyland Hotel ;crQ7}k
for them. Walt and his 1955 executives forever referred to the day as @cPb*
【"Black Sunday"】. Every year on July 17, cast members wear pin v8"plx=3
badges stating how many years it has been since July 17, 1955. For &^e%gU8!\
example, in 2004 they wore the slogan "The magic began 49 years ago *6~ODiB
today."But for the first twelve to fifteen years, Disney did mxtLcG4G
officially state that opening day was on July 18, including in the *vFVXJo
park's own publications. Disneyland referred to July 17, 1955, as |R:gu\gG
"Dedication Day" in one of its July, 1967, press releases. On Monday I%^Ks$<"
July 18, crowds started to gather in line as early as 2 a.m., and the O(;K]8
first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson zCKZv|j6
with 【admission ticket】 number 2, as Roy O. Disney arranged to pre- AOQimjW9a
purchase ticket number 1. Walt Disney had an official photo taken with U'zW; Lt
two children instead, Christine Vess Watkins (age 5 in 1955) and iph>"b$D
Michael Schwartner (age 7 in 1955), and the photo of the two carries a 9ctvy?53H
deceptive caption along the lines of "Walt Disney with the first two. IbC(/i#%`
guests of Disneyland." Vess Watkins and Schwartner both received !7!xJ&/V
【lifetime passes】 to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded $8o(_8Q)
one shortly thereafter, which was later expanded to every single 1"3|6&=
Disney-owned park in the world. 7PO3{I
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A Harvard Extension School class at Boylston Hall. Through the 1950s, |;_NCy8i3X
most Extension courses cost $5 each (slightly more than two bushels of #+HLb
wheat). Now any Harvard staff member can take a graduate-level course C
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for $40 a semester, making it possible to earn a master’s degree for F+Rtoq|
$400. It was 1835, and John Lowell Jr., the wealthy young scion of a XVAyuuTg\
prominent Boston family, sat by the Nile River in Luxor, a cradle of
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Egyptian civilization. Sick with fever, he drafted a long revision to c4ptY5R),
his will and mailed it home to a cousin. Months later, Lowell was lxy_O0n
dead.That revamped will included a bequest that has rippled ever wider t
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across almost two centuries. Most notably, it led to creation of the ;vvO#3DWM
Harvard Extension School, which is celebrating its centennial year, 3TqC.S5+
with the official anniversary in February.8 ]+ Lowell’s idea was A<l8CWv[
simple, but brilliant. Everyday people wanted to learn, he thought, % eWzr
and just needed a forum that allowed them to do so. In the 19th lY/{X]T.(
century, that method mostly involved public lectures. In the 20th fyPpzA0
century, it was usually classroom study, and in the 21st, the trend is 9Z]~c^UB
toward 【distance learning on the Web】. But what has been true of the \Km!#:
Extension School from its earliest incarnation is its devotion to )I'?]p<
public learning, and its students’ fierce desire to be ~>&7~N8
taught.Evolving far beyond its origins as a lecture series, the nf&PDv1
Extension School is now a degree-granting institution with 14,000 B*btt+6
students that this year is offering close to 【700】undergraduate and ehk5U,d
graduate courses across 65 fields, taught by faculty from nine of 8uq^Q
4SU
Harvard’s 10 Schools. The modern Extension School has embraced video r!SMF]?SJ
learning and podcasts. One hundred and fifty courses are available $Llv6<B
online, expanding the School’s reach to students in 122 countries. uKc
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About 20 percent of its students take courses exclusively online.! k a0I+|fR
! t+ V9Increasingly, said Michael Shinagel, the Extension School’s 1BT]_ cP
longtime dean, “the lectern is electronic.” Yet it was the forward- 4-;"w;
thinking Lowell, born in 1799 near the dawn of the American republic, jGpSECs
who launched this thriving Harvard institution. Half of his wealth — |f), dC
the princely sum, in those days, of $250,000 — in 1839 established K
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the Lowell Institute, the Extension’s precursor. His bequest is a aX`"V/
trust, active to this day, charged with offering public lectures in {<&i4;
Boston on the arts, sciences, and natural history, to students Yt&Isi
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regardless of gender, race, or age. The first Lowell lecture, on j8n_:;i*
geology, was held in 1840, in an era of rising working-class clamor _5TSI'@.4
for education. The public’s response was tumultuous, with tickets su;u_rc,
being distributed amidst near-mob scenes. The institute’s collegiate 2%|
“courses” — which were lecture series on a single topic — Z(DCR/U=(>
sometimes drew 10,000 applicants.By 1898, more than 4,400 free 9A_{*E(wd
lectures and courses had been offered through the Lowell Institute. B1<