October 1 Birthday
On October 1, 1908, the Ford Model T went on sale. It cost $850 — about half the price of competing cars. Ford would eventually reduce the price to $260 through assembly line efficiency. The Model T was built to be simple, durable, and repairable by its owner. It came in one color — black — because black paint dried fastest. Over nineteen years, Ford built 15 million Model Ts, making it the best-selling car of the first half of the 20th century. The Model T put America on wheels and created the suburban lifestyle that defined the century. Walt Disney World opened on October 1, 1971, in Orlando, Florida. It cost $400 million to build. Disney had secretly bought 27,000 acres of Florida swampland through dummy corporations to avoid price inflation. The opening day attendance was 10,000. The park now attracts 58 million visitors annually and is the most visited vacation resort in the world. Disney died in 1966, five years before it opened. Jimmy Carter, born this day in 1924, was the first president born in a hospital. He was a peanut farmer, a nuclear engineer who served on a submarine under Hyman Rickover, and the governor of Georgia. As president, he brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. He was defeated by Reagan in 1980. His post-presidency — building houses with Habitat for Humanity, monitoring elections, eradicating diseases — has been the most accomplished of any former president. People born on October 1 fall under the zodiac sign of Libra. The birthstone is Opal and the birth flower is Marigold. Historical events on October 1 include 1890: Yosemite National Park established by Congress, 1908: Ford Model T goes on sale for $850, 1971: Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida. Famous people born on October 1 include Jimmy Carter (1924), Julie Andrews (1935), Walter Matthau (1920).