July 19, 1954: One of the more boastful cruise ships to set sail since the Titanic, the superliner United States (“America’s largest, fastest and newest passenger liner”) had an appointment with its own special “beauty parlor” in Bayonne, N.J. “A spokesman for the line said this would be the third time in her two-year career that she would be looked over below the waterline,” The Times reported. “Work to be performed at Bayonne will include bottom scraping, painting and a check of her propellers.” Photo: Robert Walker/The New York Times
June 3, 1953: “In the tramp of ten thousand marching feet the oldest among the spectators heard an echo of the might and majesty of the greatest empire that the world has ever known,” a breathless reporter for The New York Times wrote on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s crowning. “Only the British, among all the peoples of the earth, could have staged such a display and every moment of it seemed to be savored by an appreciative public drawn from the four quarters of the globe and from virtually every nation and people under the sun.” A far cry from these days, when it seems the only thing keeping the monarchy from receding into obscurity is a single tiny baby. Photo: The New York Times
"We had our first day of kindergarten yesterday, and I’m already starting to mentally prepare myself for the first boyfriend."
(Kiev, Ukraine)