Alfred Mosher Butts of Poughkeepsie, NY, was born on this date in 1899. An architect who could not find work during the Great Depression, he decided to design a new type of game. His first game was called “Lexiko,” which he then renamed “Criss Cross Words,” and then, simply, “It.” Finally he sold the rights to a businessman who gave the game the name it still carries: “Scrabble.”

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The finals of the first-ever International Tchaikovsky Competition was held in Moscow on this date on 1958. When the unexpected happened and a young pianist who was neither a Soviet national nor a citizen of an Eastern bloc nation but was an American won over the audience—which gave him an eight-minute long standing ovation—the judges were flummoxed. “Can we award first prize to the American?” they telegraphed the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev wrote back: “Is he the best? Then give him the prize!” Van Cliburn was awarded first prize and remains perhaps the best-known winner, although Vladimir Ashkenazy and Mikhail Pletnev won it in future years.

Cliburn performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 to win (video of the performance below the fold):
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