This week!

● Disney’s Ratatouille— the story of an aspiring chef (who also happens to be a rat!) and his alliance with a Parisian kitchen worker—was released in 2007. To ensure the authenticity of the film’s details, the animation team worked alongside famed chef Thomas Keller to learn the art of cooking, and kept pet rats in their studio so they could study their movements!

● America’s first zoo, the Philadelphia Zoo, opened its gates in 1874 to visitors who, for 25 cents (10 cents per child), could view the 616 animals that lived there. Since then, the 42-acre zoo has had many additional firsts, including the first orangutan, chimp and cheetah births in a U.S. zoo, the world’s first children’s zoo and the first U.S. exhibit of white lions!

● French fashion designer Louis Réard unveiled the first bikini at the Piscine Molitor, a popular Parisian swimming pool, in 1946. The two-piece swimsuit was made of only 30 inches of fabric and passed the test of a “genuine” bikini, he said, because it was small enough to be pulled through a wedding ring!

● Cosmetics pioneer Estée Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Queens, New York, in 1908. As a teenager, she started selling her own skincare products at local hair salons, then formed Estée Lauder Cosmetics Inc. in 1946— a move that made her one of the richest self-made women in the world!

● After being closed for nearly eight years following the 9/11 attack, The Crown of the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public in 2009. More than 10,000 people visited the monument that day for a chance to peer out at New York harbor from one of the crown’s seven spikes representing the seven seas and seven continents of the world!