James Gordon Bennett Jr., publisher of the…

James Gordon Bennett Jr., publisher of the New York Herald, sends Julius Chambers, foreign correspondent for the newspaper for the past fifteen years, to Paris to launch, on October 8, 1887, the Paris edition of the New York Herald, titled The Paris Herald, the forerunner of the International Herald Tribune.

Bennett has often scandalized society with his flamboyant and sometimes erratic behavior.

He had left New York for Europe in 1877 after an incident that had ended his engagement to socialite Caroline May.

According to various accounts, he had arrived late and drunk to a party at the May family mansion, then urinated into a fireplace (some say grand piano) in full view of his hosts.

Bennett's controversial reputation has been thought to have inspired, in the United Kingdom, the phrase "Gordon Bennett" as an expression of incredulity.