It's the birthday of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Herb Caen, born in Sacramento (1916).

He started writing his column 'It's News to Me' in the San Francisco Chronicle when he was 22, in 1938, the year after the Golden Gate Bridge opened. He continued writing 1,000 words a day, six days a week, for almost 60 years — becoming the longest-running columnist in American history.

He coined the term 'beatnik' in 1958, and he made the word 'hippie' popular in the 1960s. He also coined 'Baghdad by the Bay' to refer to San Francisco (back before the two recent American invasions of Iraq).


He said: "I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to Heaven. I'll look around and say, 'It's not bad, but it ain't San Francisco.'''


-from The Writer's Almanac-