Business History

William McGowan, the feisty founder of MCI Communications Corp. whose dogged challenge of AT&T forced its historic breakup and sparked a revolution in the telecommunications industry, died Monday. McGowan, who had a heart transplant in 1987, suffered a heart attack shortly after arriving at Georgetown Medical Center in Washington, where he was about to begin his regular cardiovascular exercise program. He was 64.

How much do you know about business credit reporting in general and your small firm's credit report and score in particular? Take this true-or-false quiz to gauge your business credit intelligence. You may be surprised by what you learn. If you're in business, you have a commercial credit score. False. Unless you have bankers or vendors that report your business' payment history to a credit reporting company, you may not have a business credit file.

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department said it would raise $7.6 billion in the sale of its remaining shares of American International Group Inc., ending the controversial bailout of the insurance giant with a $22.7-billion profit. The department agreed Tuesday to sell its remaining 234 million shares in AIG, which represented 15.9% of the company, for $32.50 each. The offering is expected to be completed Friday. The sale, in effect, closes the books on a bailout that, at its height, left the government pledging more than $182 billion in taxpayer funds to rescue the firm in return for owning 92% of its shares.

Talk about support groups! Gloria DeHaven, an actress-singer whose credits stretch back to the golden days of MGM musicals, had enough encouragement during the opening of her new act at the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill on Wednesday night to reassure a whole chorus line of performers. It started with an introduction by Lucille Ball--who looked fit and vivacious, bubbling with the wit and good nature that have made her an entertainment legend.

WorldCom Inc. was in trouble. The stock price was wobbly and Wall Street was asking tough questions. But Chief Executive Bernard J. Ebbers repeatedly put a positive face on his company, promising sound finances, strong revenue growth and conservative accounting -- famously reassuring concerned analysts in 2001 that "we do not see any storms on the horizon."

Neil Bogart would have been proud of his memorial charity--it threw a party Saturday that did his name justice. Bogart, the Casablanca Records president who died in 1983, was one of the most flamboyant party givers in show business history. "Neil loved all parties," said Paul Schaeffer, president of the Neil Bogart Memorial Fund. "He was 39 when he died. If you and I live to be 80, we would not have lived as much as Neil did."

With an Internet bid of $3,815, Yellowstone National Park officials have purchased a missing ledger from a stagecoach operator that preceded the automobiles and RVs that jam the park's roads today. The bound leather and suede ledger from Yellowstone Park Transportation Co., which provided stagecoach transportation for park tourists from 1892 through 1916, now belongs to park archives.

Dinah Shore was thinking serve-and-volley, not pitch-and-putt when she was asked to host a tournament in 1971. "I'd love to," the entertainer said when asked by David Foster, then president of Colgate Palmolive, about the venture. "It's tennis, of course?" she asked, referring to her then-favorite sport. "No, it's golf," Foster said. "She was a very good sport about it," he recalled Thursday. "She became a pretty good golfer." Shore, who died Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Employees of AT&T Information Systems were notified Tuesday that at least 1,200 jobs in Western states will be eliminated as part of a nationwide series of cutbacks in the company's general business systems division. Most of the cuts--about 800 jobs--will come in California, with Southern California losing more than 400, the company confirmed. The remaining cuts will be spread throughout the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains.