Attempt to Kill Roosevelt

Daily Sketch dated  February 17^th 1933

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Italian born Giuseppe Zingara attempted to assassinate President Elect Franklin D Roosevelt while he was giving a talk from the back of his open top car in Miami. Zingara was in the 10,000 strong crowd and was standing on a chair when he fired 5 or 6 shots towards Roosevelt. He hit the Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak and four other people but missed Roosevelt. 

He was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted murder, but when Cermak died a few days later the charge was changed to 1^st Degree Murder, even though he confessed that Roosevelt was the intended victim.

Nine days after the attempt Roosevelt  became President and a month later Zingara was executed in the electric chair.

The goal of the Houston Mount Everest Expedition was to fly over the highest mountain in the World which they succeeded doing on April 3^rd 1933 when Lord Clysedale and Colonel Blacker in one plane and Flight Lieutenant McIntyre and the photographer Mr Bonnett in the other, flew over the summit clearing it by about 100 feet.

Probably my favourite newspaper comic strip – Pop – started in 1921 by John Millar Watt.  I have the original 1925 Annual and as well as the humour, which hasn’t dated, there is the beautiful pensmanship to admire - just look at the man on the bike in the second panel.

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Mrs Meyrick was a nightclub owner in the Roaring Twenties in London.  I see Amazon has 1 used copy available – too pricey for my taste though.  I have Robert Murphy’s ‘Smash and Grab’ (faber & faber 1993) which has a good chapter on Mrs Meyrick and her colourful customers.