Cutting - Lady Drummond Hay reports from the Hindenburg (1936)

8th May 1936

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The 'Maiden Voyage' of the Hindenburg airship from Germany to the USA in May 1936. It wasn't actually the first commercial trans-Atlantic flight that the Hindenburg had made; it had been to South America earlier in the year. 

Lady Drummond Hay was a journalist for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. She had covered the 1929 Graf Zeppelin Around the Globe flight sponsored by Hearst and a marvellous documentary film of the flight and her participation can be seen on good old YouTube. 

The 'Saint' author Leslie Charteris was among the many celebrities on the Hindenburg flight and a very entertaining fictional account of his fictional investigation into a fictional murder on board can be read in Max Allen Collin's book 'The Hindenburg Murder'. 

It was at Lakehurst almost a year to the day later that the Hindenburg crashed in flames on 6th May 1937 and in doing so ended the era of the great passenger airships.

For anyone interested in the so called 'Maiden Flight' I recommend this website.

Cutting - Demoted General (1944)

8th June 1944

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A little tit-bit following the D-Day landings from an American paper. On the 18th April 1944 in the Claridge's Hotel restaurant in London the rather drunk Ninth Airforce Services Commander, Major General Miller complained to a nurse that something he had ordered from the States would not arrive in England before June 15th "well after the invasion". 

This wasn't the only breach in the extremely secret D-Day plans. For instance back in March Basil Liddell Hart, a militery expert, had been with Duncan Sandys, the Minister for Supply, at another London hotel when he showed the Minister what appeared to be details of the invasion and complained to Sandys that he hadn't been officially consulted. Sandys notified Churchill and Liddell Hart had his knuckles rapped.

Cutting - Atlantic Rower (1969)

20th July 1969

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John Fairfax was the first person to row the Atlantic solo. He set off on January 20th 1969 and arrived in Florida 180 days later on July 19th. In 1971/2 he rowed, along with Sylvia Cook, the Pacific taking 361 days. He died in Nevada in 2012 at the age of 74.

Random Cutting - The Klu Klux Klan (1924)

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This is a cutting from the Children's Newspaper dated 13th September 1924. 

The original Klu Klux Klan was organized by ex-Confederates after the American Civil War but had died out by the mid-1870's. In 1915 D W Griffith's epic silent film 'Birth of a Nation' seemed to create a revival of the Klan, who now adopted the costume and regalia shown in the film, white cloaks and pointed hoods. The original Klan looked more as they were depicted in Quentin Tarrantino's film 'Django Unchained'. By 1924 they were claiming 4 to 5 million members but by 1930 this had dropped to 30,000.

The Democrat candidate for the 1924 Presidential Election, John W Davis lost the race to the White House to Republican Calvin Coolidge.

Random Cutting - Kennedy on crutches (1961)

June 9th 1961

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It is now common knowledge that John F Kennedy had suffered from back pain since 1938 and normally wore a corset or back brace, but this and other information about his health issues had been kept secret throughout his campaign and election to the White House. JFK also had Addison's disease and hypothyroidism.

Random Cutting - Richard Loeb Murdered in Prison (1936)

29th January 1936

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Back in 1924 the two rich friends Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and murdered 14 year old Booby Franks, caught and put on trial. They both received life plus 99 years. It was probably the efforts of their famous defence lawyer, Clarence Darrow, that saved them from being executed. James Day was never convicted of killing Loeb and served the rest of his original sentence, being released in 1942.

Random Cutting - Death of Ernie Kovaks (1962)

14th January 1962

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I'm not sure today's newspapers would print such a graphic picture of a dead celebrity. Ernie Kovaks an American radio and TV star, comic, scriptwriter, film actor, novelist and during the early 1950's the first TV innovator who, by stretching the existing video technology to its limits, won a posthumous  Emmy in 1962. As shown above he died in car accident in Los Angeles on the 13rh January 1962. 

Random Cutting - New York Skyscraper Fire (1927)

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This dramatic photo is from the Times Weekly Edition dated 28th April 1927. The original Netherlands Hotel on New York's 5th Avenue had been torn down to make way for this new 38 story replacement. During the buildings construction, on the 12th April 1927, the wooden scaffolding around the top 16 stories caught fire and the ensuing flames took 12 hours to put out.

A description of the incident appears in the introduction to Bill Bryson's 2013 book 'One Summer - 1927' 

Final Ultimatum To-day (1945)

Daily Mail dated Thursday August 9th 1945

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On August 6th 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 8th 1945 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Later that same day, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on the city of Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered  Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms for ending the war that the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration. 

On August 15th Emperor Hirohito made a radio broadcast across the Empire to announce the surrender of Japan to the Allies.

On August 28th the occupation of Japan by the Allied Powers began and the surrender was signed aboard the USS Missouri on September 2nd 1945

Nixon to be Impeached (1974)

Sunday Mirror dated Sunday June 28th 1974

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The House Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings against President on May 9th 1974, which returned a majority vote for impeachment for obstruction of justice during the Watergate Scandal and its subsequent cover-up. Impeachment would mean a trial by the Senate and rather than face that, Nixon resigned on August 9th 1974.

Random Cutting - US Plane Crash (1929)

18th March 1929

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The Colonial Western Airways plane, a Ford 5-AT-B Tri-Motor had just taken off from Newark on a sightseeing trip around New York with 13 passengers, a pilot and a friend of the pilot (also in the cockpit), when it failed to gain height and crashed onto railway sidings. The sightseers were all killed instantly, the friend died the next day and the pilot survived.

Random Cutting - New York World's Fair bombing (1940)

5th July 1940

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The New York World's Fair ran from April to August in both 1939 and 1940. By the second season World War II had started and some exhibitors dropped out. On July 4th 1940 an unexploded time-bomb was found in the British Pavillion and taken outisde by a security man. Two officers of the NYPD Bomb squad arrived and tried to defuse it, the bomb exploded killing them and injuring by-standers. A police manhunt failed to find who had planted the bomb and the case remains open and unsolved..

Live Aid (1985)

The Mirror dated Monday July 15th 1985

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Live Aid was a pair of pop music concerts held on July 13th 1985, one at Wembley in London and the other at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, organised by musicians Bob Geldoff and Midge Ure to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia that had been going on since 1983 and took 400,000 lives.

The concerts featured the likes of Status Quo, The Style Council, The Boomtown Rats, Adam Ant, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Elvis Costello, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Sting, Phil Collins, Howard Jones, Bryan Ferry, Paul Young, U2, Dire Straits, Queen, David Bowie, The Who, Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Paul McCartney, Four Tops, Billy Ocean, Black Sabbath, Run–D.M.C, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bryan Adams, The Beach Boys, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, Santana, Madonna, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood. I watched it on and off all day and of course recorded some of it on VHS video.

Hurricane in UK and Reagan's Revenge in Lybia (1986)

Daily Express dated Tuesday March 25th 1986

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This hurricane on March 24th 1986 was not the hurricane of October 15th 1987, which weatherman Michael Fish failed to warn us about, but was till pretty drastic. If you try to Google this 1986 hurricane all you get is references to 1987.

In 1973, Lybian Leader Kadhafi (now normally spelt Gaddafi) claimed much of the Gulf of Sidra to be within Libyan waters with an exclusiion zone of  62 nautical miles. Gaddafi declared it 'The Line of Death', the crossing of which would invite a military response. The US claimed its rights to conduct naval operations in international waters using the standard of 12-mile territorial limit. On March 23rd 1986 several US warships tested Gaddafi's resolve by crossing the Line. The ensuing skirmishes resulted in 35 non-US dead, a Lybian corvette and a Lybian patrol boat sunk. Some SAM missile sites on the mainland were also damaged.

Far East Crisis send Ike Home (1958)

Daily Express dated Thursday September 11th 1958

In January 1955, the U.S. Congress passed the “Formosa Resolution,” which gave President Eisenhower total authority to defend Formosa (now Taiwan) and the off-shore islands of Quemoy and Mazu. The Eisenhower Administration considered many options, ranging from convincing Chiang Kai-Shek to give up the islands to employing nuclear weapons against the People’s Republic of China. Luckily for World Peace and probably due to Russian pressure, China backed down and stopped bombing the disputed Island in the Formosa Straits. 

In 1958 the bombing resumed and President Eisenhower was concerned that the loss of the islands would hurt Nationalist morale and might be a precursor to the Communist conquest of Formosa. The United States thus arranged to re-supply the Republic of China garrisons on Quemoy and Mazu. This brought an abrupt end to the bombardment and eased the crisis. Eventually, the Communist and Nationalist Chinese came to an arrangement in which they shelled each other’s garrisons on alternate days. This continued for twenty years.

See also this post and this post.

6 Minute War (1979)

Sunday Mirror dated Sunday November 11th 1979

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Those were the days my friends when total annihilation of the human race was just a button push away, or at least some-idiot-not-checking-that-a–training-exercise-could-be-mistaken-for-the-real-thing away. This was just one of at least 4 false alarms during the Cold War.

Random Cuttings - US TV listings (1973)

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The week's TV programmes in New York published on 6th October 1973. Just thought that someone might enjoy clicking on the listings and admiring the lack of 'reality shows'. There's a few British imports like 'The Saint', 'The Avengers' and 'Department S'

Fall of Saigon (1975)

Daily Mail dated Wednesday 30th April 1975

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From 1973 direct US Military involvement in South Vietnam was being wound down and by 1975, what remained of the South Vietnamese Army was not capable of withstanding the advance of the Communist North forces and it was inevitable that the South’s capital Saigon would fall sooner or later.

In early April 1975 the Communist Army was getting so close that many US personnel were evacuated from Tan Son Nhut airport, but by the last week in April the Communists were on the outskirts of Saigon and Operation Frequent Wind was activated. Helicopters were used to evacuate over 1300 Americans and nearly 6000 ‘vulnerable’ Vietnamese from central Saigon to aircraft carriers waiting out at sea.

The North Vietnamese forces didn’t interfere with the evacuation and only moved into the city when it had finished at 08:00 on the 30th April. The Vietnam War, which had started18 years earlier, finally ended. Saigon was re-named Ho Chi Minh City.

Random Cutting - Little Rock: Faubus Defiant (1958)

13th September 1958

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In 1954 the US Supreme Court had ordered that all Schools should be racially de-segregated, consequently the  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People encouraged black students to enrole in previously all-white schools. In 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas' Governor, Orval Faubus, brought in the National Guard to prevent black students enrolling. President Eisenhower oredered the U.S Army to intervene and also brought the Arkansas National Guard under direct Federal control. In September 1958 Faubus tried another tack; he passed a bill to close down the 4 major high schools in Little Rock. The schools re-opened the following August. 

Random Cuttings - Al Capone and Edgar J Hoover (1938)

9th September 1938

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28th September 1938

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The roaring twenties and the blood soaked thirties were nearly over and the era of the Gangster was over, or so J Edgar Hoover thought. Al Capone was in Alcatraz and would stay there until January 1939 when he spent the last 11 months of his sentence in Terminal Island slowly but surely going mad - not just from fear but from neurosyphilis.