3 German Planes Down (1940)

Evening Standard dated Thursday June 20th 1940

Click to Read

A little over 2 weeks after the evacuation at Dunkirk, this front page doesn't do much to cheer up the British public. On the 18th June Prime Minister Winston Churchill had made his now famous 'their finest hour' speech in the House of Commons following the Fall of France and things were looking pretty grim with the Luftwaffe soon to begin its 8 month long Blitz on England.

Random Ad - Sinclair and Amstrad (1986)

Click to Enlarge

Alan Michael Sugar Trading and Sinclair Research offering the very latest in Computer Technology. The Amstrad 8256 with locoscript word processing, a VDU and a printer was perfect for the budding novelist. The Sinclair 128 needed to be linked to a TV and was more games orientated. The 128 and 256 numbers refered to the memory sizes - 128k and 256k.

By the way 1 gigabyte is 1000000k.

Random Cuttings - US TV listings (1973)

Click to Read

Click to Read

Click to Read

Click to Read

Click to Read

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'

Romania's Ceausescu and Wife Executed (1989)

Today dated Tuesday December 26th 1989

Click to Read

 

Click to Read

What a cheerful headline for Boxing Day 1989.

Romania became a Communist country in 1947 and Nicolae Ceausescu soon found himself a series of important posts in the Government finally becoming second in command to President Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. When Gheorghiu-Dej died in 1965 Ceausescu took over. He ran an extremely strict Communist state allowing no criticism or debate.

In 1982 he ordered the export of much of the country’s agricultural and industrial production. The resulting extreme shortages of food, fuel, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drastically lowered living standards and intensified unrest. He appointed his wife, Elena, and many members of his extended family to government and Communist party posts.

The Ceausescu regime collapsed after he ordered the police to fire on anti-government demonstrators on Dec. 17, 1989. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest, and on December 22 the Romanian army defected to the demonstrators. That same day he and his wife fled from the capital in a helicopter but were captured and taken into custody by the Army. On December 25 the couple were hurriedly tried and convicted by a special military tribunal on charges of mass murder and other crimes. Ceausescu and his wife were then shot by a firing squad.

Randon Ad - Smiths Clocks (1960's)

Click to Enlarge

A blonde in trendy sunglasses getting her life-force from a torch battery. A 1960's advert for battery powered Sectronic clocks marketed by Smiths. Smiths introduced the battery powered Sectronic range in 1962.

Random Cutting - Roy Plomley obituary (1985)

30th May 1985

Click to Read

Apart from 'Desert Island Discs', which he devised in 1941 and presented until his death, Roy Plomley (pronounced Plumley) wrote 16 stage plays, a novel and scripted 2 films.

What will Hitler Say? (1938)

The Children's Newspaper dated 19th February 1938

Click to Read

Click to Read

Arthur Mee's Children's Newspaper not flinching from the serious subject of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1938. The 2 high ranking military gentlemen mentioned, Blomberg and Fritsch, were actually accused of having a homosexual affair and, although proved innocent, were removed from power to be replaced by Hitler's own men.

The speech of Hitler's that is mentioned in the article was the one in which he warned that Germeny would "no longer tolerate the suppression of ten million Germans across its borders". This was a precursor to the invasion of Austria on March 12th 1938.

Even the article about cave-dwellers was triggered by a speech on the European situation by the Foreign Minister Anthony Eden.