Pearl Harbor Editorial (1941)

This editorial from the Spokane Daily Chronicle of 8 December 1941 is the newspapers’s response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the day before.

Nobel Prizes of 1929

This editorial from the Montreal Gazette of 14 November 1929 comments on the recipients of the Nobel Prize.  It provides a brief description of the winners in the sciences, but gives most of the space over to a discussion of German author Thomas Mann.  The editorial optimistically asserts that Mann is a firm believer in the Weimar constitution, and hopes that he will contribute to lasting peace between France and Germany.

A German Cartoon on Churchill’s Radio Speeches

This cartoon comes from the 13 September 1940 issue of the Wiener neueste Nachrichten. The title at the top: “The strong man at the microphone.” Churchill is giving a speech over Radio London while being pumped full of hot air, presumably.  One chap says to the other: “Don’t pump in too much, Tommy, or he will pop.”

This appeared near the height of the London Blitz when Germany was confident of victory.

Boy Mailed Using Parcel Post (1914)

This brief article from Corbett’s Herald (Providence, RI) of 7 February 1914 reports that a boy was shipped home by his grandmother upon payment of 18¢ in postage.  He arrived, the article says, in good condition. That probably would not work today.

News on the Holocaust from July 1944

In the same issue the Pittsburgh Press that carries the article on the 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler I posted yesterday was an editorial showing that the Holocaust was increasingly becoming known.  The extent, however, was still uncertain. Many more than 1,715,000 Jews mentioned in the article had been killed by the time the article appeared.

Assassination Attempt on Hitler (20 July 1944)

Six weeks after D-Day, a group of German officers attempted to kill Adolf Hitler.  The attempt almost succeeded. In the United States as in Germany (and the rest of the world), people were at first not sure what it meant.  Was Germany collapsing? Would the war end with an internal German revolt?  The paper’s prediction that German faced “civil war” was , unfortunately, optimistic.

The Pittsburgh Press carried the story on its front page on 21 July 1944..  I include the first part of the story here.  To read the full story, follow the link on Google News.

U.S. National Debt Increases by $500,000,000 (1931)

Today (2011), newspapers are carrying stories about the enormous increase in the American national debt. It’s a perennial story.  This article from the 3 June 1931 issue of the Milwaukee Journal reports the alarming news that the national debt will have increased by $500,000,000 at the end of the fiscal year 1930-1931.

President Hoover was proud to have reduced expenditures by $180,000,000 the previous summer.