Covering history in the making

Sep 10 2008 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

Tomorrow The Journal publishes its 50,000th issue. Alastair Gilmour continues the examination of the events we have covered since May 12 1832 and the shaping of history

IT WAS one of those headlines that virtually every newspaper in the world used: Kennedy Assassinated. And it’s one of those – thankfully rare – occasions where everyone knows where they were when they first heard the news.

The Journal of Saturday, November 23, 1963 used huge photographs of the presidential motorcade in Dallas seconds after JFK was hit by rifle shot. The sub-head summed up world tensions at the time, America’s obsession with Communism and the conspiratorial theory that would later be referred to as “the rush to justice”. It read: “Pro-Castro man held as No1 suspect”.

“Police today were questioning a Communist suspected of assassinating resident Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, last night. The prime suspect is Lee H Oswald, a 24-year-old Castro sympathiser and chairman of the ‘Fair Play for Cuba Committee’. He is a former marine and self-styled Communist who once renounced US citizenship and unsuccessfully sought to become a Soviet citizen.”

The 1960s also witnessed two other assassinations in America which altered the course of history. “Kennedy clings on to life” ran The Journal’s headline of Thursday, June 6, 1968. “Robert Kennedy was clinging desperately to life early today. His Press Secretary Frank Mankiewicz said at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles: ‘He’s living. He’s not conscious. But he’s breathing on his own.’”

Two months previously, Martin Luther King, clergyman, activist and prominent leader of the Civil Rights movement in America, was killed by a single shot as he stood on a balcony. With a description that shows how attitudes have changed for the better, on Friday, April 5, we carried the 3am News: Luther King Shot Dead. “Dr Martin Luther King, the Negro civil rights leader, was rushed to hospital in a critical condition after being shot in the head at his motel in Memphis. Police immediately sealed off the area and said they were searching for a ‘well-dressed white male’.”

Of course, assassination was not new in American political life; Abraham Lincoln had been killed a century previously. The Journal reported on Saturday, April 24, 1865: “This evening at 9.30, President Lincoln, while sitting in a private box at Lord’s Theatre, with Mrs Lincoln, Mrs Harris and Major Rathburn, was shot by an assassin who suddenly entered the box and approached behind the President.”

On Wednesday, December 10, 1980 the world learned of Beatle John Lennon’s murder. “The execution of John Lennon” headline in The Journal was followed by the report: “The man accused of killing John Lennon came to New York from Hawaii with the deliberate intention of murdering him, a court was dramatically told last night... Lennon, aged 40, was shot several times outside his home on Manhattan’s West Side on Monday night and was dead on arrival at hospital.”

A huge shift in the course of history was signaled on Tuesday, June 30, 1914 with The Journal headline: “The Austrian Royal Tragedy” which unfolded the story of Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serbian student, who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo. The assassination set a series of events into motion which escalated into the First World War within five weeks.

The first 25,000

The Newcastle Daily Journal and Courant of Thursday March 25, 1926 was our 25,000th issue. Among stories such as "Drunk after leaving workhouse" and "100-1 winner of the Lincolnshire Handicap" (King of Clubs, ridden by 15-year-old Pat Donoghue, had been backed at 200-1 some days previously in Leeds "by a number of Yorkshire sportsmen"), was the story of an ex-footballer’s wife who "Gave Age Away". Former Aston Villa and Brighton and Hove player John George Johnson appeared at Moot Hall Police Court in Newcastle and was ordered to pay £1 a week towards the maintenance of his wife and two children after he had left them in response to a telegram which his wife had opened in his absence. It urged him to return to Brighton at once – signed "Peggy". The report reveals: "During the hearing of the case, (the) defendant alleged that is was due to his wife that he was dismissed from Aston Villa. ‘A professional footballer never gives his right age,’ he explained. ‘My wife told the trainer, with whom we were living, my exact age, and I got the sack.’"

The continuing cover story

:: On January 2, 1841, The Journal (then a weekly) was published in an enlarged size as a result of "distinguished patronage".

:: A 24-page Modern Homes supplement appeared on March 31, 1956 and was advertised as "gay and lively".

:: March 30, 1961 saw the retirement of David Ashley from Low Fell, Gateshead, after 54 years’ service, mostly in the stereo department where the lead letters were melted down for the production of the next day’s newspaper.