Headlines in History

February 23, 1954

Children receive first polio vaccines

1978

Grammy awards a tie in Song of the Year, “Love Theme from A Star Is Born” and “You Light Up My Life”

February 24, 1868

President Andrew Johnson is impeached

1938

Trade paper announces Judy Garland

will star in The Wizard of Oz

February 25, 2004

The Passion of the Christ

opens in the United States

1862

US Congress passes Legal Tender Act

February 26, 1993

World Trade Center is bombed

February 27, 1827

New Orleans begins city’s

famous Mardi Gras

1973

AIM occupation of Wounded Knee begins

February 28, 1987

Gorbachev calls for nuclear weapons treaty

1983

Final episode of M*A*S*H airs

February 29, 1980

Buddy Holly’s glasses,

lost since his death in 1959, are found in

Mason City, Iowa

1972

Hank Aaron signs three year deal

with Atlanta for $200,000 per year,

making him highest paid player in

Major League Baseball

U. S. Flag raised at Iwo Jima

February 23, 1945

During the bloody battle of Iwo Jima, U. S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U. S. Flag. Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with them and recorded the event. American soldiers fighting for control of Suribachi’s slopes cheered the raising of the flag, and several hours later, more Marines headed up to the crest with a larger flag. Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with Associated Press, met them along the way and recorded the raising of the second flag along with a Marine still photographer and a motion picture cameraman.

Rosenthal took three photographs atop Suribachi. The first, which showed five Marines and one Navy corpsman struggling to hoist the heavy flag pole, became the most reproduced photograph in history and won him a Pulitzer Prize. The accompanying motion picture footage attests to the fact that the picture was not posed. Of the other two photos, the second was similar to the first but less affection, and the third was a group picture of 18 soldiers smiling and waving for the camera. Many of these men, including three of the six soldiers seen raising the flag in the famous Rosenthal photo, were killed before the conclusion of the Battle for Iwo Jima in late March.

Iwo Jima was important because it was to become a base for fighter aircraft and an emergency landing site for bombers when U. S. military began an aerial campaign against the Japanese home islands. It was a volcanic island in the Pacific, about 700 miles southeast of Japan. The first wave of military stormed onto the island on February 19, 1945, after three days of heavy naval and aerial bombardment.

On February 23, the crest of 550 foot Mount Suribachi was taken, and the next day the slopes of the extinct volcano were secured.

By March 3, U. S. forces controlled all three airfields on the island, and on March 26 the last Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima were wiped out. Only 200 of the original 22,000 Japanese defenders were captured alive. More than 6,000 Americans died taking Iwo Jima, some 17,000 were wounded.

Clinton County News Headlines:

Thursday, February 23, 1950 – Volume 1, #17

Tobacco average near that of last year

Kentucky’s burley-tobacco growers got an average of $45.69 a hundred pounds for their leaf in the sales season just closed.

This was only eight cents less than last season’s average. However, the total poundage was down, which also cut the total income for the state’s burley farmers.

New cafe to open Saturday

Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Clark will open the Clark’s Cafe, in the basement of their furniture store (the Charlie Brown bldg.), Saturday, February 25. New and modern equipment has been purchased for this cafe. Clark’s Cafe will serve sandwiches, ice cream, steaks, hot plate lunches, fish, etc. Hot biscuits served with every meal.

Advertisement on page six:

“Start the 30 day Camel mildness test today! Camels are so mild that in a coast-to-coast test of hundreds of men and women who smoked Camels – and only Camels – for 30 days, noted throat specialists making weekly examinations, reported not one single case of throat irritation due to smoking Camels.”…

…and on the back page

Albany Dry Goods was selling Boys Blue Denim Overalls Size 1-5 98 cents; Famous Brand Sheets First Quality Limit 2 per customer $1.79; Heavy Turkish Towels 20×40 25 cents; O.N.T. Thread 3 spools 10 cents.

Kentucky Facts and Trivia:

Clay knocks out Liston

February 25, 1964

On February 25, 1964, 22 year old Cassius Clay shocks the odds makers by dethroning world heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston in a seventh round technical knockout. The dreaded Liston, who had twice demolished former champ Floyd Patterson in one round, was an 8-to-1 favorite. However, Clay predicted victory, boasting that he would “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” and knock out Liston in the eighth round. The fleet footed youngster needed less time to make good on his claim. Liston, complaining of an injured shoulder, failed to answer the seventh round bell. A few moments later, a new heavyweight champion was proclaimed.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1942. He started boxing when he was 12 and by age 18 had amassed a record of over 100 wins in amateur competition. In 1959, he won the International Golden Gloves heavyweight title and in 1960 a gold medal in the light heavyweight category at the Summer Olympic Games in Rome. Clay turned professional after the Olympics and went undefeated in his first 19 bouts, earning him the right to challenge Sonny Liston, who had defeated Patterson in 1962 to win his title.

The descendant of a runaway Kentucky slave, Clay rejected his given name and became Mohammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam, an organization with a concept of racial segregation. He often spoke of the importance of the Muslim religion in his life.

In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with pugilistic Parkinson’s syndrome and has suffered a slow decline of his motor functions ever since. He celebrated his 70th birthday January 17.

Kentucky was a popular hunting ground for the Shawnee and Cherokee Indian nations prior to being settled by white settlers. Kentucky was basically uninhabited in the early 1700s, and the American Indians had treaty rights to hunt the land. One of the Shawnee’s most celebrated chiefs, Blackhoof, was born in a village near what is now Winchester, Kentucky.

When Daniel Boone and his early party tried to settle in Kentucky, the Shawnee and Cherokee, along with Lenape and Mingo, attacked a scouting and forage party that included Boone’s son. The conflict sparked the beginning of what was known as Dunmore’s War in 1774. The escalating violence between British colonists moving into land south of the Ohio River (West Virginia and Kentucky) and the Indians resulted in successive attacks by Indian hunting and war bands against settlers. The war ended that same year with the Indians losing their rights to hunt that area and agreeing to recognize the Ohio River as the boundary between Indian lands and the British colonies.

Watson and Crick discover chemical structure of DNA

February 28, 1953

Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Frances H. C. Crick announce that they have determined the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes.

Though DNA -short for deoxyribonucleic acid- was discovered in 1869, its crucial role in determining genetic inheritance wasn’t demonstrated until 1943. In the early 1950s, Watson and Crick were only two of many scientists working on figuring out the structure of DNA. On the morning of February 28, they determined that the structure of DNA was a double-helix polymer, or a spiral of two DNA strands, each containing a long chain of monomer nucleotides, wound around each other. According to their findings, DNA replicated itself by separating into individual strands, each of which became the template for a new double-helix

Watson later said that Crick announced the discovery by walking into the nearby Eagle Pub and blurting out “we have found the secret of life.” The truth wasn’t that far off, as Watson and Crick had solved a fundamental mystery of science – how it was possible for genetic instructions to be held inside organisms and passed from generation to generation. Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize in 1962.