“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.
Nov. 21, 1945, Wilmington Morning News
20 top Nazis go on trial with their lives at stake
Twenty top-flight Nazis, once masters of Europe, sat meekly in a small oak-paneled courtroom yesterday in Nuremberg, Germany and listened to a five-hour recital of war crimes for which they may answer with their lives.
But two of them fell ill during the long day. Rudolf Hess, former No. 2 Nazi, suffered an attack of abdominal cramps during a court recess, and Joachim von Ribentrop, former foreign minister, collapsed and received sedatives.
Hess was able to remain in the courtroom and doctors said von Ribentrop would be ready for tomorrow’s session when the defendants will enter pleas of innocence or guilt to charges that they waged aggressive warfare, violated the rules of war and participated in the slaying of millions….
Nov. 21, 1980, Evening Journal
State Board of Education votes for four-district split
The State Board of Education yesterday approved a plan to divide the New Castle County School District into four districts.
But the plan, which the board wants to put into effect in September, must be approved by the U.S. District Court and almost certainly faces a legal challenge.
The board submitted the plan to the court today and sent copies to lawyers for the county school district and the plaintiffs in the original desegregation case that resulted in the busing plan for schools in Wilmington and 10 suburban districts….
“We hope this will return New Castle County schools to the position of prominence they held for many years,” said Albert H. Jones, president of the state board.
Jones said the state board felt it had to act because the New Castle County School District has permitted “racial imbalance” to exist….
The boundaries of the new districts would correspond roughly with the four attendance areas created under court-ordered desegregation in 1978.
The split would not end busing. Instead, it would pair mostly white suburban areas with mostly black sections of the former De La Warr and Wilmington school districts….
The percentage of black students will range from 25.8% in Area III to 28.9% in Area IV by the fall of 1982, according to projections by the Department of Public Instruction….
Recent school news:Delaware officials admit to ‘missteps’ in not communicating high lead levels in school water supplies
Nov. 23, 1963, Wilmington Morning News
Marxist charged as slayer of JFK
A 24-year-old man who professed love for Russia was charged with murder last night in the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas.
Police Chief Jesse Curry identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man accused of hiding on the fifth floor of a textbook warehouse and snapping off three quick shots that killed the President and wounded Texas Gov. John B. Connally.
The 46-year-old Kennedy was mortally wounded at 12:31 p.m. as he was waving and smiling while riding past a crowd that totaled a quarter million. Connally, riding on the jump seat facing Kennedy in the bubbletop limousine – its bulletproof glass down in the mild weather – was wounded by one bullet through the right shoulder. His condition was satisfactory. The special car was heading to the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was to speak.
As the shots reverberated, blood sprang from the President’s face. He fell face downward in the back seat. His wife grasped his head and tried to lift it, crying, “Oh, no!”
Kennedy died at Parkland Hospital at about 1 p.m. A grim but composed Vice President Johnson, who had accompanied the president on his two-day visit to Texas, was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States at 1:38 p.m. in the presidential plane on the runway of Dallas’ Love Field…
Within the hour, police had arrested Oswald following the fatal shooting of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippitt. Oswald was seized by police in a theater in the Oak Cliff district. Tippitt, 38, was shot in the street about five blocks from the theater. Minutes later, the theater cashier reported to police that a suspicious looking man had entered the theater.
Homicide Capt. Will Fritz said witnesses identified Oswald as the slayer of the officer.
Police said Oswald denied having anything to do with the assassination of the President but admitted he worked in the building from which the fatal shots were fired. Police were told at the building that Oswald had been there about the time of the assassination.
Fritz said Oswald had been identified by an eyewitness from a police lineup as the man who shot Tippitt.
Oswald denied that he had shot anybody.
Fritz said Oswald was a member of an organization known as “Fair Play for Cuba.”
Catch up on history:O.J. Simpson verdict, baseball home run record: The News Journal archives, week of Oct. 2
Nov. 25, 1963, Wilmington Morning News
Gunman slays Oswald at Dallas jail
Lee Harvey Oswald found merciless death lurking in a crowd yesterday, just as President John F. Kennedy did 48 hours earlier.
The accused presidential assassin was shot and killed while being transferred from City Hall detention quarters to the Dallas County Jail.
Jack Rubenstein, alias Ruby, 52, bachelor owner of a downtown Dallas strip tease joint, stepped from the ranks of some 200 onlookers and wordlessly sent a single pistol bullet into Oswald’s left side below the chest….
Ruby was charged with murder….
Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.
