“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including The Morning News and The Evening Journal.
July 30, 1923, The Evening Journal
At 60 years, Ford is world’s richest man
Henry Ford, maker of automobiles and the world’s richest man, is 60 years old today.
Twenty years ago on his 40th birthday he was a poor man. He had just quit a job with the Detroit Edison Company, where he had worked for seven years, to organize Ford Motor Company.
While he was working as a master mechanic in the Edison Electric Power plant, carrying his dinner pail to work and drawing a salary of $125 a month, Ford was spending his nights and holidays working on his “horseless carriage.”
He established the foundation of his success – success in becoming the world’s richest man with a personal fortune of $750 million as head of the world’s largest automobile company.
Ford acknowledged that had it not been for the devotion and faith of his wife he could not have succeeded.
Although today marks Ford’s passing of the 60-year mark, it was observed only as another day in his life, without ceremony.
July 31, 1965, Wilmington Morning News
LBJ, Truman bask in Medicare triumph
President Johnson signed his $6.5 billion Medicare bill yesterday after journeying more than 1,000 miles to share “this time of triumph” with former President Harry S. Truman.
The new law, said the 81-year-old former president, will mean dignity, not charity “for those of us who have moved to the sidelines.”
Then, one hand on his cane, Truman stepped aside and listened as Johnson said the vast program of medical insurance for the elderly will bring “the light of hope and realization” to millions of Americans….
Truman went on to recall that there had been much debate within his administration about the wisdom of proposing medical insurance legislation. He said he finally told his associates: “We’re gonna do it boys, we’re gonna do it. We may not make it but someday we will.”
Aug. 3, 1923, Wilmington Morning News
President Harding dead
SAN FRANCISCO – “That’s good; go on; read some more.”
These were the last words uttered by the President to Mrs. Harding. The President’s hand raised as he asked Mrs. Harding to continue reading. Instantly his expression changed. He was dead.
Warren G. Harding, President of the United States, died instantaneously and without warning at 7:30 o’clock last night, a victim of stroke by apoplexy, which struck him down in his weakened condition after an illness of exactly a week.
The Chief Executive of the nation, and by virtue of his office and personality, one of the world’s leading figures, passed away at the time when his physicians, his family and his people thought that medical skill, hope and prayer had won the battle against disease …
He was definitely on the road to recovery from ptomaine poisoning, acute indigestion, and pneumonia which followed them …
The disease had been conquered, the fire was out, but seven days of silent, though intense, suffering had left their mark, and before physicians could be called, members of his party summoned, or remedial measures taken, he passed from life’s stage after having for nearly two and a half years served his nation and for many years his native state of Ohio.
With the passing of Mr. Harding, the office of President devolves upon Calvin Coolidge, Vice President of the United States, a man silent in nature, but demonstrated as strong in emergencies. He was notified of the death of Mr. Harding at his home in Plymouth, Vermont …
The body of President Harding will leave San Francisco on a special train at about 7 o’clock Friday evening and go directly to Washington, by way of Reno, Ogden, Cheyenne, Omaha and Chicago …
Aug. 5, 1972, Evening Journal
Shock wave from sun due tonight
Federal astronomers predict a shock wave of electrified gases, the result of a large solar flare, will hit the Earth’s atmosphere tonight, disrupting the planet’s magnetic field.
The solar flare, detected yesterday, was the second major flare on the sun in three days.
“It was one of the five largest ever observed,” said Ralph Segman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) information officer….
The “geomagnetic storm” will cause radio signal blackouts in both polar regions and cause appearances of Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, he said.
Segman added the storm might interfere with defense monitoring by the North American Air Defense Command. Other effects could include huge surges in power lines and alterations of satellite orbits …
Radio signal blackouts have persisted for several days in Antarctica and northern parts of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and the Soviet Union because of the new solar activity which began Wednesday …
The federal astronomers predicted that the Earth would be hit with a “sudden commencement geomagnetic storm” at 8:30 p.m. EDT today …
The flare is the result of violent explosions on the surface of the sun. The explosions bring about a bombardment of the Earth’s atmosphere by electrical particles, and the glow visible in the atmosphere is “an optical emission resulting from the electrical particle bombardment,” said Dr. Kay Baker, who directs the space science laboratory at Utah State University ….
Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.
