It was this week in 1954 that the first trials of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine began throughout the U.S., Canada, and Finland.
The trials were successful—the vaccine was declared to be safe and effective! At last, the huge, epidemic numbers of polio cases began to decrease, and within a few decades the ancient disease was nearly eliminated worldwide.
Find more on the treatment and trials associated with this piece of history with a search on Newspapers.com.
Some fun veggie news from 1898—perfect clipping for a spring day!
Find more unique news like this on Newspapers.com with a search or browse through the collection.
Do you have ancestors from central Texas, particularly the Austin area? Or are you interested in newspapers from that region? Then come explore the Austin American-Statesman on Newspapers.com! Newspapers.com has issues dating back to 1871, the year the paper was first published. We also have issues of two related papers: the Austin American and the Austin Weekly Statesman.
The Austin American-Statesman got its start in 1871 as the Democratic Statesman, which was published thrice weekly. That same year, a once-weekly version of the paper, the Weekly Democratic Statesman, also began publishing (and would continue to publish under various titles until 1906).
In 1915, the Statesman (which by then had become a daily) combined with the Austin Tribune. Then in 1924, it was merged into a company with a paper called the Austin American, which had been around since 1914. However, the two papers continued to publish separately (except for a joint Sunday edition) until 1973, when they were combined to form the Austin American-Statesman. Today, the Austin American-Statesman is the main paper in Austin and central Texas.
Austin has long been a cultural, educational, and political hub, and this focus has been reflected in the American-Statesman’s content over the years. The paper has also traditionally had strong local and regional coverage, making it a valuable resource for learning about interesting and important events in Austin’s past. For example, you can read about the unsolved serial murders committed between 1884 and 1885 by a perpetrator dubbed the “Servant Girl Annihilator.” Or read about a dam collapse in 1900 that resulted in the deaths of 18 people.
The American-Statesman’s strong local coverage also makes it a great resource for genealogical research. Read about your ancestors’ births, marriages, and deaths, as well as stories from their daily lives, such as this piece from an 1883 issue about a local boy who narrowly avoided being killed by runaway horses.
Get started searching or browsing the Austin American-Statesman on Newspapers.com! With a Basic subscription, you can access issues up through 1922; or with Publisher Extra, access those early years plus issues from 1923 and beyond.
In September 1859, a crazy thing happened. A solar flare occurred, bright enough to be observed with the naked eye (as it was by an English astronomer named Richard Carrington, after whom the event was later named). The flare was large enough to affect Earth in the form of a solar storm.
As described above, the storm affected communications and existing technologies across the globe.
The sky lit up, bright as dawn despite the late night hour, and brilliant red auroras shimmered in silvery swaths overhead. There’s a rather nice description of the event in this clipping below:
Aside from the telegraph issues, which were resolved as the storm abated, and some fear that the world might be ending, the world was able to move on as normal after a few days. But the event was certainly a bizarre and magnificent display, something to be remembered for a lifetime.
Find more on the Carrington Event/Auroral Lights/Solar storm of 1859 with a search on Newspapers.com.
On April 19, 1775, the “shot heard round the world” is fired at Lexington, and the uneasy, growing tensions between American colonists and British soldiers shatter into conflict.
British troops arrived in Lexington to capture patriot leaders and found armed minutemen waiting for them. The brief battle ended in eight deaths on the American side and none on the British, and word spread like wildfire. War had begun!
Find more like this with a search on Newspapers.com.
Pretty sure some people must have given Mr. Hibbs the ol’ side-eye after this.
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His name sounds fake, but his kingdom sounded real. Gregor MacGregor scammed hundreds with a dream of a new, bountiful Central American paradise called Poyais.
MacGregor’s success in his scheme no doubt came in part because people had heard tales of his service in distant battles. He returned to England a hero and as the “Cazique of Poyais,”and his stories of the new kingdom of Poyais were compelling indeed. MacGregor backed them up with maps and drawings and details, bringing to life an exquisite fantasy. The lure was irresistible. Hopeful dreamers like James Hastie, whose account is related below, put their fortunes—and lives—in MacGregor’s hands.
When their arrival revealed no kingdom, no other citizens, no supplies and left them without funds or means to return home, the new settlers did what they could to survive. Most didn’t succeed.
The Lord Mayor in the clipping below speaks for us all (with the benefit of hindsight, of course).
MacGregor had successfully bamboozled shipfuls of people in London and Edinburgh, and was going for another round in Paris when his deceit was discovered. He died around 20 years later having never truly received justice for the lives he ruined.
Find more on this story with a search on Newspapers.com.
It feels great to find an ancestor in the newspaper—whether it’s in an obituary, marriage announcement, or other type of notice. But sometimes historical newspapers used abbreviations and terms that are no longer common, leaving some of us scratching our heads.
To help you get the most out of historical newspapers, we’ve come up with a list of some of the most common abbreviations and terms:
Relict – This term is used to describe a surviving spouse, often a widow. It comes from the Latin term “relictus,” meaning “relinquished” or “left behind.”
Name abbreviations – Name abbreviations are common in old newspapers. Some abbreviations are merely the first few letters of the name followed by a period, while others are contractions (the first part of the name plus the final letter). Some abbreviations are derived from the name’s Latin equivalent, which makes them a bit trickier to decipher. Below are the most common name abbreviations:
We hope you found the explanation of these terms and abbreviations useful! Get started searching or browsing historical (and modern!) papers on Newspapers.com.
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the American Civil War is officially brought to an end.
Only five days later, President Abraham Lincoln is shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, making this quite a week for high-emotion headlines.
Find more on Lincoln’s assassination here, or you can search on Newspapers.com for either of these major headlines and other topics of interest.
On this day in 1896, after a 1,500-year lull, the Olympics are reintroduced to the world.
The original Olympic games were banned by the Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I in an attempt to crack down on paganism. It was a young French baron, Pierre de Coubertin, who in 1892 first proposed that the games be brought back. Thanks to his persistence, they were, and he guided them as president of the International Olympic Committee through the initial, less popular years when no one thought they would last.
The first games saw only 280 participants (in contrast to the 2016 summer Olympics, in which over 10,000 athletes competed), but by 1924 the games had regained their popularity of yore. Today, of course, the Olympics are the bees knees when it comes to international sports competition. Thanks, Pierre!
Find more like this with a search on Newspapers.com
