D-Day, RFK killed, Elizabeth II crowned queen: News Journal archives, week of June 2
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"Pages of history" features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Journal-Every Evening.
June 2, 1953, Journal-Every Evening
Elizabeth II crowned queen; millions crowd streets of London to hail monarch
Britain crowned Elizabeth II today in a magnificent spectacle of ancient pomp and pageantry, before the wondering eyes of her little son Charles, heir to the throne.
The thunder of guns and the pealing of bells proclaimed to millions massed in London’s streets the formal accession of Elizabeth the queen, the first coronation of a woman since Victoria, 116 years ago.
Crowds massed 25 to 35 deep acclaimed the queen going from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey and coming home again. Only 7,500 persons were in the abbey, but millions more could see the 2.5-hour ceremony by television, for the first time.
The 27-year-old queen, who had looked drawn near the close of the long abbey ritual — and once near tears —flashed her smile. The queen’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, was beside her….
June 4, 1923, The Evening Journal
Republicans sweep Wilmington elections
Along with the election of Dr. George W.K. Forrest as mayor at the Wilmington election on Saturday, the Republican party swept the city by re-electing all of the retiring councilmen as well as other officers at the head of the ticket….
Dr. Forrest’s majority over A. Victor Hughes, the Democratic candidate, was 689 out of a total vote for mayor of 19,379. This was approximately 4,400 votes less than were cast at the city election two years ago….
The Republican City Committee’s figures show Dr. Forrest’s majority to be 742, there being a few variances from the figures gathered by this newspaper….
The incoming city council will be Republican, that party electing seven of the 12 councilmen in addition to Howard M. Ward again for president of council…
June 4, 1965, Wilmington Morning News
U.S. scores with Gemini space walk
Astronaut Edward H. White II eased himself out of a Gemini capsule 135 miles above Earth yesterday and floated for 20 eerie minutes in the chilling void of space….
The dramatic excursion clearly was the high point of a bold celestial adventure scheduled to last four days….
President Lyndon B. Johnson was among millions of Americans who watched the launch on television….
White’s thrilling experience in the unyielding vastness of space, where even the stars refuse to twinkle, came during the third orbit, one later than planned, as he streaked at 17,500 miles an hour through the skies above his own homeland….
His feat matched that of Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov who drifted for 10 minutes outside the Voskhod 2 spaceship March 18….
June 6, 1968, Evening Journal
Robert Kennedy is dead; Mourning proclaimed by Johnson
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy died today, felled like his brother by an assassin’s bullet.
He never regained consciousness, never showed signs of recovery after a burst of revolver fire sent a bullet into his brain as he stood at the pinnacle of his own campaign for the White House.
With his pregnant wife, Ethel, at his bedside, the New York senator, 42, died at 1:44 a.m., PDT, little more than 25 hours after the assault at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. A son, Joseph, 15, was also there.
As Kennedy died, the man accused of shooting him was under heavy guard at a downtown prison hospital, held on $250,000 bail for a court appearance scheduled for Monday. Sirham Bishara Sirhan was accused of firing the .22-caliber revolver which cut down Kennedy and wounded five other people yesterday as the senator and his supporters celebrated victory in the California presidential primary.
Pierre Salinger, former presidential press secretary, said the body will lie in state at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York tomorrow.
The train carrying the body of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy [from New York City to Washington, D.C.] is scheduled to pass through Wilmington at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday…before the burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
June 7, 1944, Wilmington Morning News
Normandy beaches cleared of Germans; Allies driving at Paris
A great force of Royal Air Force bombers swept across the English Channel last night, continuing the mighty serial assaults that prepared the way for the Allied invasion, during which more than 1,000 troop-carrying aircraft at dawn yesterday dropped the largest air-borne force in history into France.
An official statement said R.A.F. planes had struck at targets in German-occupied territory during the night, apparently in support of the ground troops fighting inland from beachheads in Normandy….
American warplanes alone flew more than 9,000 sorties as Allied airmen ruled not only the invasion beaches but also the air far inland. Prime Minister Churchill told Parliament that an armada of 11,000 front-line planes sustained the assault. Some 10,000 tons of bombs cleared the way for the ground troops.
U.S. losses were 50 planes – 25 bombers and 25 fighters….
With thousands of relatives and friends in the armed services and many of them probably on the beaches of France, Wilmingtonians yesterday greeted the long awaited D-Day with a generally subdued attitude and with prayer for loved ones. A feature of the day was the 4 p.m. “moment of silence” urged by Mayor Albert W. James.
Thousands of persons in the state followed President Roosevelt in his radio prayer last night….
Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: News Journal archives June 2-8: D-Day, RFK killed, Elizabeth crowned
