PAGES OF HISTORY
The News Journal archives include the Wilmington Morning News, The Morning News, the Every Evening and the Evening Journal.
Nov. 21, 1945, Wilmington Morning News
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 fivehour 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,” 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….
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 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.
Homicide Capt. Will Fritz said witnesses identified Oswald as the slayer of the officer.
Oswald denied that he had shot anybody.