This “Yesterday’s Newsreel” film offers the viewer “television highlights of the news of yesteryear” by providing vintage clips of famous people and events from the first half of the 20th century. This episode opens with the devastating April 18, 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (mark 00:30) and we see “on the spot pictures of the most talked of disaster in our history,” including buildings engulfed in flames structures left in ruins on the ground. In scenes nine years later (mark 01:33) we see a rebuilt city. Mark 01:45 teaches us about “The Capture of Two-Gun Crowley” in 1931. The 18-year-old’s stand against New York police was witnessed by 15,000 bystanders and received national attention, and at mark 02:05 we see him being escorted by police. The 1931 exile of King Alfonso XIII of Spain is recalled beginning at mark 02:40 as we watch chaotic rioting in the streets as residents turn against the monarchy and later see Alfonso headed into exile (mark 04:07). Some of the personalities of 1929 (mark 04:40), including opera singer Marion Talley and cowboy actor Tom Mix, are introduced before the film moves on to the Atlantic Charter of 1941 (mark 05:30), and we watch the first meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill onboard the USS Augusta (CA-31). By mark 06:38 the film moves on to aviation in 1901 and scenes of a aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont aboard a dirigible, followed by scenes of the first powered heavier-than-air biplane flight in Europe in 1906. The pictures nears its end with the fashions of 1920 (mark 08:10), “World War I Brides” (mark 09:38), sporting events of 1926 (mark 10:33).
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com