Episode 64 of “Yesterday’s Newsreel” provided viewers “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 pilot Wiley Post’s solo flight around the world in 1933 (mark 00:43) with numerous scenes from the historic event and the celebrations that followed, including a meeting with New York City Mayor John O’Brien (mark 03:30). US Soldiers Sail for Siberia” (mark 04:20) tells how US troops headed to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, with many returning later with Russian war brides. “Personalities of 1930” (mark 05:30) include a birthday celebration for German field marshal and president Paul von Hindenburg, plus silent film stars Hope Hampton and Ben Turpin. Scenes of New York subway accidents and disasters are recalled starting at mark 07:10, followed by a trip to 1930 and a comical look of “London’s Best Basket Balancer” (mark 08:15). At mark 08:53, the film introduces us to Jesuit Father Johannes Hagen, director of the Vatican Observatory and the only American on the staff of Pope Pius XI, and we see scenes of him at work. Fashion from 1920 are shown beginning at mark 09:43, as are a few of the sports stars from circa 1930 (mark 10:44), including Canadian figure skater Constance Wilson-Samuel and 1929 Indianapolis 500 winner Ray Keech.
The American Expeditionary Force Siberia (AEF Siberia) was a United States Army force that was involved in the Russian Civil War in Vladivostok, Russian Empire, during the end of World War I after the October Revolution, from 1918 to 1920. As a result of this expedition, which failed but became known to the Bolsheviks, early relations between the United States and the Soviet Union would be low.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s claimed objectives for sending troops to Siberia were as much diplomatic as they were military. One major reason was to rescue the 40,000 men of the Czechoslovak Legion, who were being held up by Bolshevik forces as they attempted to make their way along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok, and it was hoped, eventually to the Western Front. Another major reason was to protect the large quantities of military supplies and railroad rolling stock that the United States had sent to the Russian Far East in support of the prior Russian government’s war efforts on the Eastern Front. Equally stressed by Wilson was the need to “steady any efforts at self-government or self defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance.” At the time, Bolshevik forces controlled only small pockets in Siberia and President Wilson wanted to make sure that neither Cossack marauders nor the Japanese military would take advantage of the unstable political environment along the strategic railroad line and in the resource-rich Siberian regions that straddled it.
Concurrently and for similar reasons, about 5,000 American soldiers were sent to Arkhangelsk (Archangel), Russia by Wilson as part of the separate Polar Bear Expedition.
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