This Yesterday’s Newsreel film (episode 72) 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 begins with a short bio on American fighter ace Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, aka “Indestructible Eddie.” The pilot poses next to plane; he flies through French skies during WWI. He is awarded the French medal of honor, Croix de Guerre (01:33). Fans cheer Rickenbacker after he completes a coast-to-coast flight. In 1928, he lands the largest plane ever built at the Camden, NJ airport. U.S. President Herbert Hoover awards Rickenbacker the Congressional Medal of Honor. During World War II, he tours the South Pacific, where he experiences his nearest brush with death when his plane disappears in the central Pacific Ocean in October 1942. A rescued Rickenbacker climbs out of a plane after spending 24 days in a rubber raft. He is shown at a ceremony for is aviation company Easter Air Lines in 1948. In the next segment, viewers see Mother Jordan serving soup in San Francisco to the needy, as well as dressing the less fortunate—a practice she started during the Great Depression. In the episode’s “Personalities” segment, viewers see French druggists Emile Coue writing at his desk (06:00),

American actress Marjorie Rambeau waving from a ship, and Denmark’s King Christain X smoking a cigarette (he is also the only King of Iceland). Next, the episode features footage of the partially sunk Washington Irving steamer in 1926 (07:05), as well as footage of possibly the oldest man in the world Zaro Agha (07:31), who sits with members of his family. In “Aviation,” American aviator Marjorie Stinson stands with other pilots after getting her pilot’s license in 1919 (08:10). Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly stands atop a flagpole on a building on West 48th Street in New York City in 1927; he smiles after climbing down from the stunt. Viewers see the “Fashions of the Day” from 1919 at what appears to be a gathering at a country club (09:32). The episode concludes with a sports segment. First, a mechanical golf machine named “Iron Bobby” demonstrates how to swing a club. Next, viewers see the 1928 Intercollegiate Track Championships held in Cambridge, MA. Leo Lermond of Harvard wins the mile race; Eric Krenz of Stanford tosses shotput, and Sabin Carr of Yale pole vaults.

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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