This Yesterday’s Newsreel film (episode 83) 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. The episode starts with footage of Nazi Germany’s Siegfried Line. Nazi soldiers look down on the Siegfried line. Footage shows soldiers walking into a bunker, a trench, and more steel and concrete block houses along the line. French soldiers across the Rhine respond to the playing of German music by dancing. Nazi officers visit the line and observe the defenses (01:50). Footage then shows an aerial bombardment of the line off in the distance. An American tank passes over the anti-tank concrete spikes, and Allied soldiers walk across the abandoned line. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits the line along with General Bernard Montgomery and Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson (02:55). In the next segment, viewers see a canoe race around Manhattan in 1928; paddlers move on the Hudson River, under the George Washington Bridge, past NYC skyscrapers, under the Brooklyn Bridge, and toward the finish line. George Carlin wins the race. In the “Personalities” segment, the episode features Andrew Mellon (05:00), American swimmers Helen Wainwright and Aileen Riggin, and former Secretary William McAdoo (05:30), who gives the Roosevelt Trophy to Yakima Canutt in Pendleton, OR in 1923. Canutt shows his skills riding a bucking bronco. Next, viewers see the destruction a tornado and flooding caused in Hedrick, IN (06:03). A woman pulls a boat down a flooded street. Footage shows the destroyed town; students smile sitting at a desk in the rubble that was a school. In the following segment, viewers see a horse-drawn trolley car in Palm Beach, FL, as well as horses pulling carriages in Boston during the Work Horse Parade. In “Aviation,” the episode shows the Bremen Fliers, Baron Ehrenfried von Hunefeld, Captain Hermann Kohl, and navigator Major James Fitzmaurice as they prepare for their transatlantic flight from Ireland to New York in a German Junkers W 33 plane (07:55). The plane takes off for Mitchel Field. At the Long Island air field, crowds gather and wait into the night for the plane. Footage shows the plane as it was forced to crash-land on Greenly Island. Floyd Bennett takes off to aid the Bremen fliers (08:55), but he turns back after getting sick. Another plane lands on Greenly Island to aid the men. The Bremen Fliers participate in a tickertape parade in New York City. In the “Fashions of the Day” segment, viewers see the outfits of a bridal party—the wedding of Dorothy Crandall and J.J. Payette takes place in Washington, D.C. The episode concludes with footage of a Jai Alai game in Chicago in 1926 (11:10) and the Central Association Amateur Ski Jump Meet in Canton, SD in 1936.

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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