This Yesterday’s Newsreel film (episode 139) 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 newsreel opens with footage of Amelia Earhart. Earhart is escorted from her plane Friendship with pilot Wilmer Stultz after arriving in South Hampton, England. The famed aviator is greeted by South Hampton Mayor Mrs. Lucia Foster Welch. Earhart is cheered on by supporters upon her arrival in New York City and is escorted by ticker-tape parade guru Grover Whalen. Acting Mayor Joseph McKee welcomes Earhart. The film then shows footage of Earhart flying an autogiro (02:05)—she is the first woman to fly one. She lands the aircraft and smiles for the camera. Earhart is celebrated in 1932 with a New York ticker tape parade; she is shown standing with Mayor Jimmy Walker. The segment on Earhart wraps up with footage of her preparing to land in Oakland, CA after the lengthy flight from Weber Field, Hawaii. The next segment shows German Hans Swoboda displaying his model of the Cologne Cathedral in New York City in 1930; the model is made entirely out of match sticks. In the following segment, viewers watch as soldiers test a new machine gun (04:36) and throw grenades. New tank prototypes move across a field. A biplane is equipped with a gun for aerial combat (05:07). In the “Personalities” segment, viewers watch John Philip Souza lead the High School of Commerce Band in Boston. He conducts band for several other school bands. Miss Nita Naldi poses with a puppy (06:17), and Isadora Duncan’s brother Raymond walks around a U.S. city wearing a toga. The next segment shows footage of a fire at a New York pier. Pier 69 is covered in flames (07:05) as firefighters fight the blaze with fire hoses and chopping a vent hole in the roof of a nearby building. In “Mud for Medicine,” viewers see people in Calistoga, CA taking a mud bath. The next segment shows the Europa, of the North German Lloyd line (NDL), sailing the Atlantic in March 1930, setting an ocean-crossing record. Skipper Nicholas Johnson watches over the ship. “Homes Put To Torch” shows the planned demolition of English war homes via controlled fire. The “Fashions of the Day” segment looks at a women’s home economics class at the University of Maryland where women sew patterns, iron clothes, and apply makeup. The episode concludes with the 1926 Armistice Day race in Charlotte, NC (11:30): the film features shots of several drivers, including the winner of the 100-mile dash, Leon Duray.
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