Tuesday-Wednesday, November 9-10, 1965: Great Northeast Blackout

The nation's worst power failure plunged an estimated 30 million persons into darkness tonight in the huge metropolitan areas of the Northeast and President Johnson ordered an immediate investigation.

     -- Associated Press, November 9: @

Lights flashed on in New York city early Wednesday and transportation systems slowly began to move, signaling the end of a massive and frightening electric power blackout that brought hardship, cold and fear to 30 million persons. But New York city remained crippled because hundreds of thousands of workers could not get to their jobs. The city was still partly paralyzed. Little was normal.

     -- Milwaukee Journal, November 10: @

The enormous scope of the nation's most stunning technological breakdown became starkly clear today, but the cause of the 10-hour blackout remained itself a dark mystery.

     -- Associated Press, November 10: @

     -- Photo by Bob Gomel; published in Life magazine, November 19, 1965: @

* Blackout History Project (George Mason University): @

* NBC television coverage: @
* WABC radio broadcasts, November 9-10: @
* New York Times front page, November 10: @

* "Week of Wonders -- November 14, 1965" (pastdaily.com): @ 
* "Report to the President by the Federal Power Commission on the Power Failure in the Northeastern United States and the Province of Ontario on November 9-10, 1965" (December 6, 1965): @

* "From Here to Maternity" (snopes.com, 2007): @

* "When the Lights Went Out: A History of Blackouts in America" (David E. Nye, 2010): @
* Photos by Rene Burri: @

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Friday, July 16, 1965: The Southern Courier

The Southern Courier was established in 1965 by college students and recent graduates to cover the civil rights movement and President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in the American South. Despite the paper's small size and relatively short publication life, The Southern Courier fulfilled an important and sorely needed role in the post-1965 South by providing African Americans and sympathetic whites with a broader sense of community in the fight for equality. The Southern Courier offered a more complex view of race relations to the general public.

     -- From Encyclopedia of Alabama (full summary: @)

* Southern Courier site (includes links to PDFs of every issue): @

* Jim Peppler Southern Courier Photograph Collection (Alabama Department of Archives and History): @
* Summary from Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement: @

* "A Personal Historian's Memories of the American Civil Rights Era: Birmingham Alabama 1967" (Joan Tornow, 2015): @
* "Civil Rights: Student Editors from Harvard Plan an Independent Newspaper" (Nashua Telegraph, May 5, 1965): @

* "New Civil Rights Paper Covers Southern Issues" (The Michigan Daily, July 1, 1965): @
* "The Southern Courier: A Study of Civil Rights Journalism in Alabama" (Nieman Reports, December 1966, page 15): @

* Excerpt from "Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took On the Ku Klux Klan" (Wayne Greenhaw, 2011): @ 

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October 1964: 'If I Were the Devil'

Radio/newspaper commentator Paul Harvey's famous column appears in newspapers throughout the United States. Harvey describes what actions Satan would take to reign over civilization, at the end revealing that all the events are already taking place.
     Note: The column's earliest appearance in a newspaper is October 1964, but the book "Good Day!" (linked below) dates the piece to 1960. Harvey also read the piece as part of his radio broadcast.

* 1964 column: @

* 1996 version: @

* Entry from snopes.com: @

* Harvey biography from Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture: @

* Harvey biography from Radio Hall of Fame: @

* "Good Day!: The Paul Harvey Story" (Paul J. Batura, 2009): @ 

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Tuesday, May 19, 1964: U.S. Embassy microphones

More than 40 secret microphones were found in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow when U.S. security men tore into walls of the building in April. The State Department disclosed the find Tuesday, and said a strong protest was delivered in Moscow on Tuesday morning. Officials said the microphones were imbedded 8 to 10 inches deep in the walls of the 10-story building, and obviously had been installed before the Russians turned the building over for U.S. occupancy in 1952.

     -- Associated Press (full article: @)

     -- Photo from Associated Press; original caption: "A State Department security person holds one of the more than 40 microphones found in the American Embassy in Moscow when walls of the building were torn down in April 1964. On display May 19, 1964 at the State Department in Washington are other listening devices uncovered in other American embassies behind the "Iron Curtain."

* "The Walls Have Ears" (Newsweek, June 1): @

* "Estimate of Damage to U.S. Foreign Policy Interests (From Net of Listening Devices in U.S. Embassy Moscow" (U.S. State Department, October 2, 1964): @

* "Spies, Leaks, Bugs, and Diplomats (Diplomatic Security in the 1960s" (State Department): @

* Earlier post on "The Great Seal Bug" (May 26, 1960): @ 

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Monday, April 20, 1964: Picturephone

NEW YORK -- See-as-you-talk telephone service was demonstrated yesterday between the Bell Telphone System's world's fair building and Disneyland, Calif.
     The first transatlantic call on what American Telephone and Telegraph Co. has named the "picturephone" was made by William L. Laurence, science consultant for the fair, to Donald Shaffer, managing editor of the Anaheim, Calif., Bulletin.
     Later hostesses at the fair and Disneyland were introduced via picturephone and chatted with each other. Both video and sound came through clearly.
     The system will be demonstrated during the fair with calls going between eight sets at the fair and three at Disneyland.
-- Story from Associated Press, April 21 (story: @)
-- Photos from AT&T Archives and History Center

* "Video Telephony: An idea whose time may have finally come" (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2014): @

* "Bell Labs PicturePhone" (MuseumLeap, 2014): @

* "A Brief History of the Videophone That Almost Was" (Paleofuture, 2013): @

* "Picturephone Dials Up First Transcontinental Video Call" (Wired, 2012): @

* "These Videophone Concepts Are Cooler Than Your iPhone's Facetime" (io9, 2013): @

* "Western Electric Products -- Picturephone" (Porticus Centre, Beatrice Co.): @

* "Now ... see and be seen by PICTUREPHONE!" (1964 advertisement): @

* "seeing by telephone ... the PICTUREPHONE story" (Bell System brochure, June 1964): @

* "Lady Bird Johnson Using Picturephone Service" (National Archives photo; June 24, 1964): @

* "Amazing New Picturephone" (Popular Science, June 1968): @

* Record magazine, Bell Laboratories, May/June 1969: @

* "Talking of Tomorrow" (video, AT&T Tech Channel, 1962): @

* "A Ballad for the Fair" (video, AT&T Tech Channel, 1964): @

* "Debut of the Picturephone" (video, AT&T Tech Channel, 1970): @ 

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