“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News, The Morning News, the Every Evening and the Evening Journal.
Jan. 16, 1967, The Morning News
Green Bay Packers win first Super Bowl
Bart Starr picked holes in Kansas City’s pass defense and led the National Football League champions to a 35-10 victory over the American League’s best Sunday in the first Super Bowl.
Starr, a master of the third down play, followed directions by working on the Chiefs’ secondary with the 34-year-old Max McGee his favorite target.
In the meantime, the battle-tested NFL champs applied tremendous pressure on Len Dawson, the Kansas City passer, for a victory that meant $15,000 for each Green Bay player….
Coach Vince Lombardi of the Packers, disappointed because his team led only 14-10 at the half, told them to “start tackling and stop grabbing.” They responded by smearing Dawson time after time.
“In my opinion, the Chiefs don’t rate with the top teams in the NFL,” said Lombardi. “They’re a good football team with fine speed, but I’d have to say NFL football is tougher. Dallas is a better team.”
The crowd of 63,036 was far short of a sellout in the 93,000-seat Los Angeles Coliseum….
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Jan. 17, 1919, Wilmington Morning News
Prohibition amendment ratified by required majority of states
Ratification yesterday of the federal Constitutional prohibition amendment made the United States the first great power to take legislative action to permanently stop the liquor traffic.
Nebraska’s vote gave the necessary affirmative three-fourths majority to make effective the amendment submitted by Congress in December 1917. It was followed by similar action in the legislatures of Missouri and Wyoming, making 38 states in all which have approved a “dry” America. Affirmative action by some of the 10 states yet to act is predicted by prohibition advocates.
Under the terms of the amendment, the manufacture, sale and importation of intoxicating liquors must cease one year after ratification, but prohibition will be a fact in every state much earlier because of the war measure forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages after June 30 until the demobilization of the military forces is completed. Under the wartime measure, exportation of liquor is permitted, but the great stocks now held in bonded warehouses will have to be disposed of before the federal amendment becomes effective….
New problems of government are raised…as hundreds of millions of dollars derived from taxes on liquor will have to be obtained from other sources. Laws for enforcement of the amendment will have to be passed by Congress.
Only a minimum of unemployment is expected, as the cumulative severity of successive restrictive measures adopted since the war began already has caused many distilleries and brewers to seek other uses for their plants. More than half the territory of the United States is already dry through state action or local option elections….
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Jan. 18, 1999, The News Journal
Thomas J. Capano convicted of murder of Anne Marie Fahey
One family’s prayers were answered Sunday morning. Another’s were deferred, perhaps destroyed, as a Superior Court jury declared Thomas J. Capano guilty of murdering his former mistress, Anne Marie Fahey.
Seconds after the jury foreman intoned, “Guilty as charged,” those in the quiet courtroom could hear a muffled cheer. Word of the verdict had reached the crowd of reporters, supporters and the curious gathered outside the courthouse on Wilmington’s Rodney Square.
Inside, Capano’s mother and daughters wept. Fahey’s brothers and sisters did the same. Capano showed no emotion before guards escorted him from the building and back to his cell at Gander Hill prison, where he will await the start of the trial’s penalty phase Wednesday.
But the jury’s verdict – announced to Judge William Swain Lee at 10:01 a.m. after three days of deliberations – broke the tension and mystery that have gripped Delaware since Fahey disappeared June 27, 1996….
Capano, 49, a wealthy and once-powerful Wilmington attorney, will now be sentenced for the murder of Fahey, the 30-year-old scheduling secretary for Gov. Tom Carper….
CATCH UP ON HISTORY: The News Journal archives, week of Nov. 28
Jan. 20, 1981, Evening Journal
American hostages freed from Iran
A plane carrying the 52 American hostages, freedom bound after 444 days of captivity in Iran, took off today from Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, the official Iranian news agency Pars reported….
The departure came after negotiations that wrapped up the final agreement exchanging the hostages for Iranian assets frozen by the U.S., in the final hour of President Carter’s term of office. He had tried to complete an agreement with Iran yesterday, but as the hours slipped away, Carter was deprived of a chance to greet the hostages before he left office. Thus, the reported freedom for the Americans – 50 men and two women – coincided with President Reagan’s inauguration.
The hostages – including Marine Sgt. Gregory A. Persinger of Seaford, Delaware – were seized Nov. 4, 1979 by young Moslem militants who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They said the hostages would be released if the U.S. handed over Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, then undergoing medical treatment in the U.S. The shah found refuge in Egypt and died in Cairo July 27, 1980….
Reach reporter Ben Mace at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: News Journal archives Thomas J. Capano conviction U.S. hostages freed