February 23, 2009

Levy's_2193e.jpg

(The bread was okay, but the ads were priceless and were on every bus, subway, construction site and billboard in New York in 1964)

One of the perqs of having a sound archive is the effortless ability to pull things at random, on a whim, and just listen. As someone pointed out to me, there's history all over the place, and no matter how inconsequential any particular day seems to be, something is always happening.

Case in point - I decided to randomly grab a news broadcast from February 20, and the first one to fall into my hands was from 1964. Not an earth shattering day in the big scheme of things, but a day where events happened.

This newscast, an hourly from ABC Radio starts off with the Civil War in Cyrpus, the ongoing dispute between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots with the British Army stuck somewhere in the middle. This particular day also sees a ceasefire, which is declared as the broadcast is happening. The next item deals with the border dispute between Algeria and Morocco.. It had been a hotbed of violence and unrest since the late 1950's and a key element in the continuing Independence movement on the African continent. Then things turn domestic with the New Hampshire Republican Primaries between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller. The broadcast winds up with a piece on the newly installed monarch, King Constantine of Greece.

Just a typical day - like all typical days. And all typical days are loaded with history.

The broadcast is run complete and in its entirety as it was broadcast with no edits. I say that because in 1964 Cigarette advertising was still going strong and the jingles are catchy. This one is for Camels. If you find it offensive, it's only the first 45 seconds of the newscast, so you can forward through it.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon