History

NEW YORK -- An automated-teller machine. The cash machine. In Britain, a cashpoint. ATMs, known for spitting out $20 bills -- and imposing fees if you pick the wrong one -- turn 50 years old this year. They're ubiquitous -- and possibly still a necessity, despite the big changes in how people pay for things...

Jake LaMotta, an iron-fisted battler who brawled his way to a middleweight title and was later memorialized by Robert De Niro in the film "Raging Bull," has died. He was 95. The former middleweight champion died Tuesday at a Miami-area hospital from complications of pneumonia, according to his longtime fiancee, Denise Baker...

Nearly 100 people crowded into Heritage Hall in Cape Girardeau on Tuesday to hear a succession of speakers talk about the life and times of U.S. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., a federal judge and Civil War buff, said he was shocked to see the standing-room-only crowd...

Civil War general and 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant will be the focus of a symposium Tuesday featuring local and visiting historians. The Kellerman Foundation for Historic Preservation is hosting the fourth annual exhibition, which begins Friday at Heritage Hall at 102 N. Main St. and culminates with a symposium Tuesday...

Replicas of two of Christopher Columbus' historic ships will dock at Riverfront Park in Cape Girardeau later this month. The Pinta and Nina are scheduled to arrive Sept. 28 and will be open for public tours from Sept. 29 through Oct. 2, Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau officials said Wednesday...

CHICAGO -- Simeon Wright, who was with his cousin Emmett Till when the Chicago boy was kidnapped in 1955 after whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, has died. He was 74. Till, who was 14, spent the summer of 1955 visiting relatives in Mississippi and was kidnapped, tortured and killed after whistling at a white woman working at a store in the rural hamlet of Money...

Coincidence can serve as a subtle but powerful source of affirmation. It seems to follow around Bert and Mary Ann Kellerman with gentle nods to their passion for the preservation of the history of Cape Girardeau. They own two homes in town, both built in the 1800s and on the National Register of Historic Places, renovated a downtown business building which now houses Cup 'n' Cork on Spanish Street and had it placed on the register, and they have opened Heritage Hall, a museum on Main Street that houses their Kellerman Foundation.. ...

The Glenn House in Cape Girardeau has a wide front porch perfectly built to capture cool breezes and long chats, and that's just what Tom and Donna Grantham did one cool August morning to talk about their contributions to the Cape Girardeau historical preservation scene, before they move to Florida later this year...

LITCHFIELD, Conn. -- George Beckwith got the surprising phone call a few months ago, informing him he soon would be an owner of a 19th-century courthouse in Connecticut, nearly 1,400 miles from his home in Missouri. The 78-year-old resident of Goodman, in southwestern Missouri, knew about the unusual lease agreement his ancestors had signed with Connecticut officials in 1803. ...

LOS ANGELES -- Walter Becker, the guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the 1970s rock group Steely Dan, which sold more than 40 million albums and produced such hit singles as "Reelin' In the Years," "Rikki Don't Lose that Number" and "Deacon Blues" has died. He was 67...

ATLANTA -- The daughter of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. stood beside her father's newly unveiled statue Monday, just a few blocks from where he grew up, handing out hugs and telling each well-wisher: "It's about time." The statue paying tribute to King made its public debut Monday morning on the Georgia Capitol grounds in front of about 800 people, including Gov. Nathan Deal, many other state political leaders and several members of the King family...

LOS ANGELES -- Tobe Hooper, the horror-movie pioneer whose low-budget sensation "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" took a buzz saw to audiences with its brutally frightful vision, has died. He was 74. The Los Angeles County coroner's office on Sunday said Hooper died Saturday in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. It was reported as a natural death...

LOS ANGELES -- Jay Thomas, a radio talk-show host and actor with recurring roles on the sitcoms "Murphy Brown" and "Cheers," has died, his publicist said. Thomas was 69. He was "one of the funniest and kindest men I have had the honor to call both client and friend for 25 years plus," publicist Tom Estey said in a statement Thursday. He did not provide further details...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Workers in Charlottesville draped giant black covers over two statues of Confederate generals Wednesday to symbolize the city's mourning for a woman killed while protesting a white-nationalist rally. The work began about 1 p.m. in Emancipation Park, where a towering monument of Gen. Robert E. Lee on horseback stands. Workers gathered around the monument with a large black drape...

ST. LOUIS — Just months after dismantling a Confederate memorial, the city of St. Louis has torn up a related street that surrounds where the monument once stood. The St. Louis-Post Dispatch reported workers began plowing over Confederate Drive on Monday. ...

Cape Rock Park may undergo major renovations as part of a master plan for the Cape Girardeau parks system. The city has developed a conceptual plan for the historic, scenic park that overlooks the Mississippi River. City officials outlined the concept in the parks and recreation department’s fall program guide...

LOS ANGELES -- Jerry Lewis, the manic, rubber-faced showman who jumped and hollered to fame in a lucrative partnership with Dean Martin, settled down to become a self-conscious screen auteur and found an even greater following as the tireless, teary host of the annual muscular-dystrophy telethons, has died. He was 91...

LOS ANGELES -- Dick Gregory, the comedian and activist and who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and used his humor to spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, has died. He was 84. Gregory died late Saturday in Washington, D.C. after being hospitalized for about a week, his son Christian Gregory told The Associated Press. He had suffered a severe bacterial infection...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A New York military aviation researcher got more than she bargained for on a dream trip to a battle-scarred South Pacific island -- the chance to help solve the mystery of an American soldier listed as missing in action from World War II...

DENVER -- Researchers said they have found a new clue into the mysterious exodus of ancient cliff-dwelling people from the Mesa Verde area of Colorado more than 700 years ago: DNA from the bones of domesticated turkeys. The DNA shows the Mesa Verde people raised turkeys that had telltale similarities to turkeys kept by ancient people in the Rio Grande Valley of northern New Mexico -- and those birds became more common in New Mexico about the same time the Mesa Verde people were leaving their cliff dwellings, according to a paper published last month in the journal PLoS One.. ...

Few Cape Girardeau attractions compare to the Glenn House for beauty and historic significance, and "Missouri Life," a show produced by PBS affiliate KMOS-TV in Warrensburg, Missouri, filmed there and at several other locations this week for an episode to air this fall...

Cities and states accelerated their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public property Tuesday as the violence over a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, moved leaders across the country to plan to wipe away much of the remaining Old South imagery...

NEW YORK -- For a year, David Berkowitz terrorized New York. The papers called him the ".44 Caliber Killer." In taunting notes to police and a journalist, he called himself "Mr. Monster," the "Son of Sam." When the police finally got him, 40 years ago today, the man behind the killings was unmasked as a schlubby civil servant with a boyish face and a dopey smile...

NEW YORK -- Barbara Cook, whose shimmering soprano made her one of Broadway's leading ingenues and later a major cabaret and concert interpreter of popular American song, has died. She was 89. Cook died early Tuesday of respiratory failure at her home in Manhattan, surrounded by family and friends, according to publicist Amanda Kaus. Her last meal was vanilla ice cream, a nod to one of her most famous roles in "She Loves Me."...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Glen Campbell, the affable superstar singer of "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Wichita Lineman" whose appeal spanned country, pop, television and movies, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 81. Campbell's family said the singer died Tuesday morning in Nashville, and publicist Sandy Brokaw confirmed the news. No cause was immediately given. Campbell announced in June 2011 he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and it was in its early stages at that time...

HAMHUNG, North Korea -- In the 10 years he has been digging up ordnance from the Korean War, Maj. Jong Il Hyon has lost five colleagues to explosions. He carries a lighter one gave him before he died. He also bears a scar on his left cheek from a bomb-disposal mission gone wrong...

Shady Grove Cemetery began in the 1800s as a burial site for slaves, former slaves and their children in Cape Girardeau County. At the end of a county road off Highway 74 near Dutchtown, the cemetery now stands in peaceful remembrance of those who lived and died...

Lorimier, Ramsay, Houck and Juden are names synonymous with Cape Girardeau's early history, and those are names Carl Armstrong focused on in his latest book, "Briarwood's Window on Cape Girardeau's Regional History." Armstrong has written other books, including "Elmwood's 1,000 Year Dalhousie Castle Legacy," and this book is an extension of that work in a sense, he said...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A plant fossil chipped out of a cliff on the grounds of Park University apparently is up to 306 million years old and belongs to a species previously unknown to science. The plant genus and species was named Parkvillia northcutti after local amateur paleontologist Tim Northcutt, who was permitted to fossil hunt on the university grounds about 10 miles northwest of Kansas City...

SALEM, Mass. -- The Massachusetts community where 20 people suspected of witchcraft were put to death in 1692 unveiled a memorial to 19 of those victims Wednesday, promising never to forget the tragedy. The ceremony came 325 years to the day when Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Wildes were hanged at a site in Salem known as Proctor's Ledge. It was the first of three mass hangings at the spot. The 20th victim was crushed to death...

HANOVER, N.H. -- Filmmaker Ken Burns views the Vietnam War as a virus that infected Americans with an array of chronic illnesses -- alienation, a lack of civil discourse, mistrust of government and each other. And he hopes his new documentary can be part of a cure...

BOSTON -- The sword that belonged to the commanding officer of the first all-black regiment raised in the North during the U.S. Civil War has been recovered after being lost to history for more than 150 years. The British-made sword carried into battle by Col. Robert Gould Shaw was stolen after he was killed during the 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry's doomed attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in 1863, a battle portrayed in the 1989 Oscar-winning movie "Glory."...

LOS ANGELES -- Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as the crafty master of disguise in the 1960s TV show "Mission: Impossible," then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in 1994's "Ed Wood," has died. He was 89...

ST. LOUIS — An historic St. Louis home built in the 1800s by Mark Twain’s uncle has been destroyed by fire. The blaze broke out early Wednesday in the Greek-revival style home known as the James Clemens House, and it spread to at least two nearby buildings before more than 100 firefighters were able to bring it under control. ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A California family can sue to get back a Camille Pissarro painting the Nazis looted from their Jewish ancestorm even though she accepted a settlement from the German government for the masterpiece, a U.S. appeals court said Monday...

UNION, N.J. -- A restoration project at a New Jersey museum unearthed cases of wine nearly as old as the United States. The Liberty Hall Museum in Union said it discovered almost three full cases of Madeira wine, a fortified wine, dating to 1796 while restoring its wine cellar. NJ.com reported the museum also found 42 demijohns -- large glass jugs sometimes used for holding spirits -- dating to the 1820s...

ST. LOUIS -- A self-proclaimed cemetery detective from Missouri said he's uncovered the long-forgotten grave of a lawman killed on duty in 1871. Tim Ogle, a St. Louis County man whose hobby is finding and restoring lost graves, found the final resting site of Samuel Herrington in Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported...

NEW YORK -- The retired federal agent who discovered what he believes is the first photographic evidence of Amelia Earhart alive and well after crash-landing in the Pacific Ocean during her attempted round-the-world flight said he didn't initially capture the significance of the image until years later...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Hobby Lobby Stores has agreed to pay a $3 million federal fine and forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi religious artifacts smuggled from the Middle East that the government alleges intentionally were mislabeled for import, federal prosecutors said...

Local historian William Eddleman soon will replace Frank Nickell as associate director at the Cape Girardeau research center for the State Historical Society of Missouri. Eddleman was the obvious choice, State Historical Society director Gary Kremer wrote in an email Friday...

A state plan unveiled Friday would restrict the use of Missouri's historic-preservation tax-credit program, which has been a tool for downtown redevelopment in Cape Girardeau. Key parts of the plan would require legislative action to implement, according to the committee that drafted the plan...

ST. LOUIS -- The final pieces of a Confederate monument have been removed from a St. Louis park. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported most of the 38-foot-monument was removed Wednesday night from Forest Park in St. Louis. The monument stood in the park for decades before it became the focus of a dispute between the city and the Missouri Civil War Museum...

Cape Girardeau city officials are taking a new approach to cleaning blighted, downtown property. The city wants to entice developers to revitalize old, vacant buildings by offering them at no cost. City officials are seeking proposals to develop blighted property on Good Hope Street rather than condemn the property and raze the vacant buildings...

LONDON -- It was a last-minute Christmas gift for his wife that inspired Michael Bond to create Paddington bear, the marmalade-loving teddy in a duffel coat and floppy hat. Bond would go on to see his creation enchant children for more than half a century and become an icon immortalized in print, on screens and as countless stuffed toys before his death at age 91...

Cape Girardeau's Historic Preservation Commission has added six structures to its endangered-buildings list, including a brick house on North Street that once was a winner of a Christmas lighting contest. In all, there are 14 buildings on the list. According to the city's website, the structures are those with historic value believed to be at risk of being lost because of significant deterioration and/or imminent demolition...

ST. LOUIS -- Crews on Monday began dismantling a Confederate monument in a park near downtown St. Louis after the city and the Missouri Civil War Museum reached an agreement to have it moved. As part of the deal, the museum will pay for the removal of the 38-foot-tall, 103-year-old granite monument that depicts a Confederate soldier leaving his family for the Civil War with an angel hovering above them...