History

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...

Jackson High School’s “Old A” building is coming down, and its bricks are free for the taking. Jackson R-2 School District Foundation director Merideth Pobst said the building is being demolished in stages, and if people want to own a piece of Jackson history, they’re welcome to come by the site and ask for a brick...

ST. LOUIS -- Perhaps the owner had no gall-stone brown or French berry yellow. Or kept the book only for pressing plants. Whatever the reason, light use may have helped preserve a rare, early coloring book found in the Missouri Botanical Garden's library. Noticed just last month, the book predates by 100 years what has been cited as the first coloring book...

NEW YORK -- Comedy writer and performer Bill Dana, who won stardom in the 1950s and '60s with his character Jose Jimenez, has died. Dana died Thursday at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, according to Emerson College, his alma mater. He was 92. Early in his career, Dana wrote jokes for Don Adams and Steve Allen, on whose show he served as head writer and a member of the performing troupe...

ST. LOUIS -- The city of St. Louis temporarily will be prevented from removing a Confederate monument from a city park after a circuit court judge issued an injunction until a hearing is held next month to determine who owns the structure. St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker on Monday issued the injunction and set a July 6 hearing for arguments over whether the city or the Missouri Civil War Museum owns the 38-foot-tall granite monument, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported...

ST. LOUIS -- The fight over ownership of a Confederate monument in St. Louis is moving to the courts. The Missouri Civil War Museum sued the city of St. Louis on Friday over ownership of the monument. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported the lawsuit was filed hours after the museum sent a letter to Mayor Lyda Krewson, offering to remove the monument by next Friday for free if the city acknowledged the museum owns it. A portion of the monument recently was removed...

BERLIN -- Helmut Kohl, the physically imposing German chancellor whose reunification of a nation divided by the Cold War put Germany at the heart of a united Europe, died Friday at his home in Ludwigshafen. He was 87. "A life has ended, and the person who lived it will go down in history," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking from Rome. "It will take some time, however, until we can truly judge what we have lost in him. Helmut Kohl was a great German and a great European."...

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- Members of Missouri's congressional delegation are renewing efforts to designate the Mississippi River town of Ste. Genevieve as a national historic site. Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, Republican Sen. Roy Blunt and Republican Rep. Jason Smith on Monday introduced legislation to establish the Ste. Genevieve National Historic Site and designate it as part of the National Park Service...

St. John's United Church of Christ in Jackson celebrated its 140th anniversary Sunday with the theme "Cherishing Our Past and Embracing Our Future." Rodney Pensel, pastor of the church, delivered a sermon that pointed out significant moments in the church's history, particularly the rebuilding of the church after it was destroyed by a tornado in 1922...

NEW YORK -- How long has our species been around? New fossils from Morocco push the evidence back by about 100,000 years. The bones, about 300,000 years old, were unearthed thousands of miles from the previous record holder, found in fossil-rich eastern Africa...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- For years, two scientists have been painstakingly cleaning a century and a half of sand, sediment and corrosion from the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship. They drain the 75,000-gallon tank of water and chemicals three times a week for several hours at the Confederate sub's home in North Charleston, then go to work in full protective gear, bent around nooks and crannies, gingerly chipping the crud off the H.L. ...

Howard Thomas was 22 years old the day the Allies hit Omaha Beach. Assigned to a tank battalion, he spent the preceding days under a vague dread, loading equipment and bracing for whatever waited across the English Channel. "We knew there was something going on, but we wasn't supposed to know," he recalled. "They kept telling us, 'Talk sinks ships. Don't talk.'"...

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. -- The annual revival of the Pony Express has been chosen as the official event to celebrate Nebraska's 150th birthday. More than 700 riders began the mail service trip by horse in St. Joseph, Missouri, on Monday, the Scottsbluff Star-Herald reported. They'll travel nearly 2,000 miles via the Pony Express National Historic Trail through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California by June 15...

Cape Girardeau's historic Courthouse Park may soon be known as Ivers Square, in honor of a Cape Girardeau slave, who enlisted in the Union Army in the Civil War, and his wife. The city council will vote today on renaming the park in honor of James and Harriet Ivers as recommended by the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- C. Wade McClusky Jr. faced a tough decision June 4, 1942: turn his low-on-fuel U.S. Navy air squadron around or keep searching for the Japanese fleet headed for Midway. He decided to go on and wound up changing history. The dive bombers McClusky led that day in the Battle of Midway helped to gut the Imperial Japanese Navy and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific in the Allies' favor after a string of defeats following the attack on Pearl Harbor...

PANAMA CITY -- Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, a onetime U.S. ally who was ousted by an American invasion in 1989, died late Monday at age 83. Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela wrote in his Twitter account "the death of Manuel A. Noriega closes a chapter in our history."...

Former Southeast Missourian photographer Garland D. Fronabarger posthumously has been named among the 2017 inductees to the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame. Fronabarger, who began working at the Southeast Missourian in 1927 as a general news reporter, was known as "One-Shot Frony" for his economical shooting style...

NEWPORT, R.I. -- In its heyday, the stage at Newport's Opera House hosted everything from performances of vaudeville and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to appearances by abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Now, one of the nation's oldest opera houses is undergoing an $18 million renovation after spending decades as a movie theater...

DAYTON, Ohio -- The fabled World War II bomber Memphis Belle finally will go on public display next spring at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force alongside John F. Kennedy's presidential plane, an early Wright Brothers flyer and other national treasures...

BOSTON -- Americans turned out by the thousands Monday to celebrate the life and legacy of President John F. Kennedy on the day he would have turned 100. The United States Postal Service commemorated Kennedy's centennial with a dedication of a JFK postage stamp in Brookline, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb where the late president was born May 29, 1917...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- At a time Confederate symbols are being purged from public sites, a northeast Missouri museum is putting a restored Confederacy flag on permanent inside display, calling it "a teachable moment." The museum in the 3,300-resident Mississippi River town of Louisiana planned to unveil the donated, framed 34-by-58-inch flag Saturday to coincide with the museum's 25th anniversary celebration. A 33-star Union flag also will be put on view nearby...

Several graves in a cemetery near Anna, Illinois, hold Cherokee who died during their forced migration on the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. Thanks to local efforts, the cemetery now is on the National Register of Historic Places. Campground Cemetery itself is the site on the National Register, according to the application, with the existing Campground Cumberland Presbyterian Church, built in 1850, listed as a noncontributing element of the site...

MOSCOW -- Relics of Saint Nicholas, one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most revered figures, arrived in Moscow on Sunday from an Italian church where they have lain for 930 years. Intense media coverage accompanied the arrival, underlining the church's influence in post-Soviet Russia...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Dorothea Lange was driving by a pea pickers' camp on the California coast when she stumbled across a weary mother and her many children huddled in a lean-to. It was 1936, during the throes of the Great Depression, and Lange took out her camera...

NEW YORK -- Roger Ailes, the communications maestro who transformed TV news by creating Fox News Channel, only to be ousted from his media empire at the height of his reign for alleged sexual harassment, died Thursday, according to his wife, Elizabeth Ailes. He was 77...

WASHINGTON -- Kennedy Center leaders are trying to reemphasize an overlooked aspect of Washington's top performing arts venue: its designation as a "living memorial" to President John F. Kennedy. The center is hosting a series of events honoring Kennedy leading up to the 100th anniversary of the slain president's birth on May 29. And they're looking at more permanent ways to put Kennedy back into the Kennedy Center...

LOS ANGELES -- Tomorrowland originally was going to be called World of Tomorrow. Frontierland was Frontier Country. Lilliputian Land never became a reality at Disneyland. And no one could have foreseen a "Star Wars" land opening in 2019. Walt Disney spent a marathon weekend in 1953 brainstorming ideas for the new family amusement park he envisioned called Disneyland...

NEW ORLEANS -- A last-ditch effort to block the removal of a monument to a Confederate general in New Orleans was rejected Wednesday by a Louisiana judge who turned away arguments the city doesn't own the statue or the land on which it sits. "This has gone on an inordinate amount of time," Judge Kern Reese said as he outlined reasons for his refusal to grant an injunction protecting the statue of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard...

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis is planning to convert Chuck Berry's one-time home into a museum and to create a cultural district around it honoring the rock 'n' roll legend and other prominent African-Americans who have lived in that part of the city. The city Monday solicited bids for the project, which will be centered around the home at 3137 Whittier St. ...

The demolition schedule of “Old A” is unaffected by Monday night’s Jackson School Board meeting. Laura Stroder, Jason Sides and other residents spoke to the school board and a standing-room-only crowd of more than 30 people in an effort to slow the planned demolition of the old high school, which was approved by voters as a provision of Proposition J in April...

VICKSBURG, Miss. -- A monument to Missouri's Civil War troops will be rededicated this month at the Vicksburg National Military Park after a $380,000 repair job to fix broken bronze work and cracks in the granite. The May 27 rededication comes months before the 100th anniversary of the monument's October 1917 unveiling at the Mississippi military park, which commemorates the 47-day Siege of Vicksburg in 1863. ...

NEW YORK -- A new report asserts the first known Americans arrived much, much earlier than scientists thought -- more than 100,000 years ago -- and maybe they were Neanderthals. If true, the finding would far surpass the widely accepted date of about 15,000 years ago...

Everyone asks about the Taylor Twins. Cassi Bock Holcomb, owner of Cassi Bock Landscaping, said that's the question she gets most often about the garden at the corner of West Main and North Missouri streets in Jackson that will be dedicated at a 1 p.m. ceremony Saturday...

The first public tour of Elmwood Manor allowed 35 people to appreciate the historic home's architecture and its collections Saturday, as part of a tour with five total stops in and west of Cape Girardeau Saturday. The History Mystery Tour offered through Continuing Education at Southeast Missouri State University made five stops in Cape Girardeau Saturday...