History

NEW YORK -- John A. Stormer, a religious leader and right-wing activist whose self-published Cold War tract "None Dare Call It Treason" became a grassroots sensation in 1964 and a rallying point for the emerging conservative movement, has died at 90...

Floodwaters swamped towns along the Mississippi River and its tributaries and turned roads and fields into lakes 25 years ago this summer. It was a marathon of a flood, which first surfaced in March 1993 and stayed around all summer. Its endurance taxed city, county, state and federal resources and volunteer efforts to battle it...

March 9: Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau forecast to crest later in the week at 36 feet, 4 feet above flood stage. March 19: The National Weather Service says the potential for spring flooding on the Mississippi River as far south as Caruthersville, Missouri, is minor to moderate...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Weeks after he published a book about the brutal slaying of Emmett Till, a North Carolina author received a call from FBI agents asking about his interview with a key witness who acknowledged lying about her interactions with the black teen...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A year after a book on the brutal slaying of black teen Emmett Till revealed a key figure in the case acknowledged lying, the federal government has reopened its investigation of the 1955 crime that helped build momentum for the civil rights movement...

HANNIBAL, Mo. -- The rescue missions -- more than 50 years apart -- parallel one another, demonstrating the dangers of amateur caving and the painstaking process to rescue those trapped. Much of the world rejoiced Monday with the news divers had rescued the final four of 12 young soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave in northern Thailand...

Tab Hunter, the blond actor and singer who was a heartthrob for millions of teenagers in the 1950s with such films as "Battle Cry" and "Damn Yankees" and received new attention decades later when he revealed he was gay, has died. He was 86. Producer and spouse Allan Glaser said Hunter died Sunday of a blood clot in his leg leading to cardiac arrest. Glaser called the death "sudden and unexpected."...

ST. LOUIS -- The revitalized Gateway Arch National Park was dedicated Tuesday, the culmination of a $380 million public-private partnership Missouri political leaders see as a template for the future of the national park system. Several hundred people stood in steamy heat for a ceremony in the shadow of the 630-foot-tall monument to westward expansion sitting along the Mississippi River in downtown St. Louis...

Patented in 1926 by architect and engineer Wesley Bintz, the above-ground Harmon Field Public Swimming Pool in Chaffee, Missouri, has been attracting visitors with its aroma of summertime mixed with choline for nearly 80 years. Groundbreaking for the aged, bright blue and white, 60-feet by 90-feet brick-and-concrete pool at 11988 State Highway 77 took place Oct. ...

MANSFIELD, Mo. -- A Missouri museum dedicated to Laura Ingalls Wilder has expressed disappointment at a recent decision to remove the author's name from a national literary award. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association in Mansfield released a recent statement disagreeing with the action to rename the major children's book award, the Springfield News-Leader reported. Wilder was best known for her "Little House on the Prairie" series...

JERUSALEM -- Prince William began his visit to Israel on Tuesday with an emotional tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, a soccer game with Arab and Jewish youth and an introduction to Tel Aviv's vibrant start-up scene. The prince is the first member of the British royal family to pay an official visit to Israel. Though the trip is being billed as non-political, the prince is meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and visiting sites at the heart of the century-old conflict...

Old McKendree Chapel, Cemetery and grounds is Jackson's first historic landmark, created under the city's historic preservation ordinance, according to a city news release. The chapel, located off South Old Orchard Road on Bainbridge Road in Jackson, is already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been since 1984, the release stated -- that entry doesn't include the cemetery...

A sneak-peek exhibit at the Cape Girardeau County History Center in Jackson features items from a collection belonging to Cape Girardeau founder Louis Lorimier and his descendants, said center director Carla Jordan, and the complete collection will be available to researchers early next year...

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France -- For decades, he was known only as Unknown X-9352 at a World War II American cemetery in Belgium where he was interred. Today, he has recovered his identity -- and was being reunited with his twin brother in Normandy, where the two Navy men died together when their ship shattered on an underwater mine while trying to reach the blood-soaked D-Day beaches...

Southeast Missouri State University wants nearly $13.6 million in state funding to renovate the more-than-century-old Art Building, the second oldest building on the school's main campus. University president Carlos Vargas-Aburto told the board of regents earlier this week the project is the school's top priority for capital improvements...

CONCORD, Mass. -- A century and a half before the #MeToo movement gave women a bold, new collective voice, Louisa May Alcott was lending them her own. Society had far different expectations of women in 1867, when publisher Thomas Niles asked Alcott to write a "girls' story." At a time when women were expected to marry, often did not hold employment and could not vote, Alcott had her doubts about the success of "Little Women."...

FULTON, Mo. -- The latest addition to the National Churchill Museum in Fulton is a testament to the longtime British prime minister's artistic, rather than political, skills. The former Monsanto Co. on Friday donated a painting by Churchill to the museum at Westminster College, where Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946...

A visible link to the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport's storied past came down Wednesday with the removal of a beacon tower dating back to the 1940s, according to airport officials. The metal tower and its large, rotating beacon were removed by crews with Reinhold Electric as part of an airport improvement project. The beacon and tower, which stood 50 feet high, are being replaced with a pole and a smaller, rotating beacon, said airport manager Bruce Loy...

It was a hot, humid morning when the Jackson Municipal Band started playing patriotic tunes at 9 a.m. at the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson. The band played jauntily despite the glaring sun that glowered on them throughout the ceremony...

Saturday was a special day for 95-year-old World War II veteran Melvin Kuehle, as he reminisced to friends and family memorable wartime experiences while accepting a surprise gift from local law enforcement. Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers Jayson Spain, David Welker and Sgt. Mike Lynch presented him with a 1931-style license plate for his scooter — modeled after one of the first license plates placed on patrol cars in 1931 — in honor of his service and dedication through the years...

A development group wants to purchase two of Cape Girardeau’s historic theaters in the 800 block of Broadway and redevelop one of them with the aid of tax-increment financing, according to an application submitted to city hall. TAG (Together Always Giving) Development and Cape Theaters LLC submitted the application. The effort is headed by developer Cara Naeger of Bloomsdale, Missouri...

The Oliver House, 224 East Adams St. in Jackson, is a local treasure with a link to Missouri history. The Jackson Heritage Association restored the house that Missouri State Senator Robert Burett Oliver and his wife, Marie Watkins Oliver, purchased in 1881 on property just to the southeast of the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Senate has voted to send Harry Truman back to Washington. The proposal, approved Tuesday 32-0, directs a statue of the former president from Missouri be displayed in the U.S. Capitol. States get to choose two people for the National Statuary Hall Collection, and Missouri has displayed the same two men since the end of the 19th century...

On the county courthouse lawn in Jackson, a statue stands at the southeast corner. He’s a doughboy, so called because he stands to honor the men and women who served in World War I. Since its dedication in 1925, the 16-feet-tall white marble statue has eroded, but thanks to the American Legion post in Jackson, the statue is sealed against further damage...

NEW YORK -- Tom Wolfe, the white-suited wizard of "New Journalism" who exuberantly chronicled American culture from the Merry Pranksters through the space race before turning his satiric wit to such novels as "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man in Full," has died. He was 88...

LOS ANGELES -- Margot Kidder, who starred as Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in the "Superman" film franchise of the 1970s and 1980s, has died. Kidder died Sunday at her home in Livingston, Montana, according to a notice on the website of Franzen-Davis Funeral Home. She was 69...

DIAMOND, Mo. -- The remains of a U.S. Navy sailor killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii have been returned to Missouri to be buried with full military honors. Clifford George Goodwin had been resting in a common grave at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii for decades, the Springfield News-Leader reported...

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- Ste. Genevieve is getting a national park designation. The long-sought formation of the Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park was signed into law in March. The designation authorizes the National Park Service to acquire about 13 acres for inclusion in the park, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported...

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Clifford Alexander scoops a handful of black ballpoint pens, drops them into a small box and shakes it with a blackjack dealer's nonchalance. He slides in the next handful to make an exact dozen, and sends the box down the assembly line...

ST. LOUIS -- Billy Ray Ball was a short, slim 19-year-old with thick glasses and a talent for the slide trombone in a family of musicians when he left the small farming community of Matthews to enlist in 1941. He was sent to the humid rainforests of a country 8,000 miles away that he knew little or nothing about...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Visitors at a Utah state park have been dislodging dinosaur tracks imprinted in sandstone and throwing the pieces into a nearby lake, officials said. The site lined with hundreds of the prehistoric raptor tracks has been heavily damaged in the past six months, Red Fleet State Park manager Josh Hansen said...

NEOSHO, Mo. -- A Missouri school where noted scientist and inventor George Washington Carver attended as a child is undergoing rehabilitation to return it to its original condition. The Neosho Colored School is being moved so the Carver Birthplace Association can rebuild and stabilize the structure, the Joplin Globe reported. The school building was built in 1872...

Where is the body of Captain Molly? Revolutionary War hero Margaret "Captain Molly" Corbin was long thought to be buried beneath her granite monument at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The Daughters of the American Revolution moved her remains there in 1926 from an unmarked grave nearby. But it's now clear they removed the wrong remains...

A Union soldier statue tops the fountain in Cape Girardeau’s Ivers Square. A monument to Confederate solders stands nearby. But there is no statue or monument commemorating the sacrifices of former slaves who enlisted in the Union Army colored regiments during the Civil War...

Editor's note: Fifty years ago today, April 25, 1968, Robert "Bobby" Kennedy made a campaign appearance in Cape Girardeau at the Town Plaza. He was a U.S. Senator from New York, former attorney general of the United States and the brother of slain United States President John F. ...

SEDALIA, Mo. -- A former volunteer at a small Missouri museum has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars' worth of Civil War and World War I artifacts. A warrant was issued Monday for the arrest of 38-year-old Terry Cockrell, a 2010 Sedalia mayoral candidate who volunteered for eight years at the Pettis County Museum before moving last fall to Coffeyville, Kansas. He's charged with two felony counts of stealing $750 or more. No attorney is listed for him in online court records...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Visitors to the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice first glimpse them, eerily, in the distance: Brown rectangular slabs, 800 in all, inscribed with the names of more than 4,000 souls who lost their lives in lynchings between 1877 and 1950...

MOSCOW -- During the Cold War, Soviet scientists at a secret, high-security lab worked frantically to counter the latest U.S. chemical weapons. More than four decades later, the nerve agent they developed apparently turned up in a quiet English town, where it nearly killed a former Russian spy and his daughter...

BRANSON, Mo. -- A Missouri museum is telling the story of the inventor of the wide-eyed iconic Kewpie doll in a new exhibit. The exhibit on Rose O'Neill, who also was an author, illustrator and suffragist, opened earlier this month and will remain on display through Aug. 5 at the Springfield Art Museum. It includes 150 objects, including illustrations, paintings and drawings, The Joplin Globe reported...

HOUSTON -- In his first public comments since his wife's death, former President George H.W. Bush said Wednesday he used to tease his spouse of 73 years he had a complex about how much people liked her. That fact, he said, is buoyed by stories about Barbara Bush's warmth and wit following her death. Tributes have rolled in from around the world, from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to a U.S. Navy commander, who recalled Mrs. Bush handing out cookies to sailors on a battleship...