Here are three events that happened on this date and a trivia question.
August 14, 1945
News bulletins announce the end of World War II.Â
WASHINGTON — Japan surrendered unconditionally Tuesday night, bringing an end to World War Two — the bloodiest conflict mankind has known. Peace came to the world at 7 p.m. when President Truman announced that Tokyo had accepted the Allied capitulation terms with “no qualifications” and that Allied forces have been ordered to cease firing.Â
—-Â United Press news service bulletin
When the actual signing ceremony takes place on the battleship Missouri, Homer Bigart from the New York Herald Tribune writes:
….The Japanese delegation of eleven looked appropriately trim and sad. Shigemitsu was wearing morning clothes — frock coat, striped pants, silk hat, and yellow gloves. None of the party exchanged a single word or salute while on board, except the foreign minister’s aide, who had to be shown where to place the Japanese texts of the surrender document. Shigemitsu, however, doffed his silk hat as he reached the top of the starboard gangway and stepped aboard the broad deck of the Missouri.Â
(Video: “August 14, 1945 Newsreel V-J Day”)
August 14, 1969
The common stock of Knight Newspapers (later called Knight-Ridder) is admitted to trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock opens at 36 1/4 and closes at 36 3/4. In 1969 Knight newspapers include The Akron Beacon Journal, The Detroit Free Press, The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer, The Macon Telegraph and The Tallahassee Democrat.Â
August 14, 1995
Mickey Mantle, 63, the superstar slugging center fielder of the New York Yankees of the 1950s and 1960s whose baseball feats and golden good looks made him an American legend, died of liver cancer yesterday at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
His life in baseball and afterward was the pith and marrow of a basic American myth, and it reflected high triumph and tragedy. Mantle was the clean-cut country boy from Commerce, Okla. The “Commerce Comet” joined the Yankees at age 19, overcoming adversity early on and taking the big city by storm.
….At a news conference several weeks before his death, the man idolized by millions for his grace and power expressed remorse for his years of heavy drinking. He declared that he was no role model for America’s youth. “Don’t be like me,” he warned.
–“Mickey Mantle, Legend of Baseball, Dies at 63“
Washington Post story excerpt by Bart Barnes
Media History Trivia Question
Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune earned a Pulitzer Prize for his World War II correspondence. Name a Herald Tribune staffer who won a Pulitzer for editorial writing in 1942. (Answer)
