2 space shuttles explode, Gandhi murdered: The News Journal archives, week of Jan. 28

"Pages of history" features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.

Jan. 29, 1986, The Morning News

Space shuttle Challenger explodes

A catastrophic explosion blew apart the space shuttle Challenger shortly after liftoff Tuesday, sending schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe and six NASA astronauts to a fiery death in the sky eight miles out from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“We mourn seven heroes,” said President Ronald Reagan.

The accident defied quick explanation, though a slow-motion replay seemed to show an initial explosion in one of two peel-away rocket boosters igniting the shuttle’s huge external fuel tank. The tank burst into a fireball that destroyed Challenger high above the Atlantic while the crew's families and NASA officials watched in despair from the Cape….

In Delaware, though few students actually saw the heart-stopping explosion when it happened, the event will likely leave a permanent mark on their lives. The tragedy was particularly wrenching because of the drumbeat of publicity that had been given to McAuliffe and her scheduled lessons from space.

Students in Delaware and around the country were to attend classes McAuliffe was to begin teaching from space on Friday….

Jan. 30, 1936, Wilmington Morning News

Ice halts traffic in rivers, canal

Ice, 12 inches thick at some points, brought water traffic virtually to a standstill in the waterways in this area yesterday.

Near Elkton, four boats and a barge are held fast. The freighter Albany, with 400 tons of sugar aboard and towing a barge with 500 tons of sugar, has been stuck in the Elk River, seven miles from Chesapeake City, since last Thursday.

The crushing ice has opened seams in the vessel. Yesterday, as the ship’s supply of fuel oil ran low, in the continuous pumping to keep water from reaching the cargo, fear was felt that the sugar might be lost.

Hurried arrangements were made with a Wilmington concern to rush fuel to Town Point from where it will be taken on sleds across the ice to the beleaguered freighter. Nine men aboard the boat have been buying supplies and coal from farmers along the shore for the past several days….

Ice which had already extended many yards from each bank of the Delaware River finally started choking the main ship channel yesterday. All trips of the Wilson Line steamers were cancelled after 3 o’clock when the last boat sailed from Philadelphia and Wilmington, arriving at their destinations far behind schedule.

All freight is being carried by trucks….

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Jan. 30, 1948, Journal – Every Evening

Gandhi assassinated by Hindu on his way to prayer meeting

A Hindu tonight shot to death Mohandas K. Gandhi, apostle of non-violence and father of Indian independence.

Police said the frail spiritual leader of India’s hundreds of millions of Hindus was killed for “political reasons – because some person did not agree with his appeals against violence.”

Gandhi, 78, was walking to his prayer meeting grounds, on the lawn of the Birla mansion, to appeal again for an end of communal violence. Three shots rang out at close range. One found his heart.

Death came quickly to his emaciated body, wasted in a recent fast in the cause of peace amid the rival religious sects of India and Pakistan.

The assassin was held incommunicado. Police said he was a civilian from Poona, although he was wearing army clothes.

Earlier this month, a bomb had exploded near the spot where Gandhi was holding his prayer meeting….

In Bombay, widespread looting, arson and stabbings started tonight two hours after news spread of Gandhi’s assassination. Police fired many times into Hindu and Moslem rioters in the Nill Bazaar in central Bombay….

Tens of thousands of Indians streamed to Gandhi’s bier in his quarters in the palatial residence of G.D. Birla, an industrialist who long had supported Gandhi. They passed sadly in single file….

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Feb. 2, 2003, Sunday News Journal

Space shuttle Columbia, 7 astronauts lost in fiery landing entry

High over Texas and just short of home, space shuttle Columbia fell to pieces Saturday, raining debris over hundreds of miles of countryside. Seven astronauts perished — a gut-wrenching loss for a country and world already staggered by tragedy.

The catastrophe occurred 39 miles above Earth, in the last 16 minutes of the 16-day mission as the spaceship re-entered the atmosphere and glided in for a landing in Florida….

The day echoed one almost exactly 17 years before, when the Challenger space shuttle exploded….

The search for the cause began immediately. One focus: possible damage to Columbia’s protective thermal tiles on the left wing from a flying piece of debris during liftoff Jan. 16….

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: 2 space shuttles explode: The News Journal archives, week of Jan. 28