Atomic bomb, Medicare, Harding dies. The News Journal pages of history, week of July 31.

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

July 31, 1965, Wilmington Morning News

LBJ, Truman bask in Medicare triumph

President Johnson signed his $6.5 billion Medicare bill yesterday after journeying more than 1,000 miles to share “this time of triumph” with former President Harry S. Truman.

The new law, said the 81-year-old former president, will mean dignity, not charity “for those of us who have moved to the sidelines.”

Then, one hand on his cane, Truman stepped aside and listened as Johnson said the vast program of medical insurance for the elderly will bring “the light of hope and realization” to millions of Americans….

Truman went on to recall that there had been much debate within his administration about the wisdom of proposing medical insurance legislation. He said he finally told his associates: “We’re gonna do it boys, we’re gonna do it. We may not make it but someday we will.”

RECENT NEWS ON HEALTH PROGRAMS:Not everyone has equal access to health care in Delaware. How some uninsured people get care

Aug. 3, 1923, Wilmington Morning News

President Harding dead

SAN FRANCISCO – “That’s good; go on; read some more.”

These were the last words uttered by the President to Mrs. Harding. The President’s hand raised as he asked Mrs. Harding to continue reading. Instantly his expression changed. He was dead.

Warren G. Harding, President of the United States, died instantaneously and without warning at 7:30 o’clock last night, a victim of stroke by apoplexy, which struck him down in his weakened condition after an illness of exactly a week.

The Chief Executive of the nation, and by virtue of his office and personality, one of the world’s leading figures, passed away at the time when his physicians, his family and his people thought that medical skill, hope and prayer had won the battle against disease….

He was definitely on the road to recovery from ptomaine poisoning, acute indigestion, and pneumonia which followed them….

The disease had been conquered, the fire was out, but seven days of silent, though intense, suffering had left their mark, and before physicians could be called, members of his party summoned, or remedial measures taken, he passed from life’s stage after having for nearly two and a half years served his nation and for many years his native state of Ohio.

With the passing of Mr. Harding, the office of President devolves upon Calvin Coolidge, Vice President of the United States, a man silent in nature, but demonstrated as strong in emergencies. He was notified of the death of Mr. Harding at his home in Plymouth, Vermont….

The body of President Harding will leave San Francisco on a special train at about 7 o’clock Friday evening and go direct to Washington, by way of Reno, Ogden, Cheyenne, Omaha and Chicago….

Aug. 5, 1972, Evening Journal

Shock wave from sun due tonight

Federal astronomers predict a shock wave of electrified gases, the result of a large solar flare, will hit the Earth’s atmosphere tonight, disrupting the planet’s magnetic field.

The solar flare, detected yesterday, was the second major flare on the sun in three days.

“It was one of the five largest ever observed,” said Ralph Segman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) information officer….

The “geomagnetic storm” will cause radio signal blackouts in both polar regions and cause appearances of Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, he said.

Segman added the storm might interfere with defense monitoring by the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). Other effects could include huge surges in power lines and alterations of satellite orbits….

Radio signal blackouts have persisted for several days in Anarctica and northern parts of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and the Soviet Union because of the new solar activity which began Wednesday….

The federal astronomers predicted that the Earth would be hit with a “sudden commencement geomagnetic storm” at 8:30 p.m. EDT today….

The flare is the result of violent explosions on the surface of the sun. The explosions bring about a bombardment of the Earth’s atmosphere by electrical particles, and the glow visible in the atmosphere is “an optical emission resulting from the electrical particle bombardment,” said Dr. Kay Baker, who directs the space science laboratory at Utah State University….

CATCH UP ON HISTORY:News Journal archives, week of April 24

Aug. 6, 1945, Journal-Every Evening

U.S. drops atomic bomb on Japan

An atomic bomb, hailed as the most terrible destructive force in history and as the greatest achievement of organized science, has been loosed upon Japan.

President Truman disclosed in a White House statement at 11 a.m. today that the first use of the bomb, containing more power than 20,000 tons of TNT and producing more than 2,000 times the blast of the most powerful bomb ever dropped before, was made 16 hours earlier on the Hiro Shima Japanese army base.

The atomic bomb was developed at factories in Tennessee, Washington and New Mexico.

Mr. Truman in his announcement said that from 60,000 to 125,000 workers were employed on the project at Oak Ridge, Tenn., at Richland, Wash., and an undisclosed installation near Santa Fe, N.M. He said the work was so secret that most of the employees did not know the character of it.

The bomb is the answer, Truman said, to Japan’s refusal to surrender….

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: News Journal archives: Medicare launched, atomic bomb drops on Japan