News

YESTERYEARS FOR THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 2009

Thursday, January 1, 2009 5:23 PM CST

65 Years Ago

January 1, 1944

The nation cast off its war woes for a few hours last night to welcome in the New Year.

Sparse supplies of liquor were stretched through the throngs and, with the added promise of victory in 1944, the result was gaiety almost as usual.

New York had its lights back for the first New Year’s celebration since the submarine menace plunged the city into gloom, and 900,000 persons thronged Times Square to yell and toot horns.

50 Years Ago

January 1, 1959

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The Rev. Jan Celliers flipped through the pages of a big family Bible searching for some suitable text. The pages fell open in the book of Revelations and the face of Elvis Presley looked out. To the Rev. Mr. Celliers, the discovery of Presley’s photograph in the Bible was hardly a revelation. But it was the last straw.

Lately he’d been coming across pinup photos of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and other Hollywood stars stuck away between the pages of other family Bibles.

The Rev. Mr. Celliers was appalled and lashed out to the congregation of the Dutch Reform Church at “this spurt of foreign debauchery.”

Blaming both the youth and their parents, he declared, “If Absolom had lived in our time, he would have been the greatest Hollywood star. The teenagers of today would have fainted before him in the hundreds.”

25 Years Ago

January 1, 1984

The owners of the Union Station restaurant signed an agreement yesterday to provide food services — catering and concession — to the Pine Bluff Convention Center for at least four months.