DECEMBER 11 — 1941 Newspaper Headlines; 2008 Bernie Madoff gets arrested; 1969 Soviets condemn Oh! Calcutta for nude scenes; 1957 Jerry Lee Lewis marries 13-year old cousin
DECEMBER 11
1941 – Here are the headlines. The Evening Star says Germany and Italy Declare War on US and Sign New axis Alliance. The Robesonian: United States Declares War against Germany and Italy. The Atlanta Constitution headline read Naval Base, Air Depot at Manila Aflame after Merciless Attack. The decision for America to go to war with Germany and Italy wasn’t as unanimous as it was with war with Japan. There were a lot of German Americans who saw Hitler as someone who, through socialistic means but not communist, revived the economy of Germany after the Great War.
President Roosevelt signed the declaration, muttering Everything seems to come in threes. The Office of Production Management ordered Detroit to cut automobile construction by 50%. Washington was considering banning the production and sale of new tires to conserve rubber for the war effort. If you had a flat, you would have to patch it up. There was also a mandatory 75% reduction in the manufacturing of jukeboxes and gambling machines since the metal would be needed for the war effort.
2008 – Bernie Madoff gets arrested. He started out with a legit firm in 1960, The Bernie L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. However he created an investment business advisory board in the 1990s which was a Ponzi scheme in which he essentially used Peter’s money to pay off Paul, if you know what I mean. Prior to his arrest, the Securities Exchange Commission probed into Madoff’s business but couldn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing. He hired his brother Peter as Senior Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer, and Bernie’s two sons Andrew and Mark. Peter would get 10 years in prison; Andrew would commit suicide and Mark lymphoma in 2014.
Due to a falling economy in 2008, Bernie’s Ponzi scheme started falling apart as investors were taking out money faster than he could bring in fresh cash. The jig was up, he confessed the plan to his sons on December 10, and his sons turned him into federal authorities immediately. The amount missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was nearly $65 billion. Madoff pled guilty to securities fraud, money laundering and perjury, and was sentenced to 150 years at the Butner correctional Complex in North Carolina. One of the many victims of this scheme was actor Kevin Bacon. Mmmm.Bacon.
1969 – The Soviets come down on Oh Calcutta for its nude scenes, calling it a sign of western decadency. Russian children book author Sergie Mikhailkov condemned the Broadway play, calling it pornography, a general striptease that is one of the slogans of modern bourgeois art. Lighten up.
1957 — 22 year old Jerry Lee Lewis secretly marries his 13 year old second cousin, Myra Gale Brown, while still married to Jane Mitcham. The Killer had first married when he was 16 to Dorothy Barton, the daughter of a local preacher. Mitcham became his second wife in a shotgun ceremony and before he had divorced the previous Mrs. Lewis. The marriage to Myra would last until 1970 and at last count, Jerry Lee has been married seven times.