Above: a Midnight newspaper with an article on Aristotle Onassis and his wife of one year, former First Lady of the U.S. Jackie Kennedy, published today in 1969. Jackie O., as she was known, was a full time obsession for the American tabloid press, though she lived on Skorpios, a private Greek island that was inaccessible to just about anyone outside the Onassis inner circle. But Midnight made up all its stories anyway, so isolated isle or not, they claim here to have the inside scoop on her marriage. Interspersed among that and other celebrity content is a lot of gore—i.e., unflinching photos of people in varying stages of mutilation, dismemberment and decay. Most of the images come from police files, though some are Vietnam War shots. Either way, they’re not for the faint-hearted. We have several more Midnights we’ll show you the inside of soon, including the blood and guts.
1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit
American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.