ROAD FROM BENGHAZI

Nobody knows the way, but everyone knows they’re right.

Last time we posted an Adam we miscounted and said it was our fortieth issue shared. Well, this is our fortieth (impossible to even know at this point—41st—issue shared, we can’t count). It’s an earlier one, from this month in 1955. That means it’s more text heavy, giving us plenty to read, which is nice for us, but leaving us fewer pages of visual interest to scan, not so nice for the website. So today you get thirteen images where normally we post about thirty. We could have scanned several more but getting to the pages in the center of the issue was a challenge—just removing it from its sleeve resulted in losing part of the cover. Alas.

Inside the issue you get fiction and fact, including Dick Halvorsen’s harrowing story of being shot down near Benghazi during World War II and having to trek for days through the Libyan desert to reach civilization. A few years ago 95% of Americans wouldn’t have been able to pronounce Benghazi, but now it’s a cultural buzzword—meaning to some people “cover-up” or “incompetence” and to others “witch-hunt” or “wingnut.” What a world we live in. Halvorsen’s tale, referencing a time when the Allies were informally partnered with Bedouins in the area, provides interesting historical color.

In other news we have twenty-six more issues of Adam to share. Yes, we’ve been busy beavers. Since today’s issue is already fragile as pie crust perhaps somewhere down the line we’ll just pull it completely apart in order to obtain more and better scans. We’ve sacrificed physical issues of magazines before to give them digital permanency, but not of our beloved Adam. In any case, check back for another posting of our favorite men’s magazine in a week or so. And for a quick look at some of those other thirty-nine issues, maybe start herehere, or here.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna, fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.

Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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