In the olden days of analog recordings and heavy electronics, music downloading required physical strength, dedication, time, know-how and, most importantly, the source. That’s why when my cousin V. received a record of the Saturday Night Fever from our overseas relatives, I knew I had to have a copy.

This post is brought to you by the Johnson County Central Resource Library’s new awesome microfilm reader.
Also brought to you by the library’s outstanding raise-deserving personnel.

On January 20, 1981, at the moment Reagan completed his 20-minute inaugural address after being sworn in as President, 52 American hostages were released by Iran into U.S. custody, having spent 444 days in captivity.

The Iran Hostage Crisis was well-covered in the media, with reports and dispatches published and broadcast on a daily basis during the 444 day ordeal, but in the last few days before the Algiers Accords were brokered, the hostage news were back on the front pages of every newspaper.
*all the images should be readable, if you care to do so just click to enlarge.

I spend too much time browsing through recently posted Life Photo Archives. I hope they will eventually improve the way it’s tagged, add all the necessary meta-data and more importantly remove what seems to be a limit of 200 results for a search. In the meantime I will post the shots I like for whatever reason.

Pres. John F. Kennedy is sitting with Mrs. Nikita S. Khrushchev.

While Mrs. John F. Kennedy is talking with Nikita S. Khrushchev.

Seems like Khrushchev knew how to entertain a lady.

P.S. If you are one of my younger readers and have no idea who these people are please click here.

This week 40 years ago the Kansas City International Airport was dedicated by Vice President Spiro Agnew. Hard to believe that it’s living out its last few years.

*all images are readable if clicked

Over the last several months the Soviet Union’s campaign against Jews and Judaism has intensified. All over the country synagogues have bee closed, prayer meetings have been raided and newspaper articles have appeared attacking Jews as “thieves” and “enemies of socialism.” In this climate of official attacks, hoodlums have felt free to stone and set fire to synagogues, Jews have been severely beaten and even killed.

The extent and the virulence of the new campaign, which may come as a shock to the outside world, does not surprise the Jews of the USSR. They have had to live with organized anti-Semitism for more than a decade. ” The government regards Christianity and Islam as the “opium of the people,” a Gentile Russian told me in Moscow recently, “but it treats Judaism as if it were poison gas. What’s more, it doesn’t matter whether a Jew is religious or not. He’s pushed around just because he’s a Jew.”

Life Magazine, December 7, 1959. “New Agony for Russian Jews”.

The following photos are a rare sight – for the first 18 years of my life I haven’t seen a praying Jew; partly because most of the people I knew were not religious (at least not known to be religious); partly because all but one synagogue in my city were not functioning (one was a gym, another one housed some archives and who knows what else); partly because openly practicing a religion and especially Judaism which has visual attributes (head cover, facial hair) was not compatible with having a career and sometimes a job.