Daily News Centennial, Part III: 1970-1989

Part 3 of my series displaying front pages of the 1st 100 years of the New York Daily News.

April 18, 1970, Apollo 13 arrives home safely:

May 5, 1970, the Kent State University Massacre:

May 9, 1970, the Knicks finally winning their 1st World Championship, after the Yankees had won 20, the baseball Giants 6, the football Giants 4, the Rangers 3, the Brooklyn Dodgers 1, and even the expansion Mets and Jets 1 apiece:

October 5, 1970, and I should note that there was no similarly blaring headline a few days earlier when Jimi Hendrix died, nor would there be one the next year when it was Jim Morrison:

March 9, 1971, "The Fight of the Century" at Madison Square Garden, the 1st of 3 fights between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali:

July 7, 1971, Louis Armstrong dies:

September 14, 1971, the riot at Attica Correctional Facility in Western New York:

October 25, 1972, bad news in Vietnam, and in Stamford, Connecticut, where Jackie Robinson lived:

January 2, 1973, another baseball legend is lost, this one while still an active player:

May 11, 1973, The Knicks' 2nd (and, so far, last) title, a Stanley Cup win, and the Mayor's Trophy baseball game:

June 10, 1973, winning the Belmont by 31 lengths:

September 21, 1973, the Battle of the Sexes tennis match:

October 11, 1973, the Mets win the Pennant, and the Vice President resigns one step ahead of the law. This is the thing that gets me about the Nixon era: The Vice President had to resign, and yet his crimes had nothing to do with the crimes that fell under the umbrella term "Watergate":

October 21, 1973, Watergate's "Saturday Night Massacre";

April 9, 1974, Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's record:

August 9, 1974:

A later edition:

October 31, 1974: As "The Greatest" told us, "You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait until you see me kick Foreman's behind!" Former President Richard Nixon fell victim to phlebitis, and almost died.

April 30, 1975, the fall of Saigon:

September 18, 1975, the heiress turned bank robber is caught:

October 2, 1975, "The Thrilla in Manila":

October 30, 1975, the most famous newspaper headline of all time, after President Gerald Ford said he would veto any federal government bailout of New York City's finances:

July 5, 1976, coverage of New York's celebration of America's Bicentennial:

October 15, 1976, Chris Chambliss' homer wins the Pennant, but the Yankees did not beat Cincinnati in the World Series:

November 3, 1976, they were unsure at first, so they didn't take a chance; but a later edition was able to confirm Jimmy Carter's win over Gerald Ford:

June 5, 1977, previously known as "the .44-Caliber Killer," David Berkowitz, calling himself "the Son of Sam," writes to Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin. The prose is so lurid that Breslin says, "This guy could do my job." After consulting with his publisher and the police, the paper prints the letter, and also prints Breslin's response:

June 6, 1977: Ya think?

June 16, 1977, the biggest public-relations fiasco in the history of New York sports:

June 19, 1977, concluding the wildest week in New York baseball history:

July 8, 1977, a fire breaks out at the federal prison in nearby Danbury, Connecticut, but a secondary headline shows that, in the middle of one of New York's worst heat waves, the Daily News Building takes part in filming for Superman: The Movie, including stars Christopher Reeve (as Clark Kent and Superman) and Margot Kidder (Lois Lane):

July 14, 1977, after the 2nd big New York blackout:

July 15, 1977, summing up the blackout and the subsequent riots:

July 22, 1977: How hot was it?

August 1, 1977, the cops just can't seem to catch him, and the total is now 8 separate incidents, 13 people wounded, 6 of them dead (including, in this Brooklyn incident, Stacey Moskowitz), 1 blinded (in this incident, Robert Violante), and 1 paralyzed:

August 11, 1977: For once, the Post had the better headline: Simply, "CAUGHT!"

August 17, 1977:

October 19, 1977, after Reggie Jackson led the Yankees to another title:

The back page:

November 9, 1977, Ed Koch wins New York's nastiest Mayoral election -- to that point:

November 20, 1977: As far as I know, this is the only time the paper has ever had a headline in a non-Roman alphabet:

July 25, 1978, after Billy Martin said of Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner, "They're made for each other. One's a born liar, the other's convicted":

July 26, 1978, Louise Joy Brown is born, and Pete Rose surpasses Tommy Holmes for the longest National League hitting streak in the 20th Century, and does it at Shea:

As in 1962, a citywide newspaper strike meant that there was no Daily News coverage of the Yankees' 1978 World Series win.

November 20, 1978, the Jonestown Massacre, whose death toll nearly reached 1,000:

December 12, 1978, after the Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport, as seen in the movie Goodfellas:

January 27, 1979, but the story of how the former Vice President and 4-term Governor of New York died turned out to be not only untrue, but scandalous:

March 29, 1979, Three Mile Island:

June 12, 1979:

July 12, 1979, a Mob boss getting rubbed out is a bigger headline than Skylab falling to Earth:

August 3, 1979:

November 5, 1979, the beginning of the Iran Hostage Crisis:

December 4, 1979, after a stampede at a Who concert in Cincinnati:

January 21, 1980, President Carter boycotts the Olympics in Moscow, on a Super Bowl Sunday, no less:

February 25, 1980:

November 5, 1980:

December 9, 1980:

January 21, 1981, in this case "Yanks" refers to the hostages in Iran, not the baseball team:

March 31, 1981:

May 5, 1981, I don't know if Bobby Sands was actually a terrorist, but he did his damnedest to take care of his own, and was more courageous than any of his opponents. His hunger strike and ensuing death was a big story in America, with its large Irish-descended population, particularly in New York:

May 14, 1981, another assassination attempt fails, this time on Pope John Paul II:

October 7, 1981, this attempt succeeded:

March 6, 1982:

October 28, 1983: Reagan justifies the invasion of Grenada 5 days earlier:

November 7, 1984, Reagan is re-elected in one of the biggest landslides ever:

December 23, 1984, the Bernhard Goetz story:

August 5, 1985, Mets legend Tom Seaver, pitching for the Chicago White Sox, beats the Yankees for his 300th career win at Yankee Stadium, and this is the 1st headline for which I was actually present:

December 17, 1985, maybe Big Paul Castellano should have hired Bernie Goetz as a bodyguard:

January 29, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after liftoff:

October 20, 1986, after the Mets lost the 1st 2 games of the World Series at home to the Boston Red Sox, the team from "Beantown":

October 28, 1986:

January 26, 1987, Giants win their 1st Super Bowl (their 5th NFL Championship overall):

April 2, 1987, cartoonist Bill Gallo revisits his famous cartoon after the death of Thurman Munson, to show kids' disappointment over fallen Mets hero Dwight Gooden:

October 20, 1987, another Wall Street crash:

November 9, 1988, George H.W. Bush is elected President:

June 7, 1989, coverage of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China:

November 8, 1989, New York elects David Dinkins, then President of the Borough of Manhattan, as its 1st black Mayor:

November 10, 1989, the Berlin Wall becomes meaningless:

December 26, 1989, and the irony is that Billy's death was the result of someone else's drinking, not his own:

Part 4 follows, and will conclude the series.