OUT OF OUR PAST

Battle Creek Enquirer, MI
Oct 12 2005

25 years ago today, 1980: Terrorist bombings in four major cities
left police puzzling over those claiming responsibility. Anonymous
callers claimed responsibility for bombs in New York, Los Angeles and
London that were aimed at Turkish-owned businesses and the Turkish
Mission to the United Nations. The callers claimed to be Armenians
retaliating for decades of persecution by Turks since a massacre that
began in 1915 when Turks killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians.

Two other explosions went off in London and Paris near Swiss-based
organizations. The October Third Organization claimed responsibility
and said the Swiss government would know what it was about.

50 years ago today, 1955: Michigan’s secretary of state ordered
the state’s attorney general to appear before a license examiner
to determine whether he was fit to continue driving. The order came
after it came out that the attorney general had received five traffic
violation tickets in the 18 months before he became attorney general
and the secretary of state’s office had dropped normal action in
the case.

100 years ago today, 1905: A pear tree on the Mary Smaltz place,
175 W. Fountain St. in Battle Creek, was producing immense sized fruit.

An average-sized pear from the tree brought to the Daily Journal’s
office measured seven inches in length, 12 inches in circumference,
and weighed 19 ounces. All that was known about the tree was that it
was a type of winter pear.