NEW YORK (AP) — Bob Edwards, who anchored National Public
Radio’s “Morning Edition” for just under 25 years and was the
baritone voice who told many Americans what had happened
while they slept, has died.
Edwards, who died Saturday, was 76 years old. NPR gave no
further details.
His cause of death was reported to be "metastatic bladder
cancer and a heart ailment."
Red Barber, left, is shown with Bob Edwards on Oct. 22, 1992.
(AP)
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl LVIII win on
Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
On February 12, 1999, the five-week impeachment trial of Bill
Clinton came to an end, with the Senate voting to acquit the
president on both articles of impeachment: perjury and
obstruction of justice.
Future U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809.
Lincoln, one of America’s most admired presidents, grew up a
member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana. He attended
school for only one year, but thereafter read on his own in a
continual effort to improve his mind. As an adult, he lived in
Illinois and performed a variety of jobs including stints as a
postmaster, surveyor and shopkeeper, before entering politics.
He served in the Illinois legislature from 1834 to 1842 and in
Congress from 1847-1849, and then became an attorney.
The Payola scandal reaches a new level of public prominence
and legal gravity on this day 1960, when President Eisenhower
called it an issue of public morality and the FCC proposed a
new law making involvement in Payola a criminal act.
What exactly was Payola? During the hearings conducted by Congressman Oren Harris (D-Arkansas) and his powerful
Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight—fresh off its inquiry
into quiz-show rigging—the term was sometimes used as a
blanket reference to a range of corrupt practices in the radio
and recording industries.
But within the music business, Payola referred specifically to
a practice that was nearly as old as the industry itself: making
popular hits by paying for radio play.
Dwight David Eisenhower
(October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969)
Albert James "Alan" Freed
(December 15, 1921 – January 20, 1965)
In 1960, payola was made illegal. In December 1962, after
being charged on multiple counts of commercial bribery,
Freed pled guilty to two counts of commercial bribery,
fined three hundred dollars and was given a suspended
sentence.
