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Historical Context for September 27, 1984

In 1984, the world population was approximately 4,782,175,519 people[†]

In 1984, the average yearly tuition was $1,148 for public universities and $5,093 for private universities. Today, these costs have risen to $9,750 and $35,248 respectively[†]

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Headlines from September 27, 1984

THE COST CRACKDOWN AT NEWSWEEK

By Alex S. Jones

A stern restructuring is under way at Newsweek as the magazine searches for leaner operations and higher profits. After a decade of repeated management changes that left a legacy of a swollen corporate structure and depressed profits, Newsweek has been systematically streamlining itself in recent months under the close scrutiny of the the Washington Post Company, Newsweek's owner. In late July, tightened cost controls and new operating procedures were installed for the magazine's editorial staff, which had largely escaped the companywide effort at improving profits and efficiency. Changes in Character Seen Although Newsweek executives insist that the magazine's quality will not be affected, some staff members say the relatively free-wheeling and independent character of Newsweek Inc. - the corporate body that publishes the magazine - is changing for the worse as it responds to the Post Company's heightened pressure for an improved bottom line. The goal, both Post and Newsweek officials say, is to maintain the quality of the magazine while increasing a disappointing profit margin of 5.1 percent in 1983 to 12 percent in several years.

Financial Desk1320 words

A FORMAL GARDEN, MADE IN AMERICA

By Paula Deitz

acre formal garden she designed in the classical style in the Taconic foothills in upstate New York, she might be describing the construction of an elaborate house. ''The local people who built it were fine craftsmen working from a medieval point of view,'' Mrs. Poehler, a landscape architect, said of the privately owned garden, rarely open to the public. ''There are four different kinds of stone - granite, bluestone, shale and red dog, a kind of rosy slag - in the design.'' Purely in the classical style, after the Italian villas of the 17th century, the garden is unusual in America. To transform the bucolic New York landscape into lush greensward, clipped hedges and topiary forms, punctuated by stone balustrades, urns and obelisks meant starting from scratch. Mrs. Poehler, who lives in Sharon, Conn., created the garden's dazzling serenity and formal order over 25 years beginning in 1947 on commission for the owner.

Home Desk1184 words

HONG KONG SEE THE FUTURE: WILL IT WORK?

By Barbara Crossette, Special To the New York Times

The Governor of Hong Kong came back from Peking today bringing the people of this British colony their first detailed glimpse of their future under Chinese rule after 1997. There was no rejoicing here tonight as the Governor, Sir Edward Youde, revealed details of the accord initialed today in Peking in a report to Hong Kong's Legislative Council while a dismal rain fell over the city. Instead, there seemed to be a sense of resignation tempered with relief among the colony's 5.5 million people. ''The destiny of Hong Kong is now the same as the destiny of China,'' the political commentator T. L. Tsim said. ''There is no escaping.''

Foreign Desk975 words

Companies

By Unknown Author

I.B.M. announced that it would acquire Rolm, one of Silicon Valley's leading makers of telephone switching equipment, for $1.25 billion in securities. The acquisition, I.B.M.'s largest ever and its first since 1962, would place the computer giant in direct competition with A.T.& T. and several Japanese companies in the market for complex telephone equipment. (Page A1.) Continental Illinois expects to nearly break even in the third quarter, the chairman of the beleaguered bank said. The executive, William S. Ogden, also said that the bank would soon release a strategic plan, detailing where it would make cuts in its operations. Shareholders, meanwhile, overwhelmingly approved the $4.5 billion rescue plan for the bank put together by the F.D.I.C., the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve. (D1.)

Financial Desk668 words

CONTINENTAL BANK SEES RECOVERY

By Steven Greenhouse

William S. Ogden, chairman and chief executive of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company, predicted today that the beleaguered bank would be ''in the neighborhood of breaking even'' in the third quarter. In the second quarter, the bank's holding company, the Continental Illinois Corporation, reported a loss of $1.16 billion, primarily because of charges taken for bad loans. Speaking at special shareholders meeting, Mr. Ogden also said that in the next few weeks the bank would release a strategic plan under which it would probably close some offices, lay off people, move out of certain activities and concentrate on others. Credibility in Marketplace Mr. Ogden, who declined to specify details of the plan, said its chief purpose was to restore confidence in the bank, which suffered a withering run of deposits last May.

Financial Desk814 words

GOLDMARK SAYS HE WILL LEAVE PORT AUTHORITY

By Sam Roberts

Peter C. Goldmark Jr., who guided the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to a broader mandate of regional economic development, said yesterday that he would step down as its executive director at the end of the year. In a letter to the Port Authority's board of commissioners, which was delivered and released yesterday, Mr. Goldmark announced his intention ''to make this my final year of service'' with the agency. He said, however, that he would remain in the $150,000-a-year job ''until an orderly transition is effected.'' ''I've been in public service for 20 years now and this has been the longest hitch - 7 1/2 years this winter,'' Mr. Goldmark, who is 43 years old, said in an interview yesterday. ''There's never a time to leave a job you enjoy. But working on the rebuilding of the region, after having worked on its rescue in the perilous times, I couldn't have wished for a greater challenge or had more satisfaction.''

Metropolitan Desk1170 words

COLLECTORS CHERISH THE ORDINARY AUTO

By Marshall Schuon

HERE he is, Jak Phillips with his red beard and the beanie with the Mickey Mouse charms, talking and happy as he polishes the blue paint of his tiny 1949 Crosley station wagon, the car he has always wanted. ''My wife found it in an ad,'' he says. ''I went out to look and I remembered it from the circus. When I was a kid, this little Crosley would drive into the center ring and all these midgets would get out. It's the car I've always wanted, but I just never knew what it was.'' It is Sunday in September on Long Island, and the sun is smiling on the Lions Club auto show, as it has for each of the Huntington show's 21 years. Geese are honking in a pond near the gate and the sound mixes with the cough of ancient one-cylinder engines, an exhibit that is part of the something-for-everyone lure that has drawn 10,000 people. There is a flea market, of sorts, and there are rides and there is food. But the stars, without question, are the cars.

Home Desk1399 words

SOME SCHOOLS ARE JAMMED AS OTHERS BEG FOR STUDENTS

By Joyce Purnick

Public School 189 in Washington Heights is very, very crowded. The gymnasium has been turned into two classrooms and the cafeteria feeds up 500 students in each of 4 shifts beneath a sign warning that occupancy by more than 325 ''is dangerous and unlawful.'' In some classrooms, desks are so scrunched together that aisles have become memories. In others, teachers have more students than chairs. P.S. 200 in Harlem is very, very spacious.

Metropolitan Desk1278 words

AMERICA'S HARD LINE ON AID TO POOR NATIONS

By Clyde H. Farnsworth

In talking with delegates to the joint meeting here of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, twin pillars of the global economic system, the Reagan Administration has been selling neo-classical supply-side economics, just as it does at home. No amount of aid will help poor countries, the Administration argues, unless they provide incentives and commercial opportunities to private enterprise. ''Policies that attract foreign investors are identical with those policies that encourage domestic savings and investments and contribute to the efficient use of scarce capital resources,'' President Reagan told the 39th annual meeting of the two lending institutions Tuesday. Such ideas meet resistance from many other countries, especially the poorest ones. They stress a need for official aid of the type the World Bank usually provides, without preconditions that confine the borrower's broad options for economic policy.

Financial Desk1073 words

LAST FAREWELL FOR AN OFFICER SLAIN ON DUTY

By Esther B. Fein

The blue uniforms of more than 3,500 police officers formed a somber corridor for six blocks along Amsterdam Avenue yesterday. They stood five deep, heads bowed and gloved hands raised in salute. Under a steady drizzle, with the wind carrying the wailing of bagpipes playing ''Amazing Grace,'' they said goodbye to Irma Lozada. She was the first female police officer in the city's history to be killed in the line of duty. That she was buried with officer's honors and public respect did not seem to soften the grief.

Metropolitan Desk879 words

HEALTH PANEL WARNS PATIENTS ARE AT RISK FROM BLOOD PLASMA

By Philip M. Boffey, Special To the New York Times

Health experts warned today that as many as ten thousand patients a year might be contracting hepatitis and other infectious diseases from transfusions of a major blood product that these experts said was not needed by 90 percent of the patients who received it. They said that the use of the blood product, fresh-frozen plasma, has increased tenfold over the past decade despite a ''paucity of definitive indications'' of its medical value and ''mounting evidence of its potential risks, which include viral hepatitis and possibly AIDS.'' The authorities, members of a panel convened by Federal health agencies to make recommendations for physicians, found that many patients who receive fresh-frozen plasma ''can be managed more effectively and safely with alternative'' treatments, including the re-use of their own blood components and the use of donated blood products that have less risk of transmitting infectious disease. Various panelists stressed that they were not suggesting that patients should avoid blood transfusions, an indispensable therapy in modern medicine, or refuse to accept the plasma component of blood when it is clearly required. They said they were simply concerned that the sharply increasing and indiscriminate use of fresh-frozen plasma was subjecting many patients to some risk of disease when safer blood products could avoid most of that risk.

National Desk1091 words

CORRECTION

By Unknown Author

A dispatch from London published on Sept. 13 included a quotation in which Dr. David Owen, leader of the Social Democratic Party, gave an incorrect year for formation of Sir Anthony Eden's Conservative Government. He became Prime Minister on April 6, 1955.

Metropolitan Desk42 words

I was wondering if anything interesting on the news was going on when I was born, and decided to create this website for fun. The purpose is to show people what was going on when they were born. With this website I've found out that it was a pretty slow news day on my birthday, but I bet it would feel cool to know a historical event happened on your birthday.

The data used in this project is provided by the New York Times API. They have by far the best API I was able to find, with articles dating back to the 1950s. There weren't any other major newspapers that had an API with close to as much data. The closest was the Guardian API, but theirs only went back to the 1990s. I decided to only use articles from the New York Times because their API was by far the best. This tool works if you have a birthday after the 1950s or so.

Some important dates in history I'd recommend looking up on this website are:

  • 9/11/2001: The September 11 Attacks happened on this day, the news articles from this date provide great context to the tragedy our nation suffered and the immediate response from the American people. The headlines capture the shock, confusion, and unity that emerged in the aftermath of this devastating event.
  • 7/20/1969: The historic Apollo 11 moon landing, when humans first set foot on another celestial body. The articles from this date showcase humanity's greatest achievement in space exploration and the culmination of the space race.
  • 11/9/1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall, marking the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The coverage provides fascinating insights into this pivotal moment in world history and the emotions of people as decades of division came to an end.
  • 1/20/2009: Barack Obama's inauguration as the first African American President of the United States, a watershed moment in American history that represented a major milestone in the ongoing journey toward racial equality.
  • 8/15/1969: The Woodstock Music Festival began, marking a defining moment in American counterculture and music history. The coverage captures the spirit of the era and the unprecedented gathering of young people.

These historical events are just a few examples of the fascinating moments in history you can explore through this tool. Whether you're interested in your own birthday, significant historical dates, or just curious about what was making headlines on any given day, this website offers a unique window into the past through the lens of contemporary news coverage.

You can read more on our blog.