The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
Feb 12, 2021
On this Day, February 12, 1946, while traveling home after being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, African-American Isaac Woodard, still in uniform, is attacked and beaten by several South Carolina police officers over a dispute with a bus driver over the use of the restroom. He was then arrested. During the course of the night in jail, the Police Chief beat and blinded Woodard, who later stated in court that he was beaten for saying "Yes" instead of "Yes, sir".
He also suffered partial amnesia as a result of his injuries. Woodard further testified that he was punched in the eyes by police several times on the way to the jail, and later repeatedly jabbed in his eyes with a billy club.
Woodard's eyes had been "gouged out"; historical documents indicate that each globe was ruptured irreparably in the socket.
The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. Suffering from partial amnesia, he was fined $50 and denied medical treatment for
...The Stars and Stripes
Feb 11, 2021
On February 8, 1918, the first issue of The Stars and Stripes is published. It was the first U.S. Army newspaper, and was originally published for the troops during World War I.
During World War I, the staff, roving reporters, and illustrators of the Stars and Stripes were veteran reporters or young soldiers who would later become such in the post-war years. It was published by the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919.
The Stars and Stripes was then an eight-page weekly which reached a peak of 526,000 readers, relying on the improvisational efforts of its staff to get it printed in France and distributed to U.S. troops.
And yet, the history of the newspaper goes back even further. On November 9, 1861, during the Civil War, soldiers of the 11th, 18th, and 29th Illinois Regiments set up camp in the Missouri city of Bloomfield. Finding the local newspaper's office empty, they decided to print a newspaper about
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