1952 History, Fun Facts, and Trivia

• World-Changing Events: The United States detonated Ivy Mike, the first hydrogen bomb, on November 1, 1952, at Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific; Queen Elizabeth II acceded to the British throne on February 6, following the death of King George VI
• Top Song: Wheel of Fortune by Kay Starr, the best-performing single of the year on the Billboard Year-End chart
• Influential Songs: Your Cheatin’ Heart by Hank Williams, Heart and Soul by The Four Aces, High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me) by Frankie Laine
• Must-See Movies: Singin’ in the Rain, High Noon, The Quiet Man, The Greatest Show on Earth, Moulin Rouge, and Hans Christian Andersen
• Most Famous Person in America: Gary Cooper, who had High Noon in theaters and who had been one of the defining leading men of Hollywood for two decades
• Notable Books: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
• Price of a Jaguar XK 120 Hardtop: $5,065.00
• US Life Expectancy: Males: 65.8 years / Females: 71.6 years
• The Funny Comedy Duo: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
• The Funniest TV Duo: Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca
• The Funny Guy: Milton Berle
• The Funny TV Lady: Lucille Ball
• Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Dragon, associated with strength, ambition, and the capacity for both creation and destruction — all conspicuously present in 1952
• The Habit: Watching I Love Lucy, playing Scrabble
• The Conversation: Did you see Ike win? And have you watched I Love Lucy this week?

Top Ten Baby Names of 1952

Girls: Linda, Mary, Patricia, Deborah, Susan Boys: James, Robert, John, Michael, David

Linda was at the top for girls, having risen dramatically from outside the top ten at the start of the decade. Mary had been number one for most of the preceding decades and was yielding ground. James held the top spot for boys, with Michael rising steadily.

Fashion Icons and Sex Symbols of 1952

Lauren Bacall, Martine Carol, Dorothy Dandridge, Doris Day, Diana Dors, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Grace Kelly, Eartha Kitt, Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Jane Russell, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner

Marilyn Monroe had completed production on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and was about to become the most discussed actress in Hollywood. Grace Kelly had appeared in High Noon and was beginning a film career that would last only four years before her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. Dorothy Dandridge was one of the first Black actresses to achieve mainstream Hollywood visibility. Bettie Page was at the beginning of the pin-up photography career that would make her one of the most recognizable figures of the decade.

Hollywood Hunks and Sex Symbols of 1952

Montgomery Clift

Montgomery Clift had been nominated for the Academy Award for A Place in the Sun the previous year and was considered one of the most talented actors of his generation. His physical beauty and emotional intensity had made him one of Hollywood’s first method actors in the contemporary sense. A serious car accident in 1956 altered his appearance and the trajectory of his career.

The Quotes

“Lucy, I’m home!” — Ricky Ricardo, played by Desi Arnaz, on I Love Lucy, a line so associated with the show that it became shorthand for the era’s domestic sitcom format, though it was used far less often in the actual series than its cultural frequency suggests

“They’re gr-r-r-eat!” — Tony the Tiger, voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft, for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, beginning in 1952. Ravenscroft was also the voice behind You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch in the 1966 animated special, a credit frequently and incorrectly attributed to narrator Boris Karloff

“Finger-lickin’ good!” — Kentucky Fried Chicken, in a slogan that originated from an offhand comment by a franchise owner and was formalized as the brand’s central tagline

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Queen Elizabeth II, for her accession to the throne on February 6, 1952, following the death of her father, King George VI, at age 56. Elizabeth was 25 years old. Her coronation was held on June 2, 1953, and was the first coronation broadcast on television — watched by an estimated 27 million people in Britain alone, many of whom watched on television sets for the first time. Time’s recognition acknowledged not just her individual accession but the symbolic weight of continuity and transition the event carried in postwar Britain.

Miss America and Miss USA

Miss America: Colleen Hutchins, Salt Lake City, Utah — sister of NBA player Mel Hutchins, who was playing for the Fort Wayne Pistons
Miss USA: Jackie Loughery, New York — who later had a film and television acting career and married Jack Webb of Dragnet

We Lost in 1952

Hank Williams, the singer and songwriter whose recordings — I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Your Cheatin’ Heart, Cold, Cold Heart, Hey Good Lookin’ — had established him as the defining voice of modern country music, died January 1, 1953, at age 29, in the back seat of his Cadillac somewhere in West Virginia or Ohio, of heart failure exacerbated by alcohol and drug use. He had been fired from the Grand Ole Opry in August 1952 for repeated no-shows due to his condition. His death came on New Year’s Day, at the age of 29, at the height of his commercial success. He is listed here because his death came at the very beginning of 1953, after his final performances and recordings in 1952 — Your Cheatin’ Heart was recorded September 23, 1952, three months before his death.

Eva Perón, the former First Lady of Argentina who had been one of the most influential political figures in Latin American history and whose combination of beauty, ambition, and genuine advocacy for the poor had made her both widely beloved and widely feared, died July 26, 1952, at age 33, of cervical cancer. She had been too ill to attend her husband, Juan Perón’s, second inauguration in June. Three million people lined the streets of Buenos Aires for her funeral cortege.

George Santayana, the philosopher, essayist, and novelist whose aphorism “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” has been cited in more speeches, lectures, and history textbooks than virtually any other philosophical observation of the 20th century, died September 26, 1952, at age 88, in Rome. He had left the United States in 1912 and never returned, spending his final years in a convent in Rome where the nuns cared for him. He was mentioned in Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire.

America in 1952 — The Context

The presidential election of 1952 was one of the most consequential of the postwar era. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, ran as the Republican nominee against Democrat Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Eisenhower won 442 electoral votes to Stevenson’s 89. His campaign slogan — “I Like Ike” — was among the most memorable in American political history, and his victory ended twenty years of Democratic control of the White House.

The Korean War was in its third year with no end in sight. Eisenhower’s campaign pledge to go to Korea — “I shall go to Korea” — reflected the war’s centrality to the election. He visited Korea in December 1952, before his inauguration. The armistice was signed in July 1953.

The Red Scare and McCarthyism were at their peak. Senator Joseph McCarthy had been making accusations of Communist infiltration of the US government since 1950. The House Un-American Activities Committee was investigating Hollywood. The climate of accusation, fear, and blacklisting that produced Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953) was already in full force in 1952. The Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1952, gave the president broad authority to restrict the entry of any aliens considered detrimental to American interests — authority that reflected the era’s anxieties.

Ivy Mike — The First Hydrogen Bomb

The device designated Ivy Mike was detonated at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952, at 7:15 a.m. local time. The yield was approximately 10.4 megatons — 700 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion created a fireball more than three miles in diameter. The island of Elugelab, where the device was placed, was entirely vaporized — replaced by an underwater crater approximately a mile wide and 164 feet deep. The mushroom cloud rose to approximately 57,000 feet.

Ivy Mike was not a deployable weapon — it was a building-size apparatus requiring cryogenic equipment — but it demonstrated the principle. The Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb in August 1953. The strategic calculus of the Cold War shifted fundamentally with the knowledge that both superpowers possessed weapons capable of destroying cities not one at a time but in clusters.

Pop Culture Facts and History

Singin’ in the Rain, directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen and starring Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor, was released on March 27, 1952. The film’s central sequence — Kelly dancing and singing in the rain — was shot in one day, with a mixture of water and milk in the sprinkler system to make the water more visible on camera. Kelly had a 103-degree fever during the filming. The sequence has been cited repeatedly as one of the greatest in the history of musical cinema. The film was a commercial success but not the year’s biggest; its reputation grew steadily in the decades following its release.

High Noon, directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper, was released July 24, 1952. Cooper won the Academy Award for Best Actor — his second, after Sergeant York in 1941. The film, in which a marshal faces a gang of outlaws alone while his town refuses to help him, was widely interpreted as an allegory for McCarthyism and the entertainment industry’s failure to resist it. Carl Foreman, who wrote the screenplay, was being blacklisted as he wrote it and fled to England before the film was released. Cooper, a political conservative, was largely unaware of the allegory; he simply thought it was a good Western.

I Love Lucy, in its second season, produced what is considered the most-loved episode in American sitcom history — the Job Switching episode, in which Lucy and Ethel work on a candy assembly line, and the L.A. at Last! episode in which Lucy meets William Holden at a restaurant with comic results. The Vitameatavegamin episode, in which Lucy becomes progressively more inebriated while rehearsing a commercial for a product with a 23 percent alcohol content, was filmed in the second season and remains one of the most-watched comedy sequences in television history.

Mr. Potato Head, introduced by Hassenfeld Brothers (later Hasbro) on April 30, 1952, was the first toy advertised on American network television. The original version required an actual potato — the plastic parts were inserted into a real vegetable. The plastic potato body was not introduced until 1964. The product’s transition from requiring an actual vegetable to providing a plastic substitute was gradual enough that many people are unaware the original required a trip to the kitchen.

Scrabble had been invented by Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938 as Criss-Crosswords, refined by James Brunot in 1948 as Scrabble, and sold quietly for four years with modest commercial success. In 1952, the president of Macy’s department store played the game while on vacation, returned to New York, was surprised that Macy’s did not stock it, and placed a large order. Within two years, four million sets had been sold. The transformation of Scrabble from an obscure game to a household item occurred because one man enjoyed his vacation.

The first commercial jet passenger service began on May 2, 1952, when a British Overseas Airways Corporation de Havilland Comet flew from London to Johannesburg with 32 passengers, making five refueling stops en route. The journey took approximately 23 hours — roughly half the time required by propeller aircraft. The Comet was the world’s first commercial jet airliner. Its early career was ended by two catastrophic structural failures in 1954, caused by metal fatigue around the square windows; the investigation produced the understanding of metal fatigue under pressurization that made subsequent jet airliners safe.

The Great Smog of London descended on the city December 4-9, 1952, when a combination of cold weather, windless conditions, and coal smoke produced a dense yellow smog so thick that visibility was reduced to a few feet. An estimated 4,000 people died in the immediate aftermath; subsequent analysis suggested the total death toll may have been 12,000 or more, with respiratory and cardiovascular illness persisting for weeks. The event prompted the Clean Air Act of 1956, which regulated coal burning in British cities.

The Moondog Coronation Ball, held March 21, 1952, at the Cleveland Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, is recognized as the first rock and roll concert. Organized by disc jockey Alan Freed, the event was intended to accommodate approximately 10,000 attendees. Approximately 20,000 people showed up, many with counterfeit tickets. The venue was overwhelmed, the first act played only a few songs, and the fire department cleared the building. Freed’s promotion and the event’s chaos established both his reputation and the audience’s appetite.

Wernher von Braun published Project Mars: A Technical Tale in 1952, a science fiction novel about the first human expedition to Mars. In the original German manuscript, the leader of the Martian colony held a title translated as “Elon.” The word was used because it corresponded to an existing title in German; von Braun was not naming a character after a person who would not be born for another two years.

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of the State of Israel in November 1952, following the death of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. Einstein declined, citing his lack of aptitude for dealing with people and official functions. He was 73 years old at the time and in declining health. He died in 1955.

Adidas purchased the rights to its iconic three-stripe logo from Finnish sports company Karhu Sports in 1952 for approximately $1,600 and two bottles of Finnish whiskey. The three stripes had appeared on Karhu’s track shoes; Adidas founder Adi Dassler had been using them on his athletic shoes since the late 1940s without a formal agreement. The purchase remains one of the more lopsided brand acquisitions in sports marketing history.

The Paricutín volcano, which had emerged from a Mexican cornfield in February 1943, went dormant in 1952 after nine years of eruption. The volcano had grown to a height of approximately 1,345 feet above the surrounding plain, buried two towns and portions of others under lava and ash, and killed three people — all struck by lightning from volcanic storms rather than by lava directly. It is one of the few volcanoes in history to have been observed and documented from its very first moment of eruption.

Nobel Prize Winners in 1952

Physics was awarded to Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith — the development of nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, which became the basis of MRI scanning in medicine.

Chemistry went to Archer Martin and Richard Synge for their invention of partition chromatography — a technique for separating chemical compounds that became one of the most widely used analytical tools in chemistry, biology, and medicine.

Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Selman Waksman for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis. Waksman had coined the term “antibiotic” in 1941. The streptomycin discovery was partially the work of his graduate student, Albert Schatz, who later sued for and received recognition and a share of the royalties.

Literature went to François Mauriac of France, for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has, in his novels, penetrated the drama of human life. Mauriac was a Catholic novelist whose work examined moral conflict and redemption in the bourgeois society of southwestern France.

Peace was awarded to Albert Schweitzer, the theologian, philosopher, musicologist, and physician who had established and operated a hospital in Gabon, French Equatorial Africa, since 1913 — sustaining it through two world wars largely through his own fundraising efforts as a concert organist and lecturer.

1952 Toys and Christmas Gifts

Mr. Potato Head, the Slinky Dog, and PEZ candy dispensers — the latter originally sold in Europe since 1927 as an adult breath mint with a simple dispenser; the character-head dispensers and the American marketing to children came in the early 1950s — rounded out a holiday season in which television advertising of toys was a genuinely new phenomenon. Mr. Potato Head’s television advertisement demonstrated the medium’s power to create demand and established the template for toy marketing that has governed the industry ever since.

Broadway in 1952

The Seven Year Itch, George Axelrod’s comedy about a married man whose wife and son leave for the summer and whose imagination subsequently runs wild, opened November 20, 1952, at the Fulton Theatre and ran until August 13, 1955. Tom Ewell starred; he repeated the role in the 1955 film opposite Marilyn Monroe, whose white dress flying up from a subway grate became one of the most reproduced images in cinema history. The play’s title entered the language as a phrase for mid-marriage restlessness.

Best Film Oscar Winner

An American in Paris, the MGM musical directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, won Best Picture at the 24th Academy Awards on March 29, 1952, for the 1951 film year. The film won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Its final 17-minute ballet sequence, choreographed by Kelly to Gershwin’s tone poem, was the most elaborate and expensive sequence in the history of the MGM musical. Some felt A Streetcar Named Desire was the more deserving choice; the argument has continued intermittently since.

Top Movies of 1952

1. The Greatest Show on Earth
2. The Snows of Kilimanjaro
3. Hans Christian Andersen
4. Ivanhoe
5. Moulin Rouge
6. Singin’ in the Rain
7. The Quiet Man
8. High Noon
9. Come Back, Little Sheba
10. Limelight

The Greatest Show on Earth, Cecil B. DeMille’s circus epic, was the year’s highest-grossing film and would win Best Picture at the 25th Academy Awards in March 1953. Its victory over High Noon and Ivanhoe was considered one of the Academy’s more surprising Best Picture selections and has been cited in subsequent discussions of the disconnect between commercial success and artistic merit. Singin’ in the Rain is now consistently ranked among the greatest films ever made; in 1952, it was the sixth-highest-grossing film of the year. Limelight, Charlie Chaplin’s autobiographical film about an aging music-hall comedian, was one of Chaplin’s last films made in the United States before his reentry visa was revoked while he was traveling, and he settled permanently in Switzerland.

Most Popular TV Shows of 1952

1. I Love Lucy (CBS)
2. Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS)
3. Arthur Godfrey and His Friends (CBS)
4. Dragnet (NBC)
5. Texaco Star Theatre (NBC)
6. The Buick Circus Hour (NBC)
7. The Colgate Comedy Hour (NBC)
8. Gangbusters (NBC)
9. You Bet Your Life (NBC)
10. Fireside Theatre (NBC)

I Love Lucy was in its second season and had already established itself as the most-watched show on American television — a position it would hold for five of its six seasons. Lucille Ball’s physical comedy, combined with Desi Arnaz’s straight man and the show’s willingness to incorporate Ball’s real pregnancy into the storyline, produced television without precedent. The episode in which Ricky Ricardo Jr. was born — January 19, 1953 — was watched by 44 million viewers, more than the 29 million who watched Eisenhower’s inauguration the following day. Dragnet, hosted by Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday, was in its second season and had established the documentary-style police procedural format that has influenced the genre ever since.

1952 Billboard Number One Hits

December 29, 1951 – March 14, 1952: Cry — Johnnie Ray (carryover from late 1951, 11 weeks total)
March 15 – May 16: Wheel of Fortune — Kay Starr (10 weeks)
May 17 – June 20: Blue Tango — Leroy Anderson (5 weeks)
June 21 – July 4: Here in My Heart — Al Martino
July 5 – July 11: Delicado — Percy Faith and his Orchestra
July 12 – September 12: Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart — Vera Lynn (9 weeks)
September 13 – October 17: You Belong to Me — Jo Stafford (5 weeks)
October 18 – November 21: I Went to Your Wedding — Patti Page (5 weeks)
November 22 – November 28: It’s in the Book — Johnny Standley
November 29 – December 26: Why Don’t You Believe Me — Joni James (4 weeks)
December 27, 1952 – January 9, 1953: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus — Jimmy Boyd (carrying into 1953)

Wheel of Fortune by Kay Starr was the best-performing single of the year on the Billboard chart, spending ten weeks at number one and generating the kind of crossover appeal — pop, country, and adult contemporary — that defined commercial success in the pre-rock era. Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart by Vera Lynn, the British wartime singer whose We’ll Meet Again had been one of the defining songs of the Second World War, spent nine weeks at number one in America — an unusual chart dominance for a British recording in this era. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, by 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd, closed the year and carried into 1953; it remains one of the most-played Christmas recordings in the American commercial canon, with its central ambiguity: Is Daddy going to be upset? is Daddy Santa? — left pleasantly unresolved.

Sports Champions of 1952

World Series: The New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers four games to three, winning their fourth consecutive World Series — a dynasty unmatched in the history of the sport. Mickey Mantle, in his second full season, and Yogi Berra led the offense. The Brooklyn Dodgers had the better team by most statistical measures; the Yankees won anyway, a dynamic that would repeat itself until 1955.

NFL Champions: The Detroit Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns 17-7 on December 28, 1952, in Cleveland. It was the Lions’ first NFL championship since 1935. Bobby Layne quarterbacked Detroit. The Browns, coached by Paul Brown, had won the championship in each of their first four seasons in the NFL; their 1952 defeat was one of the era’s significant upsets.

NBA Champions: The Minneapolis Lakers defeated the New York Knicks four games to three, winning their fourth championship in five years. George Mikan, the first dominant big man in NBA history, led the offense. The Lakers were in the process of establishing the first dynasty in professional basketball.

Stanley Cup: The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Montreal Canadiens four games to none, winning their fourth championship in six years. Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, and Sid Abel — the Production Line — was the dominant forward unit in hockey. Terry Sawchuk played all eight playoff games and allowed only five goals.

U.S. Open Golf: Julius Boros won at Northwood Club in Dallas, Texas, in a playoff over Ben Hogan. Hogan had won the U.S. Open the previous year and was at the peak of his dominance; Boros’s victory was considered a significant upset.

U.S. Open Tennis: Frank Sedgman of Australia won the men’s title and Maureen Connolly of the United States won the women’s, beginning a period of dominance in which she would win three consecutive U.S. Opens.

Wimbledon: Frank Sedgman won the men’s title, and Maureen Connolly won the women’s. Connolly was 17 years old — the youngest women’s Wimbledon champion at that point.

NCAA Football: Georgia Tech and Michigan State shared the national championship for the 1952 season. Georgia Tech, undefeated at 12-0, won the Orange Bowl. Michigan State, also undefeated, was not eligible for bowl games in its first year of Big Ten membership.

NCAA Basketball: Kansas defeated St. John’s 80-63 in the national championship game in Seattle. Clyde Lovellette scored 33 points in the final. It was Kansas’s first national championship.

Kentucky Derby: Hill Gail, trained by Ben Jones and ridden by Eddie Arcaro, won the Derby in a time of 2:01.6. Arcaro, riding his fifth Derby winner, confirmed his reputation as the premier Derby jockey of his era.

Frequently Asked Questions About 1952

Q: What was the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb test?
A: Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Its yield was approximately 10.4 megatons — 700 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. The island of Elugelab was completely vaporized. The device was building-sized and not deployable; it demonstrated the principle of thermonuclear fusion. The Soviet Union detonated its own hydrogen bomb in August 1953.

Q: What made I Love Lucy so significant?
A: I Love Lucy was the most-watched show on American television for most of its six-season run. Lucille Ball’s physical comedy was unprecedented in scope and precision. The show’s incorporation of Ball’s real pregnancy into the storyline — rather than hiding it — was a breakthrough in realistic storytelling. The episode in which Little Ricky was born drew 44 million viewers, more than Eisenhower’s inauguration the following day. The show established the three-camera studio sitcom format that American television comedy used for the next six decades.

Q: Why was the Great Smog of London significant?
A: The Great Smog descended on London from December 4-9, 1952, when cold weather and windless conditions trapped coal smoke near the ground. Visibility was reduced to near zero. An estimated 4,000 to 12,000 people died from respiratory and cardiovascular complications. The event prompted the Clean Air Act of 1956, which regulated coal burning in British cities, and similar legislation in other industrialized countries. It is considered the event that launched modern air quality regulation.

Q: What was the Moondog Coronation Ball?
A: Organized by disc jockey Alan Freed at the Cleveland Arena on March 21, 1952, it is recognized as the first rock and roll concert. Freed had promoted it to approximately 10,000 people; approximately 20,000 arrived, many with counterfeit tickets. The building was overwhelmed, the fire department cleared it, and the event ended after the first act’s opening songs. Its chaos demonstrated both the audience for rock and roll and the challenges of containing it.

Q: How did Scrabble become popular?
A: Scrabble had been commercially available since 1948 with modest sales. In 1952, the president of Macy’s played it while on vacation, returned to New York, surprised his stores did not carry it, and placed a large order. Within two years, four million sets had been sold. The game’s transformation from obscure product to national phenomenon resulted from a single person’s enthusiasm acting through a single retail channel.

Q: Was Albert Einstein really offered the presidency of Israel?
A: Yes. Following the death of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, in November 1952, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered the presidency to Einstein. Einstein declined, citing his lack of natural aptitude and experience in dealing with people and official functions. He was 73 and in declining health. He died in April 1955.

In a year when the hydrogen bomb vaporized an island in the Pacific, the Great Smog of London killed thousands in five days, I Love Lucy was watched by more Americans than would watch the next day’s presidential inauguration, and Kay Starr spent ten weeks at number one while the era’s pop music paused before the earthquake that Elvis and rock and roll would deliver within a few years, 1952 occupied the calm before the storm with considerable style. Tony the Tiger told everyone things were great. Mr. Potato Head was the first toy on television. Scrabble became popular because a department store president went on vacation. The Ivy Mike mushroom cloud rose to 57,000 feet. Not all the news was the same kind of news.