The news on this May 10th in 1940 was totally consumed with the goings on in Europe. The German Army staged a massive invasion of the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) and the airwaves were filled with bulletins flying in every few seconds. It was also, coincidentally, the day Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned from Number 10 Downing Street and former First Lord of The Admiralty Winston Churchill assumed the position.

No small task, considering there were rumors rife of an imminent invasion of Britain and citizens were warned to be on the lookout for German paratroopers.

Here is an hour, almost continuous, of news reports and bulletins as they occurred via NBC and the BBC, containing both the resignation address of Chamberlain and an urgent appeal for aid from Dutch Foreign Minister John Loudon to the U.S.

Strange and unsettling times, and all on May 10th in 1940.

Forty-four years ago today, on April 4, 1968, the news traveled quickly regarding the shooting death of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee.

As a reminder of how the day went, here is a special News broadcast as presented by NBC Radio shortly after Dr. King had been pronounced dead.

In what started out as a seemingly busy but otherwise sedate newscast via the BBC World Service' World Today, quickly turned into a series of bulletins and updates regarding the death earlier this evening of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il at age 69, or 70 depending on which source you read (the Russians claimed he was born in 1941).

So in keeping with news-off-the-cuff, here is the first and second hours of The World Today, complete and uncut, with the first bulletins coming in at around 6 minutes into the top player.

You get the whole rundown, the High-Voltage North Korean newscaster and the updates, along with the rest of the news of the day (Iraq already showing signs of coming apart, violence in Tahrir Square and the video that's now gone viral, Domestic violence in the extreme in Bangladesh and more). There is also a lot speculation regarding Il's successor - namely the son, Kim Jong Un - the name alone should send chills, or perplexed stares.

I think it's going to be an interesting week coming up.

Stay tuned.

As the Cuban Missile Crisis reached a fever-pitch, news came on October 28th that Soviet ships, bound for Cuba, were turning back and that an agreement had been tentatively reached to dismantle missile sites and remove the offensive weapons. In this half-hour wrap-up from NBC Radio, reports come in from all over the world in reaction to the move and expressions of cautious optimism that the crisis had been averted and its dreaded outcome would not be a reality after all.

Although not entirely over, the point at which there was no return had been avoided for now.

No doubt there was a lot more going on this day than just the UN Security Council, but you would be hard pressed to find it. On October 24, 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis was on everyone's mind. So much so, that most radio (and Television) stations in the U.S. had interrupted their regular programming to broadcast the sessions from the UN almost around the clock.

Here is a half-hour slice, from approximately 11:00-11:30 am (PST) on that day, as broadcast by NBC Radio and a host of very hoarse (and somewhat exhausted) announcers.

Try to visualize yourself in the place that you have no idea how this thing was going to end.

Good old days, you say?

This day in 1938 was about the continuing crisis in Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and Czechoslovakia and a piece of disputed territory Germany claimed was theirs.

As the crisis deepened, on the morning of September 23rd 1938, Czech Ambassador to Great Britain Jan Masaryk delivered an appeal to the American audience about the situation and where things stood.

Jan Masaryk: “My people have gone further in self-restraint, discipline, International solidarity in these last few days than anyone could have expected. And I am more proud than I ever was to be a citizen of Czechoslovakia. We shall study Mr. Hitler’s proposal with goodwill and the same spirit of conciliation which made us swallow many little pills, and bitter pills, in the last few days. But I solemnly declare that we shall not give in on the fundamental issues. We believe in Democracy, humanitarianism, freedom of religion and speech and the importance of the individual.”

Within days the picture would emerge that Czechoslovakia would be forced to give in to German demands and a new word became popular, more for its irony than anything else: Appeasement.

Here is the original newscast with breaking bulletins by Robert Trout, H.V. Kaltenborn and Edward R. Murrow from CBS Radio on the morning of September 23, 1938.

The nature of news gathering was changing rapidly, just like the status of the world in general.