Pulp International - Vintage cover of Police Gazette January 1951

Jan 27 2010

POLICE BRUTALITY

The Police Gazette’s graphic boxing covers were some of the best in the magazine’s long history.

Rocky Graziano is one angry man in this stunner of a photo-illustration from The National Police Gazette. Graziano was near the end of his run when this cover appeared in January 1951, but he was one of greats, knocking out fifty-two opponents during a brief five year professional career. The Gazette, published originally way back in 1845, weathered many changes in American society and yet managed to keep on chugging along. Sometime during the 1940s they seemed to have hit on a new formula—sports covers. The magazine had always covered sports, but now they put it front and center with super-saturated action shots and lots of blood. They mainly produced boxing covers—and these were some of the most striking (heh heh) in the magazine’s history. They also occasionally featured football and hockey. This lasted for about ten years, then the Gazette changed its cover style to try and keep pace with the many Hollywood tabloids that had crowded the newsstands. It was at that point that editors adopted the motif you’ve seen in posts like this one and this one. We have more Police Gazette pages below, and we’ll have more sports issues down the line.

Police Gazette Rocky Graziano boxing tabloid

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History Rewind

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 27

1964—Warren Commission Issues Report

The Warren Commission, which had been convened to examine the circumstances of John F. Kennedy's assassination, releases its final report, which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy. Today, up to 81% of Americans are troubled by the official account of the assassination.

September 26

1934—Queen Mary Launched

The RMS Queen Mary, three-and-a-half years in the making, launches from Clydebank, Scotland. The steamship enters passenger service in May 1936 and sails the North Atlantic Ocean until 1967. Today she is a museum and tourist attraction anchored in Long Beach, U.S.A.

1983—Nuclear Holocaust Averted

Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov, whose job involves detection of enemy missiles, is warned by Soviet computers that the United States has launched a nuclear missile at Russia. Petrov deviates from procedure, and, instead of informing superiors, decides the detection is a glitch. When the computer warns of four more inbound missiles he decides, under much greater pressure this time, that the detections are also false. Soviet doctrine at the time dictates an immediate and full retaliatory strike, so Petrov's decision to leave his superiors out of the loop very possibly prevents humanity's obliteration. Petrov's actions remain a secret until 1988, but ultimately he is honored at the United Nations.

September 25

2002—Mystery Space Object Crashes in Russia

In an occurrence known as the Vitim Event, an object crashes to the Earth in Siberia and explodes with a force estimated at 4 to 5 kilotons by Russian scientists. An expedition to the site finds the landscape leveled and the soil contaminated by high levels of radioactivity. It is thought that the object was a comet nucleus with a diameter of 50 to 100 meters.

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