 Tabloid offers pills, thrills, and various painful aches.                    
Above: assorted pages from an issue of National Close-Up published today in 1968, with sex pills called vitogen, sexual perversion, sex parties, and sex swingers, then conversely, mass suicides, a monster baby, an acid burn victim, car crash deaths, and all that is terrible and painful in the world. Somewhere between those extremes are celebrities, including Julie Christie, Bing Crosby, Donna Marlowe again (seems she was a tabloid staple in ’68), Playboy centerfold Sue Williams (in the advertisement for strip poker cards), and, just above, the lovely June Palmer.
 Mixing business and family is always a bad idea. 
Above, a cover of The National Close-Up published today in 1967, sporting the slogan “Daring Enough To Print The Facts.” That phrase disappeared from later issues, possibly because the magazine shifted, like other ’70s tabloids, from occasionally factual to totally fictional. This particular headline about a mom casting her daughters into prostitution could be true—we found mention of a few stories along those lines from the 1960s. National Close-Up falls into the category of very rare publications—in many years of looking we’ve seen only a few (exorbitantly expensive) issues for sale. But we’ll keep looking.
 It's not the best job, but at least it's something. 
National Close-Up from today, forty years ago, with a phony story about a girl forced to pose for pornographic photos. How do we know this particular story is fake? Because this is the same magazine that once touted a penis-equipped robot as the scientific breakthrough of the century. You always have to consider the source.
 He's qualified to satisfy. 
National Close-Up from today, 1968, with a cover story about a sex robot named Hercules. The robot comes equipped with multiple penises, all of which, thankfully, are missing in this photo. It was designed and built at the Sex Research Center in New York City, and its creator, Dr. Harold C. Chandler, gushes, “Hercules never quits. I’ve seen him go for days on end with experimental patients without blowing a fuse or overheating.” The good doctor goes on to boast that Hercules can do anything sexually a human male can do, but better. We assume that includes making the girl sleep on the wet spot.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1945—Germany Announces Hitler's Death
German radio in Hamburg announces that Adolf Hitler was killed in Berlin, stating specifically that he had fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany. But in truth Hitler had committed suicide along with his mistress Eva Braun, and both bodies were immediately thereafter burned. 1960—Powers Is Shot Down over U.S.S.R.
Francis Gary Powers, flying in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane, is shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denies the plane's purpose and mission, but is later forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance aircraft when the Soviet government produces its remains and reveals Powers, who had survived the shoot down. The incident triggers a major diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. 1927—First Prints Are Left at Grauman's
Hollywood power couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who co-founded the movie studio United Artists with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, become the first celebrities to leave their impressions in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, located along the stretch where the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame would later be established. 1945—Hitler Marries Braun
During the last days of the Third Reich, as Russia's Red Army closes in from the east, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the next day, and their corpses are burned in the Reich Chancellery garden. 1967—Ali Is Stripped of His Title
After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before due to religious reasons, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. He is found guilty of a felony in refusing to be drafted for service in Vietnam, but he does not serve prison time, and on June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses his conviction. His stand against the war had made him a hated figure in mainstream America, but in the black community and the rest of the world he had become an icon.
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