U.S. Army Air Defense elements respond to threats from an unidentified (possibly hostile) aircraft detected, near Alaska and over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Closeup of a rotating radar antenna. High altitude contrails (vapor condensation trails) seen overhead. Two U.S. Army technicians tracking aircraft and making notes in an anti-aircraft operations center. Two soldiers in a control center at positions labeled "Intelligence Teller" and "AAA Opns Off" respectively. A Lieutenant joins them and directs one to push an alert button. Soldiers respond from their barracks and take up positions at a large tracking map table. They move markers to positions corresponding to incoming reports. A Colonel joins the Lieutenant, already at the control center, and takes up a position labeled, "Deputy Defense CO," (Deputy Defense Commanding Officer). In the background, reports can be heard coming into the control center about five aircraft at 18 thousand feet. Two soldiers plot information on vertical plexiglass display, showing radial lines and distances. . A sign above the boards reads, "Early Warning Op." More reports in the background refer to three aircraft. The Lieutenant has now moved to the position of "AAA Opns Off." View of a soldier markiing grease pencil entries of aircraft sighting reports, on a plexiglass display, at his work station. More views of information being reflected by soldiers moving markers on the map plotting table and the large vertical display. Closeup of the aircraft position markers being moved on the plotting table. A Battery Attack light flashes on another display. The Lieutenant wearing a headset, announces to all units the change of readiness condition to "battle attack." (He also states, "this is not an exercise," and adds "alert all batteries.") An alarm bell rings at an aircraft battery. Soldiers are awakened in their quarters and scramble to their respective guns in a 120 mm Gun M1 anti-aircraft battery. Each gun crew reports being ready, as they raise their gun barrels. More views of aircraft positions being plotted. One appears to reflect a threat to New York City. Computers record data necessary to aim anti-aircraft batteries. Range and azimuth data being displayed. Gunners load shells and propellant charges into their weapons. Gunners looking up and awaiting further instructions. View of all battery guns pointed skywards. Apartment houses in the background. Changing firing and wind azimuth plus fuze information being displayed. A radar antenna turning at the battery location. Narrator states that the aircraft near Alaska has disappeared over the Pacific and the Eastern Seaboard sightings turn out to be commercial aircraft forced off course by strong winds. View of a Lockheed Constellation flying through some clouds, and then landing at an airfield. Alert lights go out in the Anti-aircraft control center, returning to normal status. View of soldiers manning their positions in the center begin wrapping up their activities. One lights a pipe.
An original 1912 U.S. Navy Curtiss pusher bamboo seaplane is parked on the shore of the Anacostia River, at the United States Naval Base in Anacostia, Washington, D.C. Its flight controls are seen moving as sailors (unseen) check their movements. Next, with the engine running, Captain "Dick" Richardson, climbs aboard and makes his own quick flight control check. Closeup of him at the controls giving a nod that he is ready to be pushed into the water for a demonstration flight. Sailors maneuver the craft to the edge of shore and push it into the river. Roosevelt Hall, at U.S. Army Fort Lesley J. McNair, is seen across the river in the background. The seaplane's lower left wing dips into the water momentarily, as Captain Richardson taxis it away from the shore. Scene shifts to the seaplane taking off from the river, after which, Captain Richardson Quickly brings it back down to a water landing, near the Washington Channel.
Posters in Japanese and Spanish, illustrating efforts by U.S. Bureau of the Census, to reach all Americans. Such a non-English sign in a barbershop window. Census enumerators conversing in a District Field Office. A woman checking responses against a master list of residents. Staff members discuss individual cases. Newspaper headlines reporting preliminary census results for their respective localities. Census staff making corrections after preliminary results are disclosed. A forklift moving a stack of census documents at the central processing office in Jeffersonville, Indiana. View inside warehouse at Jeffersonville, containing 75 carloads of census questionnaires stacked in bins. Staff in the Central Processing office using special machinery to microfilm the paper forms. View of census workers microfilming in near darkness. Woman at Census Headquarters, with machine called "Fosdic" standing for Film Optical Sensing Device for Imput to Computer. The microfilm is seen being fed into a reader that converts citizens marks on questionnaires into computer-storable (digital) form. View of microfiche census record containing citizens marks. Mailman delivering letters of inquiry to the Census Bureau. census worker looking up information in response to inquiry.
Temporary census workers (enumerators) taking an oath not to disclose any information they collect. Line printer with an early computer producing many sheets of census data. Examples of data captured are illustrated: View of a machinist at work; parents and children at a picnic, sitting at a picnic table in a park; a city neighborhood of homes and townhouses and brownstones and an African American boy playing on a city neighborhood sidewalk. Back in the Bureau of the Census, a high speed printer produces confidential lists with categories of data. View of a person completing a census questionnaire. View of the U.S. Capitol. Animated map of the U.S.A. showing changes in Congressional seats resulting from the 1970 census. View of the U.S. Constitution highlighting the part calling for a decennial census. View of early computer at Census Administration and a Honeywell tape drive. A Cartoon illustrations of data groupings possible from census data.
View of houses in an American residential neighborhood area in the suburbs, from low-flying airplane. Crowded street scene in a major city with black and white pedestrians walking on sidewalk in typical 1970s fashions. A public school No. 2. Yellow school buses carrying children. African American family with small children boarding a bus. A group of white people walking appearing to be a grandmother, her son, and three grandchildren. People enjoying a day in a park. African American woman standing near a large upright computer tape tape machine. She presses something on the machine to operate it. House with a "for sale" sign in the suburbs. A man opening the door of a 1969 or 1970 Ford Pinto car at a car sales dealership. Various report documents of the U.S. Census Bureau are displayed. Cattle being unloaded from a farmer's truck. A farmer cultivating a field, using a tractor. Views of State and Municipal Government buildings, including a view of the Justice Department in Washington DC, and including people entering and leaving the Compton, California City Hall building. Highway sign reading: "Leaving West Georgia Soil & Water Conservation District." Others, reading: Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, Silver Spring Branch Office," and "Wakefield County Park, Fairfax County Park Authority," "District of Columbia, Storm Sewer Vicinity, 14th St. & Kentucky Ave. S.E," and "Harford County Metropolitan Commission, Water Transmission System." A late 1960s car approaching a toll booth on a highway. A policeman directing traffic. Several medical personnel in whites, walking on hospital grounds. A railroad worker. A teacher posting a notice on door, at a school, as school girls behind him try to read the posting. A steel mill with smoke rising from tall stacks. Cars parked outside of Lasalle College New Athletic Facilities construction sign. A Washington DC police car patrolling a city street. Cars parked bumper-to-bumper along a city street.
Wounded American soldiers arriving in North Africa, after being evacuated by air from combat zones, during World War 2. U.S. soldiers in fatigues, offload wounded troops, on litters from a U.S. C-47 air evacuation aircraft, and place them into an Army ambulance that drives away. The unloading soldiers wait for another ambulance. Several airmen sit in a jeep with a woman in a blue flight outfit, wearing a headscarf. They are facing away from the camera and watching patients being transferred. The tail of the C-47 can be seen in the background. It displays the tail code "N." Numerous closeups of wounded being moved on stretchers from the aircraft to ambulances.
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