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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

A photo in the Spokane Daily Chronicle showed Alfred Finck, the Manito Park Zoo superintendent, feeding gumdrops, of all things, to Teddy, a huge black bear.

Teddy “has a sweet tooth,” the paper reported. Teddy is shown standing on his hind legs, towering over Finck, who is inside the cage with Teddy.

“Finck enters the bear den at will and the big animals follow him around like dogs, teasing for candy, for which he is always well supplied,” said the caption.

Teddy and the two Canadian brown bears in the bear den “are fond of candy and peanuts, but, to prevent indigestion, the public is generally restrained from feeding them.”

From the war beat: The paper reported an astonishing statistic: Half of the world’s population was at war.

The story estimated that the Allied countries had a population of 817 million and the Teutonic countries had a population of 159 million, for a total of nearly 1 billion.

Keep in mind that the British Empire at the time included India and many other colonies.

Also on this date:

(From the Associated Press)

1983: Astronaut Sally K. Ride became America’s first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on a six-day mission.