From the South China Morning Post this week in: 1939
Barcelona continues feverishly to prepare to defend the capital against the Insurgent invasion and, as the enemy advances, so are the defenders sending troops to meet the attack. Women and girls are strengthening the city with lines of trenches which their men must hold. Company after company of overalled factory girls left the town on Saturday night, shouldering picks and shovels.
Arrangements are being made for the evacuation of all British subjects desiring to leave. During an aerial bombardment several British ships were hit, a couple of them sinking, while two officers were killed.
Only several days earlier, military experts in Britain reckon it would take about three months for Franco to subdue the remnants of the Loyalist forces. The Insurgents are getting closer to Barcelona and have captured many more towns in their march to the Loyalist capital, but Franco's troops have been checked temporarily.
Americans may become a race with pear-shaped faces because their jaw strength is declining and the lower half of the head is becoming smaller, narrower and weaker, says Dr Leumann Waugh of Columbia University. Eskimos can bite twice as hard as American football players as shown by tests he made in Alaska. He blamed the modern diet for the trend towards weaker jaws.
Lus Quintanilla of Lima, Peru, was a cock-fighting addict. He had backed his bird heavily to win a fight a day. To make it more ferocious, he plucked out some of its feathers. Suddenly the cock escaped, flew up into the air and then struck down at its tormentor. Quintanilla fell dead, stabbed to the heart with the cock's steel spur.