Some context: Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962-1981). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. He reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson's Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle.
He dropped out of college in his junior year, in the fall term of 1935, after starting a series of newspaper reporting jobs covering news and sports. He entered broadcasting as a radio announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1936, he met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Maxwell, while working as the sports announcer for KCMO (AM) in Kansas City, Missouri. His broadcast name was "Walter Wilcox". He would explain later that radio stations at the time did not want people to use their real names for fear of taking their listeners with them if they left. In Kansas City, he joined the United Press in 1937. He became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe. With his name now established, he received a job offer from Edward R. Murrow at CBS News to join the Murrow Boys team of war correspondents, relieving Bill Downs as the head of the Moscow bureau. CBS offered Cronkite $125 a week along with "commercial fees" amounting to $25 for almost every time Cronkite reported on air. Up to that point, he had been making $57.50 per week at UP, but he had reservations about broadcasting. He initially accepted the offer. When he informed his boss Harrison Salisbury, UP countered with a raise of $17.50 per week; Hugh Baillie also offered him an extra $20 per week to stay. Cronkite ultimately accepted the UP offer, a move which angered Murrow and drove a wedge between them that would last for years. Cronkite was on board USS Texas (BB-35) starting in Norfolk, Virginia, through her service off the coast of North Africa as part of Operation Torch, and thence back to the US. On the return trip, Cronkite was flown off Texas in one of her OS2U Kingfisher aircraft when Norfolk was within flying distance. He was granted permission to be flown the rest of the distance to Norfolk so that he could outpace a rival correspondent on USS Massachusetts (BB-59) to return to the US and to issue the first uncensored news reports to published about Operation Torch. Cronkite's experiences aboard Texas launched his career as a war correspondent. Subsequently, he was one of eight journalists selected by the United States Army Air Forces to fly bombing raids over Germany in a B-17 Flying Fortress part of group called the Writing 69th, and during a mission fired a machine gun at a German fighter. He also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne in Operation Market Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow from 1946 to 1948.
what were the ratings like?
A:
Some context: Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 - March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called "a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike". Known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with the music.
Young left the Basie band in late 1940. He is rumored to have refused to play with the band on Friday, December 13 of that year for superstitious reasons spurring his dismissal, although Young and drummer Jo Jones would later state that his departure had been in the works for months. He subsequently led a number of small groups that often included his brother, drummer Lee Young, for the next couple of years; live and broadcast recordings from this period exist. During this period Young accompanied the singer Billie Holiday in a couple of studio sessions (during 1937 - 1941 period) and also made a small set of recordings with Nat "King" Cole (their first of several collaborations) in June 1942. His studio recordings are relatively sparse during the 1942 to 1943 period, largely due to the recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians. Small record labels not bound by union contracts continued to record and he recorded some sessions for Harry Lim's Keynote label in 1943. In December 1943 Young returned to the Basie fold for a 10-month stint, cut short by his being drafted into the army during World War II (see below). Recordings made during this and subsequent periods suggest Young was beginning to make much greater use of a plastic reed, which tended to give his playing a somewhat heavier, breathier tone (although still quite smooth compared to that of many other players). While he never abandoned the cane reed, he used the plastic reed a significant share of the time from 1943 until the end of his life. Another cause for the thickening of his tone around this time was a change in saxophone mouthpiece from a metal Otto Link to an ebonite Brilhart. In August 1944 Young appeared alongside drummer Jo Jones, trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, and fellow tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet in Gjon Mili's short film Jammin' the Blues.
Why did he leave?
A:
He is rumored to have refused to play with the band on Friday, December 13 of that year for superstitious reasons spurring his dismissal,