For the second time we know of — the other being V-E Day — the Forverts spent some extra gelt on red ink for their front page headline: “America Recognizes New Jewish State ‘Israel’.” Forward archivist Chana Pollack noted the subheadlines on the page included “Arab League in Battle Against Jews; Haganah victorious in Jerusalem,” and “America First State To Recognize State of Israel.”

Alongside a story about the beginning of swim season in Hyde Park, The Evening Standard reported that the British government was not told in advance that United States President Harry Truman intended to recognize the new state of Israel. “The question of taking similar action has not yet been considered by the Cabinet,” the bulletin reads.

Above an article warning of a possible milk delivery stoppage in New South Wales, the Herald reported from the scene in Amman, Jordan, where a staff correspondent dined in a “glittering new restaurant” and watched as Arabs walking toward Palestine “fired their rifles in the air and sang lustily.”

Eric Downton, the Telegraph’s special correspondent, reported that the last High Commissioner of Palestine, Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham, left Britain’s Government House in Jerusalem “with the minimum of ceremony” to the sound of a lament, played by a piper.

Because of Shabbat, Haaretz announced Israel’s independence two days after it was declared, on May 16, 1948. The headline reads: “The vision of the generations is fulfilled: the state of Israel was established.”

The “Newspaper of Record” reported that the ceremony in which David Ben-Gurion declared the new state of Israel had been planned with “great secrecy. None but the hundred or more invited guests and journalists was aware of the meeting until it started, and even the guests learned of the site only ten minutes before.”

The Chicago Tribune summarized Israel’s founding in this rather bleak and confounding headline: “START PALESTINE INVASION.”

After Israel declared its independence, “jubilation was lacking,” the Times wrote, “as Jews halted at 3:01 pm to pray for peace in the wartorn Holy Land.” The report added that a “shophar” was blown before a gathering of children at Temple Talmud Torah.

According to the paper, a 10,000-ton steamship named Sorol was scheduled to leave Los Angeles Harbor on Sunday for the new Jewish state with 120 tons of food, medical supplies and clothing, all of which “were collected in a local drive.”

The Daily Oklahoman ran an article from The Associated Press detailing bombings from air-raiders over the “all-Jewish city” of Tel Aviv next to a report about a local raid on a dice game at the Jungle Club, in which four men were arrested and $110 was seized.

The Hollywood Citizen News left little to the imagination with this headline, which spotlighted the military conflict about to unfold over the young country: “Egypt to Fight Jews.”

On May 14, 1948, the front page of the Daily News signaled the impending “Zero hour,” referencing the expiration of Britain’s mandate over Palestine on May 15. It included “recent fotos” taken by the Associated Press showing “British-trained” infantry and cavalrymen in the forces of King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan “ready to cross the Palestine frontier at 12:01 A.M.”

The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, under the headline “Proclaim a Jewish State in Palestine!,” reported that the Milwaukee Jewish Welfare Fund drive had raised $1,279,873, the equivalent of approximately $16 million today, in the last year, with the goal to raise $2,500,000. With the developments in the newly independent Israel, Chairman Irving G. Rhodes said in a statement, “now is the time when our money will do the most good.”

The Albertan offered a helpful diagram showing the influx of Arab forces from a number of neighboring countries — Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Iraq and Egypt — into the newly established Israel, which the paper still labeled as “Palestine.”

The Montreal Daily Star included an article from the Canadian Press which detailed the expectation that Britain would keep Canadian nationals safe in Palestine, which The Montreal Daily Star characterized as an “all-out battleground.”

The Boston Globe quoted the president of Boston’s Zionist House, Fred Monosson, as saying, “After 2,000 years, the Jewish nation is coming home.”

Israel’s declaration of independence made the front page alongside an intercollegiate “flying meet” set to begin that Saturday at the National Guard Air Base at Eagle Mountain Lake.

Inside The Bangor Daily News on May 14, 1948, a series of notable Maine figures, including former Maine Supreme Judicial Court justice Edward P. Murray, wrote a letter appealing for donations on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal. “Never in the last 2,000 years has the plight of the Jews of Europe been more acute,” the letter reads. “Never have their hopes been so near fulfillment.”

Signaling the importance of the war, The Honolulu Advertiser displayed the headline “War in Palestine! Arabs Bomb Jews” above even their own masthead. Also on the front page: plans for a new “model city” on the island of Maui, with at least 700 new homes to be built by 1953.