With our 56K modem you can listen to hot new bands before they become hot new bands.

So reads this U.S. Robotics ad from a December 1997 Rolling Stone magazine, which features a screen capture of a video playing on a tiny RealPlayer window. Strangely enough, the URL in this ad no longer seems to work. Please advise.

Though spring and summer bring nearly-incessant tornado warnings on Dallas' nightly newscasts, those of us who live within city limits seem to think we're immune to the threat of a twister. But on April 2, 1957, a tornado hit Dallas, forever impacting the way the city thought about managing natural disasters.

Dallas Morning News reporter James Ewell wrote the day after event that "A bombing raid might not have inflicted so much terror and devastation."

More Dallas Morning News coverage:

From 1957:

The full story, the day after:

Page 1 | Page 2

The path of the tornado

Photos of the destruction

'It Came Too Close': One DMN writer's personal account

From 2007:

The Dallas Morning News looks back on the tornado's 50th anniversary.

At 8 feet 5 inches, Ukranian Leonid Stadnik is the tallest man in the world today. In 1928, Dallas received a visit from J.G. Tarver, who missed Stadnik's stature by an inch at 8 foot 4. While Stadnik gets his suits custom-made by Viktor Yushchenko's tailor, Tarver stopped in to get glasses fitted by a Dallas optometrist.

From the March 20, 1928 edition of The Dallas Morning News.

From March 19, 1940 in The Dallas Morning News:

"Neighbors Not Only Get Woman's Goat, They Hold It For Ransom

Justice of the Peace Tom King of Precinct 7 Monday placed a 40-year-old Cockrell Hill woman under a $5,000 peace bond after she threatened to kill her neighbors because they literally got her goat.

The woman's pet goat ran loose in the community, devoured shrubs and flowers. The irate neighbors captured the animal and held it for ransom of $1, amount of damages, witnesses testified before a courtroom of Cockrell Hill residents.

The woman owner of the goat threatened to kill everyone in the neighborhood, but finally paid the damages with a blood-stained $1 bill she said was their death warrant.

The woman was remanded to the Dallas County jail by Justice King for investigation, at least until she posts the $5,000 bond."