Sun-Times at 75: A look back, starting with a story that became a Jimmy Stewart movie

On Feb. 2, 1948, you could pick up the first edition of the Chicago Daily Sun and Times — and find an investigation on page 1 that was the first story in what has become a proud tradition of impactful investigative reporting. (Sun-Times file)

America was in a post-World War II boom, with jobs aplenty if you were an energetic young man or a “lively girl,” as a want ad for a secretarial job put it.

International Business Machines had just introduced a new calculator, which operated with 12,000 vacuum tubes from an organlike console.