MILESTONES: November 29, birthdays for Russell Wilson, Howie Mandel, Don Cheadle
Brooklyn Today
On this day in 1939, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported that the U.S. offered aid to Finland following skirmishes with the neighboring the Soviet Union. The Soviets, accusing Finland of aggression and even of espionage, then had voided their peace pact with Finland and fortified their naval fleets in the Gulf of Finland. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull offered to help settle the dispute. Meanwhile, the British Admiralty Fleet pursued and shot down German aircraft in the North Sea near Norway’s western coast.
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On this day in 1943, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported that British Eighth Army forces were braving Germany’s “liquid fire” as they “smashed into” the Adriatic border of what was defined as “the German Winter line.” The Allies were ramping up air, sea and land action. Meanwhile, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin were set to meet in Egypt (reportedly either Alexandria or Cairo) to confer on bringing about the complete, unconditional surrender of Germany. The Nazis, of course, viewed this parley as a “confab.” And U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull warned that talks of peace were premature and could lead to a dangerous overconfidence on the Allies’ part.