MILESTONES: January 26, birthdays for Ellen DeGeneres, Wayne Gretzky, Eddie Van Halen
Brooklyn Today
Greetings, Brooklyn. Today is the 26th day of the year.
On this day in 1935, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported that two major villains seem to have broken down under pressure. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, appeared frightened as New Jersey State Attorney General Willentz, the prosecutor in the murder case opened new charges. Almost three years earlier, Hauptmann had allegedly kidnapped and murdered the infant son of aviator hero Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, collecting ransom money after he knew the baby was already dead. Eagle staff correspondent William Weer wrote that Hauptmann, who was previously described as “stolid, unbreakable,” seemed fearful in his cell, having returned from a grueling cross-examination in which his alibis had fallen apart.
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