History Brooklyn Boro

October 5, ON THIS DAY in 1941: Brooklyn Dodgers win big World Series game over Yankees

October 5, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Eagle file photo
Eagle file photo
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ON THIS DAY IN 1941, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Ebbets Field, Oct. 4 — ‘Come on, you Dodgers; bust our windows with homers,’ implored the black-and-red banner suspended from the building on the other side of Bedford Avenue. For nine solid innings, the banner, like a beacon of encouragement, flung out its message in the breeze, proclaiming with silent eloquence the hope that was in all Dodgerville’s heart. At one moment, or perhaps two, the banner fluttered; Dodgerville’s hopes soared and 30,000 or more dyed-in-the-wool citizens of Brooklyn experienced emotions bordering on near-nervous prostration in the mass from doings down there on the field. But no Dodger home runs were hit; no windows were busted; none was even remotely jarred, and so, because Bedford Avenue’s windows remained intact, is recorded the tale of what happened to Our Heroes in their first World Series at-home game after 21 long years of waiting.” The Yankees defeated the Dodgers in five games. The teams would meet again in 1947, 1949, 1952 1953, 1955 and 1956, with the Dodgers winning their only championship in Brooklyn in 1955. Since moving to Los Angeles, they have won titles in 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981 and 1988.
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ON THIS DAY IN 1877, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Another Indian fight is reported from the Yellowstone country, and this time the army is victorious — that is, if a battle where so many officers are lost and wounded, as was the case in this instance, can be called a victory. Gen. [Nelson A.] Miles met and surprised a camp of Nez Perces coming out of the Bear Paw Mountains on 30th ult., and the engagement was a severe one … If Gen. [Samuel D.] Sturgis reached the main force in time, Chief Joseph’s band has been captured ere this, but the probability is that reinforcements reached the Indians first, and in that event they have departed in the direction of Canada … These Indian battles are destructive to officers, not one occurring where there is not one or more lost and, unless the army is increased to a proper size, it will become necessary to shorten the course at West Point, so as to provide a sufficient force of officers to command the troops in frontier work.”

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ON OCT. 6, 1892, the Eagle reported, “Tennyson is dead. His demise was anticipated both by the press and the people. The event occurred with sublime natural incidents. The published account refers to them. Exchange of worlds more poetical was never made. They thought him dying when he slept and sleeping when he died. America will share with England and both with all other lands a sense of profound loss.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1913, the Eagle reported, “It has been said that the Panama Canal represents the greatest liberty that man ever took with nature. To dig through mountains for forty miles and sever a continent was a full-sized job, but right here in New York the engineering feat at the isthmus has been discounted to a degree by the building of the Catskill Aqueduct, which must rank as the second greatest engineering project ever undertaken on the continent. When the government tug made the passage through the canal a short time ago, the news was flashed around the world. In striking contrast was the unheralded, and unceremonious joining of the tunnels under the East River, marking the direct connection of the Brooklyn water tunnels with the great aqueduct extending to Ashokan reservoir, a distance of 92 miles, through solid rock at a depth of 1,100 in one place and over 700 feet below the surface at other points.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1918, the Eagle reported, “The greatest shell-loading plant in America, that of the T.A. Gillespie Loading Company, at Morgan, N.J., about 20 miles in an airline southeast of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, has been practically destroyed in its entirety, as the result of a series of explosions on T.N.T. that started at 7:31 o’clock last night. Today, according to the best information available, it is known that a number of lives were lost. Estimates run from 10 to 500. Residents of neighboring towns are in flight, leaving fully 3,000 persons temporarily homeless … The town of South Amboy is reported in ruins. Perth Amboy is abandoned and damage there is widespread. A dozen surrounding towns were in shattered condition this afternoon … Places more than 100 miles distant were being shaken at intervals by the heavy concussions. Thousands of store and house windows within a radius of twenty miles of the disaster were shattered to bits.”


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