September 12: ON THIS DAY in 1939, nazis move to trap poles

September 12, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1921, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “A formal charge of first degree murder, San Francisco police authorities have announced, will be preferred today against Roscoe (“Fatty”) Arbuckle, the motion picture comedian, under arrest here in connection with the death last Friday of Miss Virginia Rappe, film actress. Miss Rappe’s death followed her attendance at a party given in Arbuckle’s suite at a local hotel a week ago. She died of injuries which District Attorney Matthew Brady of San Francisco and other authorities alleged were inflicted by Arbuckle. Arbuckle is held without bail in the Hall of Justice here. He was arrested last Saturday night on his arrival from Los Angeles and was booked on a charge of murder.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1939, the Eagle reported, “Berlin (U.P.) — The German high command reported today that Nazi mechanized units had broken through Polish lines east of Warsaw and had advanced southward in an effort to cut off the armies defending the Polish capital. Nazi military experts asserted that the German thrust southward from East Prussia might be a death blow to the main Polish armies. They said that the advances reported by the high command’s communique meant the early end of resistance behind Warsaw in the triangle of the Narew and Vistula Rivers. Earlier the army high command announced that Posen, Gnesen, Hohensalza and many other towns in western Poland had been occupied and that all territory belonging to Germany before the World War was now in German hands.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “London (U.P.) — Adolf Hitler, as represented in wax, missed destruction at the hands of one of his own bombing planes by a hair of his mustache. So did such figures — all in wax in one group at the famous Mme. Tussaud’s waxworks — as Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop and King Victor Emmanuel and Benito Mussolini of Italy. If Hitler and the others had been 15 feet farther advanced, they would have been cut to pieces by a skylight which a German bomb sent crashing. They would have shared the fate of a group of medieval figures in the next hall, many of which were toppled about and cut by glass and other flying debris.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “Hollywood (UP) — Lucille Ball, television’s top actress, maintained today she registered to vote as a Communist in a 1936 primary election only to please her Socialist grandfather. But the red-haired comedienne, star of the ‘I Love Lucy’ show, denied ever joining the Communist Party or ever casting a ballot for a Communist candidate. Representative Donald Jackson (R., Cal.) agreed ‘there is no indication that Miss Ball ever was a member of the Communist Party.’ Jackson disclosed yesterday that an investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, of which he is a member, had taken testimony from the actress. ‘Miss Ball has cooperated with the committee investigator in all respects,’ Jackson said. ‘She has acknowledged her Communist Party registration.’ Jackson said, nevertheless, the committee plans to continue to investigate Miss Ball’s case because ‘no case is ever closed.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle also reported, “Newport, R.I. (U.P.) — Senator John F. Kennedy (D., Mass.), once one of the nation’s most eligible bachelors, takes an heiress as his bride here today. Kennedy, son of former Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, will wed Jacqueline Lee Bouvier of Newport at 11 a.m. in St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Archbishop Richard J. Cushing of Boston will officiate at the wedding, which caps the social season in this fashionable summer resort. Miss Bouvier, a descendant of prominent Washington and New York banking families, met the tousle-haired Kennedy while working as an inquiring reporter for the Washington Times-Herald. She is 24 and he is 36. Twenty-six attendants will participate in the wedding ceremony which will be followed by a reception at Miss Bouvier’s Hammersmith Farm home, where she was presented to society in August 1947.”