October 22: ON THIS DAY in 1944, Yanks take Tacloban

October 22, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1929, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Dearborn, Mich. — The Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas A. Edison, who was exhausted yesterday from the emotional strain of ceremonies commemorating light’s golden jubilee, was resting easily today, and physicians who visited him at the home of Henry Ford said there was no cause for worry. Tired but glorifying in the tributes of the world that were laid at his feet yesterday, the 83-year-old inventor was reliving in memory as he relived in actuality yesterday the events of 50 years ago when he gave incandescent light to the world. From the furthest reaches of the Antarctic, from Europe, Asia and throughout America, statesmen, scientists, business magnates and the millions who have benefited by his great invention did honor yesterday to the inventor. Here in Dearborn, while President [Herbert] Hoover, Mme. Marie Curie, Henry Ford and countless others looked on, the white-haired wizard, working at the reconstructed table at which a half century ago he first constructed an electric bulb, performed again the original experiment that resulted in his great invention. At his side stood Francis Jehl, who 50 years ago aided him in the first experiment.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1944, the Eagle reported, “The honor of planting the first American flag in the Philippine Islands since the courageous fighters on Bataan and Corregidor had to lower theirs went to a Brooklyn soldier, his family was informed yesterday. A veteran of some of the toughest fighting in the Admiralties, Tech. Sgt. Michael J. Ryan [of New York Ave.] clambered up the Leyte Island beachhead with a ‘dismounted cavalry’ unit of General [Douglas] MacArthur’s 6th Army after sweating out special training for the invasion for seven months. Sergeant Ryan, who trained with the cavalry and who owned a riding academy at Avenue W and Brown St. before he went into the army, expected to land in the Philippines, his wife, Frances, said. ‘After the Admiralty campaign,’ she said, ‘Mike and his unit rested and trained. They got steaks three times a week and special training for what was ahead. He knew where he was going.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1952, the Eagle reported, “New York City and State, for the first time in history, have more women than men registered to vote on Election Day, Nov. 4, the Board of Elections has disclosed, but that isn’t true in Brooklyn. Here the preponderance is still on the male side, with a registration of 591,187 men, 567,667 women. The total is 1,158,854, Brooklyn’s second biggest registration. The total state registration was 7,825,456, or more than 11 percent over the previous high, in 1948, of 7,044,676. In the 57 ‘upstate’ counties, largely Republican, the increase was more than 15 percent over 1948. In the predominantly Democratic city, the total was 3,515,997, an increase of less than 6 percent and below the 1944 figure, 3,556,377. Bronx and Richmond, like Brooklyn, listed more men than women registrants, while Queens went to the women by less than 100 votes out of a total of more than 800,000. Manhattan, with a heavy female preponderance, threw the city into the women’s column.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “Chicago (UP) — The Atomic Energy Commission announced today that it is going to build history’s first full-scale atomic power plant to chain the atom for peace as well as for possible war. Atomic Commissioner Thomas E. Murray of Brooklyn said, ‘This is America’s answer’ to the recent tests behind the Iron Curtain that revealed Russia’s swift march toward development of the hydrogen bomb. ‘It should show the world that even in this gravest phase of arming for defense, America’s eyes are still on the peaceful future,’ Mr. Murray said. ‘For years, the splitting atom, packaged in weapons, has been our main shield against the barbarians. Now, in addition, it is to become a God-given instrument to do the constructive work of mankind.’”