November 27: ON THIS DAY in 1941, U.S.-Japan crisis reached

November 27, 2020 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1863, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “In conformity with the conjoined request of President Lincoln and our own authorities, yesterday was observed for thanksgiving and prayer. Its observance was very general, all places of business being closed, the issuing of newspapers being suspended and the places of worship in all sections of the town being open for service. A more beautiful day was rarely known, and the general tone of gratitude harmonizing gracefully with the beauties of the outer world was heighted to the utmost by the cheering news sent from Grant at Lookout mountain and conveyed by successive Eagle extras to the thousands of expectant hearts in Brooklyn.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Eagle reported, “A few weeks ago when Orson Welles put on his radio version of the ‘War of the Worlds,’ the nation was swept into widespread panic as thousands of hysterical men and women made preparations to flee from invading Martian monsters. The radio audience has become more sophisticated since then. Yesterday afternoon when the Radio Playhouse Experimental Workshop broadcast a thriller over municipal Station WNYC about an unnamed foreign power which shot a rocket containing poison gas into this country, listeners took it in stride. Police Headquarters in Brooklyn and Manhattan reported they received not a single call and the radio station declared no one had telephoned asking if it were true … Director [Ted] Cott explained later that the radio group had no fear that the fantasy would be taken for the real thing. ‘The audience should be trained against panic by this time,’ he said.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1941, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — Authoritative sources today expressed fear that Japan’s answer to American demands that she withdraw from the Axis and get out of China may be a Japanese attack on Thailand within the next few days. This disclosure came as White House Secretary Stephen T. Early announced that President [Franklin] Roosevelt has arranged a mid-afternoon conference with Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull and two Japanese envoys. Information reaching Washington, and disclosed by sources other than Early, reported that the Japanese were massing troops in north and south Indo-China, apparently for an offensive against Thailand and the Burma Road in China. It was assumed here that the troops would be prepared to move in case the U.S.-Japanese exploratory talks broke down completely.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1942, the Eagle reported, “‘Casablanca’ opened Thanksgiving at the Hollywood Theater. What timing! The smash Allied victory in the French Moroccan capital hasn’t had time to become yesterday’s news, you may say, and here’s Warner Brothers tossing ‘Casablanca’ to a news-eager and victory-happy public. What timing and, incidentally, what a picture! Now, don’t get the idea that ‘Casablanca’ is the latest news reel, equipped with the A.E.F. and Ingrid Bergman. It’s not a documentary at all; it’s a fiction, but it has got Ingrid Bergman and it also gives an authentic picture of the French Moroccan city and builds up for you the events that led to the present American occupation. ‘Casablanca,’ indeed, is a brilliant example of that new type of picture which has been getting polished off with increasing artistry, in Hollywood as well as in Britain during the past few months. It’s a war picture that is not about the war so much as it is about people, just people, who find themselves pocketed by one or another set of war circumstances.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “FT. STEWART, GA. (UPI) — President Kennedy, in an off-the-cuff address yesterday during his inspection of troops here, quoted the lines of a poem he said was found many years ago in a sentry box on Gibraltar. It said: ‘God, and not the soldier, all men adore / In time of danger, and not before. / When the danger is past and all things righted / God is forgotten and the old soldier slighted.’ Kennedy added his own epilogue: ‘This country does not forget God or the soldier. Upon both we now depend.’”