June 29: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

June 29, 2021 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1914, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “SARAYEVO, BOSNIA — Death masks were taken today of the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand and of the Duchess of Hohenberg, who met their death yesterday at the hands of the young assassin, Gavrilo Princip, while on an official visit to the Bosnian capital … According to the semi-official report of the tragedy, at the time the fatal shots were fired Field Marshal Oskar Potiorek, Governor of Bosnia, was seated in the Archduke’s motorcar. Count Francis von Harrach was standing on the footboard of the car, acting as a shield to the occupants, of whom he had constituted himself the special bodyguard after the bomb had been thrown, a short time before, by Nedeljo Gabrinovics … The Archduke was joking with the Count about his precautions when the reports of several shots rang out. The aim of the assassins was so true that each of the bullets inflicted a mortal wound.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1916, the Eagle reported, “Three troops of Brooklyn’s cavalry, the First Regiment, and one troop from Staten Island entrained at Yonkers for Brownsville, Tex., this afternoon. They are the first New York State cavalry to start for the border. Troops A, K and L of this borough, and Troop 5 from Richmond, broke camp at Van Cortlandt Park at 10 o’clock this morning, and rode, under command of Lieutenant Colonel McLeer, to the Yonkers yards of the New York Central Railroad, where they immediately busied themselves loading their horses and boarding the trains. Squadron A of Manhattan and Troops C, E, D, G, M, B, H and I were left behind. C and E are Brooklyn troops. When the 316 cavalrymen rode in columns of twos down the hill through the main camp, every man among the other troops dropped his work to cheer. When they reached Getty Square, in the center of Yonkers, they were given another ovation by thousands of people, nearly all of whom carried small American flags. Shouts of ‘Shave Carranza!’ and ‘Pull Villa’s mustache!’ were hurled at them out of the crowd.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1927, the Eagle reported, “ROOSEVELT FIELD — The Fokker monoplane America, piloted by Commander Richard E. Byrd, was roaring through space between Cape Breton and Newfoundland at 1:30 p.m. today, according to a wireless message received here from Byrd. This means the plane has gone 880 miles on her way to Paris. The message reported the America as flying over the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A report at 12:15 placed the plane over Sherbrooke, Guysboro County, Nova Scotia, and headed for the Strait of Canso, 40 miles to the eastward. Thus the America is speeding toward the open ocean. Byrd, it is estimated here, covered the length of Nova Scotia today on his non-stop flight to Paris in 3 hours and 30 minutes, bettering Col. Charles Lindbergh’s time of a month earlier by 1 hour and 5 minutes.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1933, the Eagle reported, “Roscoe Arbuckle, the popular ‘Fatty’ of hilarious slapstick movie comedies of a decade and a half ago, died today in his suite in the Park Central Hotel, Manhattan. He was 46. Angina pectoris, a heart disease from which he was known to be suffering for the past two weeks, was given as the cause. Death came a few hours after a dinner party to celebrate the first anniversary of his wedding to his third wife, the former Addie McPhail, motion picture actress, and while Arbuckle was engaged in a heroic effort at a ‘comeback’ into popular favor that appeared to have some chance of success. He had completed a talking picture, ‘Tamalio,’ in the Warner Brothers studio in Long Island City at noon yesterday. It was one of six such pictures he had recently done, his first extensive film acting since the mysterious death of an actress, Virginia Rappe, at a gay party in 1921. Arbuckle was tried three times for homicide and finally acquitted, but protests from civic and church groups ruined him as an attraction and Paramount scrapped $500,000 worth of Arbuckle films.”

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Nicole Scherzinger
Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “The Defiant Ones” star Cara Williams, who was born in Brooklyn in 1925; weightlifter and Olympic gold medalist Pete George, who was born in 1929; “The Buddy Holly Story” star Gary Busey, who was born in 1944; “Anything but Love” star Richard Lewis, who was born in Brooklyn in 1947; “The Love Boat” star and former U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy, who was born in 1948; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Ian Paice (Deep Purple), who was born in 1948; “Alone Again” singer Don Dokken, who was born in 1953; Men at Work founder Colin Hay, who was born in 1953; “Moscow on the Hudson” star Maria Conchita Alonso, who was born in 1957; “NYPD Blue” star Sharon Lawrence, who was born in 1961; “Lost” star Zuleikha Robinson, who was born in 1977; Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger, who was born in 1978; and “American Horror Story” star Lily Rabe, who was born in 1982.

Maria Conchita Alonso
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

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BY GEORGE: George Washington Goethals was born in Brooklyn on this day in 1858. The American engineer and Army officer led the construction of the Panama Canal and was the first civil governor of the Canal Zone. The Goethals Bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey is named for him. He died in 1928.

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GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNIN’: The Interstate highway system was born on this day in 1956 when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill providing $33.5 billion for highway construction. It was the biggest public works program in history.

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Special thanks to “Chase’s Calendar of Events” and Brooklyn Public Library.

Quotable:

“Knowledge of our duties is the most essential part of the philosophy of life. If you escape duty, you avoid action. The world demands results.”
— engineer George Washington Goethals, who was born on this day in 1858