September 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

September 14, 2021 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1879, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “AFGHANISTAN, SEPT. 13 — A body of mutinous Afghans has gone to Zurmat, a district east of Ghuznee, hoping to incite the tribes there to attack the British flank in the Shutargardan Pass. The Ameer having addressed a letter to the Indian government after the outbreak at Kabul testifying to his friendship with the British, General Roberts has been instructed to call upon the Ameer to prove his sincerity by sending a deputation of confidential representatives invested with full powers to communicate with General Roberts.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1924, the Eagle reported, “There are 200,000 people at large in the City of New York who are on the borderline between sanity and madness. A celebrated medical authority on insanity — Dr. George H. Savage — said: ‘No person is perfectly sane in all his mental faculties, any more than he is perfectly healthy in body.’ According to the views of some alienists, that may be going too far — but when one considers the fads and the fancies, the hobbies and the freak ideas of many men and women, and the ‘tantrums’ of many children, one may realize that Dr. Savage was not so far off the track of truth as one might at first imagine. … The abnormal in the human brain is responsible for a very large proportion of the crimes committed throughout the world. Are we, then, treating crime from the proper angle? Why don’t we get at the root of it, the brain? That is just what some philanthropists and broad-minded men propose to do in New York City. These men, only the other day, took steps to establish a neuropathic hospital, which is to be a ‘Preventorium,’ for the treatment of the ‘near insane’ — that is, to cure in their early and incipient stages diseases of the brain. This institution will be the only one in the country. If it proves a success … it will doubtless lead to the establishment of similar hospitals … and we shall begin to look at insanity and crime from new viewpoints.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1937, the Eagle reported, “SHANGHAI (U.P.) — Nearly 5,000 Americans, comprising refugee civilians and military forces, were placed in acute danger along with thousands of other foreigners tonight when the battle of Shanghai shifted again to the vicinity of the International Settlement.” It was also reported, “(A.P.) — New horror was added to the tragic story of undeclared war at Shanghai when the Chinese Central News Agency reported 400 civilian war refugees had been killed or wounded [when] Japanese bombs rained on the flimsy sailing boats in which they were fleeing the city. Three of the boats were said to have been sunk and six damaged. The undefended decks of the open boats were crowded with frightened Chinese, huddled among their luggage and portable possessions.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1937, the Eagle reported, “CHICAGO (U.P.) — The result of multiplying 9.675 by 379 is 3,666,825, radios blared for Chicago’s seventh-grade school children at 8 a.m. today. And the pupils who divided 1.438 by 16 and didn’t get 92 and 11-16 could mark themselves an error — if mother and dad weren’t around to watch the proceedings. The gamut of reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic was included in today’s schedule of school broadcasts arranged by six stations to fill curricular breaches caused by delay in the opening of Chicago schools because of an infantile paralysis outbreak. The multiplication and division problems were for grade 7A pupils at 8 a.m. — right after breakfast. At 8:15 the problem was: ‘What is an equation?’ and at 10:45, ‘Find the area of the floor of your living room.’ Third and fourth grade pupils were invited to listen in just after dinner tonight on ‘How to make fun out of numbers.’ A study of words — accomplish, bargain, cashier, approve, brain — was listed for seventh-grade students at bedtime. Miss Minnie E. Fallon, assistant superintendent of teachers, said the first day’s broadcasts were received enthusiastically. Newspapers printed the problems and teachers announced the answers. Miss Gretta Brown, teacher of social sciences, discussed necessities of life. She recommended pupils ask father how he pays his bills and to paste the solutions in their scrapbooks.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “Star Trek” star Walter Koenig, who was born in 1936; Basketball Hall of Famer Larry Brown, who was born in Brooklyn in 1940; actress and singer Joey Heatherton, who was born in 1944; Sha Na Na singer Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, who was born in Brooklyn in 1947; “Jurassic Park” star Sam Neill, who was born in 1947; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, who was born in 1955; Oscar-winning actress Melissa Leo, who was born in 1960; Wendy’s namesake Wendy Thomas, who was born in 1961; “Murphy Brown” star Faith Ford, who was born in 1964; “The Young and the Restless” star Michelle Stafford, who was born in 1965; “Father of the Bride” star Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who was born in 1971; “The Walking Dead” star Andrew Lincoln, who was born in 1973; and rapper and songwriter Nas, who was born in Brooklyn in 1973.

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AND JUSTICE FOR ALL: Constance Baker Motley was born 100 years ago today. The Connecticut native was one of the top civil rights lawyers of the 1950s and ’60s, presenting arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in seven cases and winning them all. She was New York’s first black woman state senator and federal judge and the first woman elected borough president of Manhattan. She died in 2005.

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FAITH IN AMERICA: Elizabeth Ann Seton became the first American saint when she was canonized by Pope Paul VI on this day in 1975. Seton established the first Catholic girls’ school in the U.S. and the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity. She was born in 1774 and died in 1821.

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

Quotable:

“Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.”

— Constance Baker Motley, who was born on this day in 1921