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January 4: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

January 4, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History
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ON THIS DAY IN 1920, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON, JAN. 3 — Radical leaders planned to develop the recent steel and coal strike into a general strike and ultimately into a revolution to overthrow the government, according to information gathered by federal agents in Friday night’s wholesale roundup of members of the Communist and Communist Labor parties. A definite program to expand the two labor disturbances for the purposes of blotting out every semblance of organized government was disclosed in evidence gathered in half a score of cities. This data, officials said, tended to prove that the nation-wide raids had nipped the most menacing revolutionary plot yet unearthed. Officials indicated that both groups of radicals were only awaiting an opportune moment to carry on among other classes of workers the same sort of agitation employed among steel workers and coal miners. Among the foreign element of the Communist and Communist Labor parties, information described as conclusive revealed that the payrolls had been ‘loaded’ with agitators to be sent suddenly to every fertile field in support of a general strike campaign.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1920, the Eagle reported, “LONDON, JAN. 3 — Gen. [Anton] Denikin’s government in southern Russia has been overthrown and Gen. [Ivan] Romanovsky has been chosen to replace Gen. Denikin as anti-Bolshevist chief, according to a wireless dispatch received here from Moscow, quoting advices from Taganrog. The report indicates that, owing to defeats along the front, a coup d’etat occurred at Gen. Denikin’s headquarters, and that his government has been replaced by a group known as the ‘Voz Sozhdenye Rossie,’ a term meaning the ‘Regeneration of Russia.’ Dispatches received in official quarters from Odessa say that the Russian volunteer army which recently captured the town of Proskurov, 175 miles southwest of Kiev, took a railroad train containing the treasure of Gen. Petliura, the Ukrainian anti-Bolshevik commander. Twenty-four cars composed the train, one of which conveyed gold and silver and old Romanoff banknotes. The dispatches assert that altogether the total amounted to several million rubles.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “The [Robert] Wagner administration settled down today at City Hall, experiencing the usual confusion of a large family moving into a new home, and dug in for a four-year effort to provide service ‘in the best interest of all the people.’ The pledge was made by Mayor Wagner New Year’s Day and this was the first day he and his official family had a chance to put it to work. The mayor appeared at 9:55 a.m., nattily attired, and opened shop by conferring with his $30,000-a-year city administrator, Dr. Luther H. Gulick. The latter told reporters they would find him a ‘very quiet man’ for six months. ‘We’re not going to upset the world. We’re going to work on carrying out the program outlined in the mayoralty campaign,’ he declared. Meanwhile there was some milling around in the corridors, some officials not having offices as yet, others not knowing which had been assigned to them. The mayor left City Hall in the morning to attend the swearing in of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jacob Markowitz. Then he moved along uptown to a 200th anniversary ceremony at Columbia University, where, he smilingly remarked, ‘he was going to listen to a speech by Governor [Thomas] Dewey.’ The new mayor and the governor have already engaged in heated battle over the issue of greater state aid to the city.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “An expanded program of action ‘no matter how unorthodox’ was urged yesterday by Mayor Wagner to meet the growing problem of juvenile delinquency. Wagner told a meeting in lower Manhattan of the Advisory Council of the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime that the youth problem must be attacked on the community level. ‘We must look at the problem and plan for the attack on the problem on a citywide basis,’ he said, ‘even while we continue to seek ways to mobilize neighborhood energies for the attack on the overall problem. We must be willing to follow any course of action which holds promise, no matter how unorthodox.’”

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Julia Ormond
Greg Allen/Invision/AP
Michael Stipe
Matt Licari/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “It Came from Outer Space” star Barbara Rush, who was born in 1927; “Heaven Can Wait” star Dyan Cannon, who was born in 1937; historian and commentator Doris Kearns Goodwin, who was born in Brooklyn in 1943; businesswoman and fashion designer Tina Knowles, who was born in 1954; actress and performance artist Ann Magnuson, who was born in 1956; former NBA player Sidney Green, who was born in Brooklyn in 1961; country singer Patty Loveless, who was born in 1957; “Max Headroom” star Matt Frewer, who was born in 1958; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), who was born in 1960; “NewsRadio” star Dave Foley, who was born in 1963; “Sabrina” star Julia Ormond, who was born in 1965; country singer Deana Carter, who was born in 1966; and former N.Y. Yankees pitcher Ted Lilly, who was born in 1976.

Dave Foley
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

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HIGHER LEARNING: Sir Isaac Newton was born in England on this day in 1643. The chief figure of the scientific revolution of the 17th century, he laid the foundations of calculus, studied the mechanics of planetary motion and discovered the law of gravitation. He died in 1727.

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IT’S A HIT: The pop music chart was introduced on this day in 1936. Billboard magazine published the first list of bestselling pop records, covering the week that ended Dec. 30, 1935. On the list were recordings by the Tommy Dorsey and Ozzie Nelson orchestras.

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

 

Quotable:

“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”

— Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, who was born on this day in 1930

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