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February 18: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

February 18, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History
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ON THIS DAY IN 1918, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “PETROGRAD, FEB. 9 (A.P.) — Kiev, one of the principal cities of the Ukraine, was captured by the Bolsheviki on Friday after sanguinary fighting. The streets were filled with dead or wounded. While fighting was at the height on Thursday, the city was bombarded by Bolsheviki aviators. The casualties at Kiev are estimated at 4,000 killed and 7,000 wounded.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (A.P.) — President [Franklin] Roosevelt made public an interdepartmental committee report today declaring the administration’s program ‘seeks a balanced system of prices such as will promote a balanced expansion in production.’ He said this did not mean inflation or further devaluation of the dollar. Commenting on the report, which declared that in the present situation a ‘moderate rise in the general price level is desirable, and that this rise need not and should not extend to all prices,’ the president, at a press conference, anticipating questions as to what was to be done about it, said the problem was being attacked on a good many fronts. He said examples of steps already taken toward recovery and a better balance of prices were the new Farm Act, the new housing construction program and the added $250,000,000 for relief. He added all these elements would help. Another feature of the balanced price program, the president said, was that the administration expected to continue to maintain easy credit conditions, with the Treasury and Federal Reserve Board cooperating in this. ‘Does the program mean inflation?’ the president asked himself and replied with a flat ‘no.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1946, the Eagle reported, “ROME (U.P.) — The Sacred College of Cardinals today approved the proposed appointment of Mother Francesca Xavier Cabrini as the first American saint, bringing her within one formal step of sanctification. The case of Mother Cabrini has been under examination by the Vatican for more than a decade. Only a vote of approval by the bishops of the world remains to be taken. It is unlikely that her sanctification will occur during 1946 because of difficulties in obtaining the necessary equipment for the ceremony. The Sacred Congregation of Rites verified her virtues and miracles of healing in many sessions and gave final approval during a meeting in the presence of the late Pope Pius XI in November 1938. Mother Cabrini was born in Italy in 1850 and visited the United States for the first time in 1889. She founded the first institute for girls at West Park, N.Y. Altogether she founded 67 institutes in North, Central and South America. She died in West Park on Dec. 22, 1917. When she was beatified in 1938, Pope Pius XI described Mother Cabrini as ‘a poem of holiness, activity, intelligence and charity.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1951, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON, FEB. 17 (U.P.) — The State Department said tonight that Josef Stalin’s Pravda interview was a propaganda move to ‘regain lost ground’ not only abroad but among the Communist satellites and his people at home. In a blistering statement, the department said Stalin himself is leading Russia on a ‘dangerous road’ and is ignoring the power held by himself and his Kremlin associates ‘to remove the threat of war if they will.’ ‘The fact of Soviet armament and the responsibility for aggression are too well established for the truth to be obscured by one more misstatement,’ the department said. Press spokesman Michael J. McDermott issued the statement as a direct reaction to Stalin’s interview. The Soviet leader had protested that ‘peaceful’ Russia is disarming and that the West is going to lose the war in Korea. ‘No man alive knows better than Prime Minister Stalin who is behind the Communist aggression in Korea,’ the statement said. The unusual reference to shakiness of the Communist regime in Moscow and in the satellites ringing Russia’s borders mentioned a ‘spate of purges and defections’ among Communists. It said the Russian people must ‘feel keenly the isolation into which their rulers have forced them,’ suggesting that was why Stalin himself had to ‘try to prove again that all the world is out of step.’”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include musician and artist Yoko Ono, who was born in 1933; former L.A. Dodgers outfielder Manny Mota, who was born in 1938; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Herman Santiago (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers), who was born in 1941; World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Rankin, who was born in 1945; Styx co-founder Dennis DeYoung, who was born in 1947; “Moonlighting” star Cybil Shepherd, who was born in 1950; “It’s a Heartache” singer Juice Newton, who was born in 1952; “Saturday Night Fever” star John Travolta, who was born in 1954; “Wheel of Fortune” star Vanna White, who was born in 1957; “The Outsiders” star Matt Dillon, who was born in 1964; “The Facts of Life” star Molly Ringwald, who was born in 1968; and former N.Y. Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius, who was born in 1990.

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A MODERN WOMAN: Helen Gurley Brown was born 100 years ago today. The Arkansas native wrote “Sex and the Single Girl” in 1962 and became an outspoken advocate for sexual freedom, breaking the mythology that women had to be “good girls” who saved themselves until marriage. She was also the longtime editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. She died in 2012.

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A WHOLE NEW WORLD: Pluto was discovered on this day in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was given the name of the Roman god of the underworld and was considered the ninth planet of the solar system until 2006, when astronomers reclassified it as a dwarf planet.

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

 

Quotable:

“Beauty can’t amuse you, but brainwork — reading, writing, thinking — can.”

— writer and editor Helen Gurley Brown, who was born on this day in 1922

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