March 4: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March 4, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “OSLO (U.P.) — The Norwegian government, with the overwhelming support of parliament, rejected a proposed non-aggression treaty with Russia today and decided to join discussions on the proposed Atlantic pact. A Norwegian delegation was expected to leave for Washington within 10 days to join the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg in discussing the proposed pact. The government announced that a secret session of parliament which was held yesterday approved the twin decision by a vote of 118 to 11, with only the 11 Communist members objecting. Norway then explained its position to Russia in a firm note rejecting Russia’s request for a non-aggression pact, which was made Feb. 5.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1952, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — President Truman told the Russian people today there can be peace ‘if your rulers will turn from their senseless policy of hate and terror.’ ‘We have no quarrel with the people of the Soviet Union,’ he said in a dramatic broadcast direct to Russia and Communist satellites around the world. Mr. Truman spoke at ceremonies inaugurating the Voice of America’s first sea-going radio station — a major new U.S. weapon in the propaganda war. The Courier, a converted 338-foot Coast Guard cutter, is designed for moving quickly and easily to the seacoasts of Iron Curtain countries to relay Voice broadcasts. It will leave for New York Friday and then go on a shakedown cruise in the Caribbean. Its first assignment is expected to be to the Middle East. The ship is the first of three being converted for sea broadcasting under ‘Operation Vagabond.’ It is operated by the Coast Guard for the Voice.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “MOSCOW (U.P.) — Premier Josef Stalin today lay paralyzed and unconscious from a brain hemorrhage and the Council of Ministers and Communist Party Central Committee took over his powers in the emergency. A medical bulletin said he was not responding to treatment. Stunned Muscovites, from whom the news had been withheld nearly 48 hours, at first refused to believe and then lined up by thousands at news kiosks and before public billboards to read a government and party statement and a medical bulletin. The medical bulletin told them the 73-year-old premier on the night of March 2 had suffered a ‘sudden brain hemorrhage affecting vital areas of the brain, as a result of which he developed a paralysis of the right leg and the right arm, with loss of consciousness and speech.’ It said he was having trouble breathing and that his pulse beat at 120 a minute was ‘completely irregular.’ The government statement expressed confidence that ‘our party and the whole Soviet people will in these difficult days display the greatest unity, cohesion, stanchness of spirit and vigilance.’ But it was hard for the people to grasp. Hundreds of men and women wept in the streets … To the generation of Russians born since the revolution, the fact that Stalin could be ill appeared to be almost inconceivable.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “TOKYO (UPI) — Communist China again asserted yesterday that all imperialists and reactionaries are ‘paper tigers’ and that to be afraid of them is ‘practically nonsensical.’ The assertion was made in the fourth and last installment of a 100,000-word defense of Peking’s hard-line Communism as opposed to Soviet Premier Khrushchev’s policy of ‘peaceful co-existence.’ The Chinese Communist remarks were directed at Italian party leader Palmiro Togliatti, but it was obvious the attacks were directed against Khrushchev and his ideological partners. Yesterday’s installment, printed in the official Red Flag magazine and broadcast by Peking radio, appeared aimed at the Cuban crisis when Peking used terms like ‘appeasement’ and ‘another Munich’ to criticize Khrushchev’s decision to pull his missiles out of Cuba in the face of the threat of nuclear war.”

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Patricia Heaton
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include former Dallas Cowboys fullback Don Perkins, who was born in 1938; “The Stepford Wives” star Paula Prentiss, who was born in 1938; former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was born in 1950; musician Emilio Estefan, who was born in 1953; “Home Alone” star Catherine O’Hara, who was born in 1954; “Forrest Gump” star Mykelti Williamson, who was born in 1957; “Everybody Loves Raymond” star Patricia Heaton, who was born in 1958; boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, who was born in 1961; “Wings” star Steven Weber, who was born in 1961; former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, who was born in 1963; and media personality Whitney Port, who was born in 1985.

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MOVING DAY: From George Washington’s second inauguration in 1793 to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first in 1933, presidents were sworn into office on March 4. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution (1933) says, “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January … and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”

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A HALL OF A GUY: Avery Fisher was born in Brooklyn on this day in 1906. An amateur violinist, he founded the Fisher Radio Company in 1945 and pioneered advances in sound reproduction. The longtime philanthropist sat on the boards of the New York City Philharmonic and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, among others. In the 1970s, the home of the New York Philharmonic was renamed Avery Fisher Hall. It was renamed again for David Geffen in 2015. Fisher died in 1994.

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

Quotable:

“One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred teaching it.”

— football coach Knute Rockne, who was born on this day in 1888