March 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March 14, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1943, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON, MARCH 13 (U.P.) — New importance was attached to the visit of British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden tonight when four senators — two Democrats and two Republicans — announced plans for introduction of a resolution calling for a permanent United Nations police force to suppress aggression in the post-war world. The senators — Carl A. Hatch (D.-N.M.), Joseph H. Ball (R.-Minn.), Harold H. Burton (R.-Ohio) and Lister Hill (D.-Ala.) — will go to the White House tomorrow for a conference with President Roosevelt, at which it was believed Eden may be present. Later they will confer with Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull. … In a joint statement about their plans — to be incorporated in a resolution to be introduced Tuesday — the four senators said: ‘We believe that an organization of the United Nations with the authority and the power to stop any future attempts at military aggression offers the best hope for maintaining world peace and stability after this war, and at the same time is the most efficient and the least costly method in lives and wealth for the individual nations to obtain security for themselves.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1947, the Eagle reported, “BALBOA, CANAL ZONE — Any hour now, a Pan-American plane bearing Jackie Robinson and a selected assortment of Montreal Royals is due to swoop down upon the isthmus and then, of course, we will have a resumption of the marathon speculation as to whether a Negro ball player will, shall or can make the major leagues.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “LONDON (U.P.) — Foreign ministers of the five Western Union countries met behind closed doors today to speed up work on the Atlantic pact and other moves designed to maintain Western initiative in the cold war. Today’s meeting was called three weeks earlier than originally planned, exemplifying the crush of conferences called by the West to prepare its military, political and economic defenses before Russia can regain the initiative. Reports from Vienna said Russia also had called a meeting to map new strategy in the continuing struggle with the West. These reports said Eastern European military chiefs were conferring with Soviet army leaders in Debrecen, Hungary. Today’s conference brought together the foreign ministers, as well as the defense and finance ministers or their deputies, of Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — Military leaders drew up plans today to repel any further invasion of Allied zones in Germany by Russian-built aircraft. Work on the strategy, being kept under a strict secrecy lid, was pushed while three of America’s top military men headed here from Paris to join in the discussion. Generals Omar N. Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Air Force chief of staff, are due Sunday from conferences at Headquarters of Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, Supreme Commander in Europe. Gen. Alfred M. Gruenther, Ridgway’s chief of staff, is scheduled to arrive here Monday. Military sources expected the generals to confer with President Eisenhower on the three incidents this week in which a Czechoslovakian plane shot down an American fighter while Russians downed a British bomber and threatened a British airliner. Britain called the Russian pilots murderers of the six bomber crew members who died. This government implied that grave consequences would face the next Communist intruder, regardless of whether it opens fire on American aircraft. After a series of diplomatic protests, the State Department left it ‘up to the military’ to decide the precise strategy for dealing with further border violations.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “ANGLETON, TEX. (UPI) — Both voters in the Bushy Meadows-Brazoria County Water Control Improvement District will go to the polls March 25 to decide whether $350,000 in bonds should be issued to pay for a proposed water works and sewer system. Because Mr. and Mrs. O.T. Lucas are the only residents in the area qualified to vote in the election, the results should be quickly known. Lucas is the election judge.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, who was born in 1928; Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine, who was born in 1933; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Quincy Jones, who was born in 1933; “Help!” star Eleanor Bron, who was born in 1938; “The Princess Bride” star Billy Crystal, who was born in 1948; “Disco Duck” singer Rick Dees, who was born in 1950; “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” star Tamara Tunie, who was born in 1959; “Dawson’s Creek” creator Kevin Williamson, who was born in 1965; “The Hughleys” star Elise Neal, who was born in 1966; former N.Y. Knicks forward Larry Johnson, who was born in 1969; “Hawaii Five-0” star Grace Park, who was born in 1974; “American Pie” star Chris Klein, who was born in 1979; two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry, who was born in 1988; “West Side Story” star Ansel Elgort, who was born in 1994; and Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles, who was born in 1997.

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GENIUS AT WORK: Albert Einstein was born in Germany on this day in 1879. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist is best known for his theory of relativity. He died in Princeton, N.J., in 1955.

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TAKING FLIGHT: Gene Cernan was born on this day in 1934. The Chicago native became the youngest American in space and the second to exit a spacecraft in orbit on the Gemini 9A mission. He was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 10 and commander of Apollo 17, NASA’s last moon mission, where he spent a record 73 hours on the lunar surface. He died in 2017.

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

Quotable:

“America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow.”

— Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, who was born on this day in 1934