March 23: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March 23, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1870, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “With the confirmation of Mr. [Joseph P.] Bradley, of New Jersey, to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, there are no vacancies in that body. It, therefore, as reconstructed, consists of: Chief Justice Chase and Associate Justices Nelson, Field, Clifford, Swayne, Miller, Davis, Strong and Bradley. We do not perceive in this list of names any jurist of whom the country need be ashamed or apprehensive. With the career and character of all the justices, except Messrs. Strong and Bradley, the nation is familiar. With these latter gentlemen, the people are becoming more and more acquainted as the biographies of them multiply and expand.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1921, the Eagle reported, “Tris Speaker and his Cleveland champions are all set for the 1921 season. The same gang that copped the American flag and afterward made Brooklyn take the count in the World Series is on the job and working harder than ever before. Few new faces are seen at the ball park because this is one ball club which will baffle the nerviest youngster who tries to horn into the lineup. … They are going into the 1921 pennant race with more spirit and determination than last year. They realize they will have a hard time of it, but that’s what they want. Every game will be a hard one, and I can say right now that the Indians will be a mighty hard ball club to beat this year.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1943, the Eagle reported, “The doom of the automobile for civilian use was predicted as likely for the duration by Sol A. Herzog, spokesman for the Eastern States Gasoline Dealers Association, as he pushed plans today for a demand for ‘intelligent’ cooperation by government agencies. He said that a meeting of the association to be held April 11 in Philadelphia will disclose the fact that many more gasoline stations will close and those remaining would do business only three days a week. ‘I see the collapse of the retail distribution of gasoline and the collapse of the maintenance of motor vehicles unless we can get some intelligent cooperation from the government,’ said Herzog. ‘Within the past year about 350 gasoline stations in the greater city have been closed and another 500 in Nassau and Suffolk. If stations continue closing at the same pace, 500 or 600 more stations will close in Nassau and Suffolk and 11,000 more on the Eastern Coast.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1946, the Eagle reported, “The Iranian ambassador set up headquarters in Manhattan today to press his nation’s fight before the United Nations Security Council to oust Soviet troops from Iran’s oil-rich northern territory. Ambassador Hussein Ala arrived with three advisers from the Iranian Embassy in Washington, armed with three briefcases crammed with documents to support Iran’s charge that the Soviet Union has violated treaties and international agreements by not getting out of Iran by March 2. As he made final preparations to lay his case before the world delegates, the council made ready to place the dispute high on its first-day list of matters to be considered.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — Senator Millard E. Tydings, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said today that America’s military forces may have to be increased soon because of Atlantic treaty defense commitments. But the Maryland Democrat said that in the long run, the pact and its companion project for arms shipments to Europe should enable cutbacks in U.S. defense spending and in the size of American armed forces.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “City work crews will begin Monday to patch up an ‘unusual’ number of holes in roadways caused by the severe cold this past winter, Commissioner of Highways John T. Carroll announced yesterday. A total of 1,857 men were assigned to the task over the next month. ‘While we have not had heavy snowfalls this winter, we have experienced unusually long periods of sub-freezing temperatures. Frost has penetrated two to three feet into the ground beneath paving. This has caused an unusual number of holes in roadways and pavement as thaws occur,’ Carroll said.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include football player and broadcaster Ron Jaworski, who was born in 1951; science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, who was born in 1952; former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was born in 1952; “I Feel for You” singer Chaka Khan, who was born in 1953; fashion designer Kenneth Cole, who was born in Brooklyn in 1954; “Pulp Fiction” star Amanda Plummer, who was born in 1957; “American Splendor” star Hope Davis, who was born in 1964; Basketball Hall of Famer Jason Kidd, who was born in 1973; “Patriots Day” star Michelle Monaghan, who was born in 1976; “Felicity” star Keri Russell, who was born in 1976; former N.Y. Jets and Giants receiver Brandon Marshall, who was born in 1984; former N.Y. Yankees and Mets reliever Dellin Betances, who was born in 1988; author and TV personality Ayesha Curry, who was born in 1989; and Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving, who was born in 1992.

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IT’S ALL GOOD: The Boston Morning Post printed the first known “ok” on this day in 1839. It derived from a jovial misspelling of “all correct” – “oll korrect.” Etymologist Allen Reed doggedly tracked down the word’s origin in the 1960s. “OK” is now used in most languages.

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ROCK ON: Planet Earth had a close call on this day in 1989 when a mountain-sized asteroid passed it within 500,000 miles. Impact would have equaled the strength of 40,000 hydrogen bombs, created a crater the size of the District of Columbia and devastated everything for 100 miles in all directions.

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

Quotable:

“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.”

— Oscar-winner Joan Crawford, who was born on this day in 1904