April 18: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 18, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle

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ON THIS DAY IN 1912, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “The first details of the great Titanic disaster have at last reached here, according to a wireless dispatch received by a news agency in Manhattan. They come direct from Captain Rostron, in command of the Carpathia, and serve to increase rather than lessen the horror of the awful scenes which followed the crash. Captain Rostron’s message contains certain confirmation of the death of Colonel Astor, news of the critical illness of his widow, and says that 200 sailors who were asleep in the bow of the great vessel when it came in contact with the iceberg perished terribly, ‘drowned like rats.’ The dispatch makes it clear that the Titanic struck the berg head-on and not sideways, as many have believed. … The captain’s statement of the number of sick in the hospital conveys the first definite information from any authoritative source that the Carpathia is coming to port a floating hospital as well as a vessel filled with widows and orphans.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1947, the Eagle reported, “The new manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers is Burt Shotton. President Branch Rickey announced the hiring of his scout today for one year. Shotton took the job with that understanding. The choice was made at the suggestion of the three Brooklyn coaches, Clyde Sukeforth, who has been acting manager; Ray Blades and Jake Pitler. No salary was disclosed. Shotton is 62. The fact that he’s a stop-gap pilot leaves the door open for the return of Leo Durocher to Brooklyn at the expiration of his one-year suspension by Commissioner Happy Chandler. The new manager has been running Rickey’s baseball school at Pensacola. It’s expected that he will reach the Polo Grounds in time to run the club this afternoon when the Dodgers engage the Giants. It had been thought that Rickey would go outside the organization for the successor to the Lip. Several names were mentioned — Bill McKechnie, Frankie Frisch, Joe McCarthy, Billy Meyers, Bill Terry, Lefty O’Doul and others. The club attempted to sign McCarthy but the former boss of the Yankees turned it down.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “A proposed law to prohibit the distribution of pamphlets and leaflets within 200 feet of any school building in the city will be introduced at the next meeting of the City Council, it was announced today. The measure is being sponsored by Council Majority Leader Joseph T. Sharkey of Brooklyn, who asserted that ‘leaflets and pamphlets advocating ideologies inimical to American principles of democracy are being distributed in large volume near school buildings in this city.’ ‘The students receiving these leaflets and pamphlets are given the impression that the distribution and content thereof are sanctioned by the school authorities,’ Sharkey said. ‘These arduous attempts to prey upon the immature minds of impressionable young people by misleading and utterly false propaganda should be stopped,’ he added. Under the proposed bill, permission from the Board of Education or the Board of Higher Education would be necessary before leaflets could be distributed near schools.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “More than 500 prominent members of New York’s Italian-American community gathered yesterday afternoon in Battery Park to honor the memory of Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazano, discoverer of New York Harbor in 1524. Verrazano Day ceremonies, sponsored by the Brooklyn-based Italian Historical Society of America, were held at the foot of a monument to the explorer who led a French caravel of King Francis I to the discovery of New York. The monument is topped by a giant bust of the bearded explorer whose eyes are, appropriately, trained directly on the world’s longest bridge, which will bear his name when completed in less than two years. The $325 million bridge will span the Hudson River to connect Brooklyn and Staten Island. Belated recognition of the long-neglected Verrazano is credited largely to efforts of the Italian Historical Society, led by John N. La Corte of Brooklyn, which originated and sponsors the annual commemoration.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include opera singer George Shirley, who was born in 1934; music journalist Robert Christgau, who was born in 1942; “The Parent Trap” star Hayley Mills, who was born in 1946; “The Onion Field” star James Woods, who was born in 1947; “Ghostbusters” star Rick Moranis, who was born in 1953; “The Pope of Greenwich Village” star Eric Roberts, who was born in 1956; “Frasier” star Jane Leeves, who was born in 1961; New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, who was born in 1961; TV host Conan O’Brien, who was born in 1963; “Will & Grace” star Eric McCormack, who was born in 1963; “Doctor Who” star David Tennant, who was born in 1971; “Cabin Fever” director Eli Roth, who was born in 1972; media personality Kourtney Kardashian, who was born in 1979; “Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera, who was born in 1984; model and actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who was born in 1987; and “Arrested Development” star Alia Shawkat, who was born in 1989.

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AND THEY’RE OFF: “The Midnight Ride” of Paul Revere and William Dawes began at around 10 p.m. on this day in 1775. The men set off on horseback to warn American patriots between Boston and Concord of approaching British troops.

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THE GIANT AWAKENS: The Tokyo Raid took place on this day in 1942, a little more than four months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Lt. Col. James Doolittle led a squad of B-25s that bombed Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya. Although the bombers did little damage, the psychological victory was enormous.

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

Quotable:

“When all else fails, there’s always delusion.”

— TV host Conan O’Brien, who was born on this day in 1963