April 25: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 25, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1941, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Jammed to almost twice her normal capacity with war refugees, many of them victims of steamship speculators in Lisbon, the Portuguese liner Nyassa docked at the foot of Hamilton Ave. today with 816 passengers. The lone American on board was a 24-year-old Brooklyn art and language student, Miss Dorothy Muckley of the Hotel Granada. This is the largest number of passengers to land on a borough pier since 1934 when the German liners Europa and Bremen docked at the foot of 58th St. Several hundred friends and relatives of the arriving passengers clogged the entrance to the Nyassa’s pier while taxicabs were stretched out in a line three blocks long.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1941, the Eagle reported, “Young women of draft age should be conscripted for war work, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, wife of the president, declares in a magazine article made public today in the May issue of the Ladies Home Journal. Mrs. Roosevelt proposes a year of compulsory service for girls who would do work in their own communities and for the most part live at home. Such girls, says the first lady, should not fritter away their time at tea parties and bridal showers but be made to realize that there is work to be done in offices and factories, on farms and in hospitals.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1951, the Eagle reported, “Brooklyn has the largest veteran community in the United States, Thomas H. Garahan, assistant chief attorney of the Brooklyn Veterans Administration office, told members of the Municipal Club last night. In all, there are 425,000 veterans of all wars residing in this borough, Garahan said. He spoke at the April meeting of the club, held in the Officers’ Club at Fort Hamilton. Frederick A. Keck, chairman of the club’s veterans affairs committee, introduced the speaker. Prior to Mr. Garahan’s address, the 65 club members were taken on a tour of the fort. Col. Urban F. George, executive officer of the post, was host to the group.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “MOSCOW (U.P.) — Official Soviet newspapers said in unprecedented front-page editorials today that Russia is ready to discuss a friendly solution of world problems directly with the United States or within the United Nations. But the newspapers said they saw no evidence in President Eisenhower’s ‘bid for peace’ in an April 16 foreign policy address that the United States really wants to engage in such talks. The editorial reply to Eisenhower’s speech in Washington to the American Society of Newspaper Editors was published by Pravda, official Communist Party organ, and Izvestia, official government paper. Pravda and Izvestia bitterly attacked U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for trying to convert the Eisenhower speech into an ‘act of war.’ Dulles’ ‘militant pose would hardly achieve its objective,’ the newspapers said. ‘As is known,’ the Soviet editorial said today, ‘Soviet leaders are not connecting their appeal to peaceful settlement of international problems with any demands to the United States of America or any other countries which have or have not joined the Anglo-American bloc.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (UPI) — More than 3,000 U.S. Army troops organized into two battle groups will begin arriving in Thailand next month to participate in military maneuvers, the Defense Department announced yesterday. The two U.S. units are the First Battle Group, Fifth Infantry of the 25th Division in Hawaii and the Second Airborne Battle Group, 53rd Infantry, based in Okinawa. They will be accompanied by supporting aircraft and supply units. The U.S. troop movement is part of an eight-nation exercise which the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization has called the largest of its type ever conducted by SEATO. The exercise had been scheduled for some time. But SEATO officials apparently hoped that the maneuvers would have a deterrent effect on Communists now stirring trouble in neutral Laos on Thailand’s eastern border.”

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Renee Zellweger
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino, who was born in 1940; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stu Cook (Creedence Clearwater Revival), who was born in 1945; “Rocky” star Talia Shire, who was born in 1946; “The Mist” star Jeffrey DeMunn, who was born in 1947; three-time Super Bowl champion Randy Cross, who was born in Brooklyn in 1954; political commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who was born in 1961; “The Simpsons” star Hank Azaria, who was born in 1964; Erasure singer Andy Bell, who was born in 1964; sportscaster Joe Buck, who was born in 1969; three-time Super Bowl champion Darren Woodson, who was born in 1969; two-time Oscar-winning actress Renee Zellweger, who was born in 1969; Basketball Hall of Famer Tim Duncan, who was born in 1976; “Queen of the Damned” star Marguerite Moreau, who was born in 1977; former NFL running back DeAngelo Williams, who was born in 1983; and Olympic gold medal-winning triathlete Gwen Jorgensen, who was born in 1986.

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ALL HAIL THE QUEEN: Ella Fitzgerald was born on this day in 1917. The Virginia native, known as the “Queen of Jazz,” was a regular at Harlem’s Apollo Theater by age 15. After a stint as a big band singer, she transitioned to bebop and developed her famous “scat” singing style. Fitzgerald recorded more than 200 albums and won 13 Grammys. She died in 1996.

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ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: The Hubble Space Telescope was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on this day in 1990. Named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble, it is the largest on-orbit observatory and can image objects up to 14 billion light years away.

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

Quotable:

“The time when there is no one there to feel sorry for you or to cheer for you is when a player is made.”

— Basketball Hall of Famer Tim Duncan, who was born on this day in 1976