July 3: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

July 3, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1876, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorial said, “The completion of a hundred years of American Independence is a fact to startle the dullest imagination. The Republic is driving the fact into the very consciousness of the people in a variety of forms. Orators, music, processions, and every appliance to make a joyful noise are at work in all the land. A century hence, the celebrations of today and tomorrow will be as historical as the events that are commemorated now. If this great observance in progress all over the country shall rekindle love and confidence in our system of government, it will accomplish its best results, for on many sides love was lessening and confidence was abating.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1904, the Eagle reported, “Automobilists from all parts of the United States will drive across country to the World’s Fair and join in the big procession there on St. Louis Day, Thursday, August 11. There will be automobiles of all shapes and sizes in this procession — great touring cars of sixty horse power and lively little roadsters. They will go from New York, from Brooklyn, from Boston, from all the Eastern cities and the towns, from the Middle states, the Western states and the South. They will go in clubs and singly. They will go by seven or more different routes. They will travel distances of twelve hundred miles or more and be on the road seventeen days or less according to the place whence they start. At almost every crossroad, recruits will be added to the main body of automobiles stretching on toward the exposition. Five hundred automobiles — perhaps more — will arrive in East St. Louis August 10. It will be the biggest automobile tour for numbers and distance combined that has ever taken place.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1935, the Eagle reported, “Today is the great day for thousands of Brooklyn children, for the new Prospect Park Zoo will be officially opened this afternoon at 3 o’clock, and the general public will be admitted an hour later after the formal exercises are concluded. Anticipation has whetted the appetites of hundreds of contributors to the fund for the purchase of the animals and they will be out in force to see the beasts from all parts of the world their donations have made possible. The official program, to be widely broadcast, includes addresses by former Governor Alfred E. Smith, Park Commissioner Robert Moses, former Borough President Lewis H. Pounds, vice chairman of the Brooklyn Citizen’s Committee, who will speak in behalf of Louis C. Wills, chairman, Europe bound; Cleveland Rogers, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle; Borough President Ingersoll, honorary chairman of the Brooklyn Zoo Committee, and Mayor LaGuardia. To give the occasion its proper festive atmosphere, the band of the New York Department of Parks will play, preceding the speeches and following them. Conspicuous in the gathering will be S. Klein, Union Square merchant, who is the largest contributor to the zoo, having at the outset of the campaign for funds given his check for $5,000 to former Governor Smith, and who later agreed to fill and has filled 26 of the cages in the new zoo with a varied assortment of wild beasts.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “Brooklynites were urged today to make their Fourth of July a life-saving holiday so that ‘men now fighting to preserve the Declaration of Independence will be with us for the holidays to come.’ They can do this, Mrs. William W. Lasker Jr., volunteer director of the Brooklyn Red Cross Blood Donor Center, 57 Willoughby St., pointed out, by donating their blood. The bank will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. to collect Type O whole blood and blood for plasma to be shipped immediately to Pacific fighting fronts.”

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Montel Williams
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who was born in 1935; “The Mod Squad” star Michael Cole, who was born in 1940; Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Lance Larson, who was born in 1940; “That ’70s Show” star Kurtwood Smith, who was born in 1943; “Lookin’ for Love” singer Johnny Lee, who was born in 1946; humorist Dave Barry, who was born in 1947; “Eight is Enough” star Betty Buckley, who was born in 1947; Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Mike Burton, who was born in 1947; TV host Montel Williams, who was born in 1956; Ratt singer Stephen Pearcy, who was born in 1956; Erasure founder Vince Clarke, who was born in 1960; “Top Gun: Maverick” star Tom Cruise, who was born in 1962; “The Simpsons” star Yeardley Smith, who was born in 1964; “Wonder Woman” star Connie Nielsen, who was born in 1965; Broadway star Audra McDonald, who was born in 1970; and World Cup-winning soccer player Crystal Dunn, who was born in 1992.

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THOUGHT FOR FOOD: Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was born in Michigan on this day in 1908. With the publication of her first book, “Serve It Forth” (1937), she essentially invented a new genre: essays about food. Her other works include “The Gastronomical Me” (1943) and “With Bold Knife and Fork” (1969). She died in 1992.

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HELP IS ON THE WAY: On July 3, 1976, an Israeli commando unit staged a raid on the Entebbe airport in Uganda and rescued 103 hostages on a hijacked Air France airliner. Three hostages, seven hijackers and 20 Ugandan soldiers were killed in the raid. The plane had been en route from Tel Aviv to Paris when it was taken over by the pro-Palestinian guerrillas.

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

Quotable:

“First we eat, then we do everything else.”

— food writer M.F.K. Fisher, who was born on this day in 1908