Brooklyn Boro

December 14: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

December 14, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History
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ON THIS DAY IN 1880, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorial said, “The submarine volcano in the Pacific Ocean is at present indulging in such frantic demonstrations, and seems so recklessly bent on turning itself inside out, that if it doesn’t cease its tantrums pretty soon some unfeeling person will get up and christen it Mount Tammany.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1926, the Eagle reported, “Subway fares can be kept at 5 cents on the city’s independent system, as proposed by the Board of Transportation, for the next six years, John J. Delaney, chairman of the board, insisted today. If the city will adopt the plan for building subways that the Board of Transportation has offered, he said, the 5-cent fare can be kept indefinitely. The statement of Mr. Delaney follows the announcement of the State Transit Commission that it will move to bring about a readjustment of all city transit, and will ask all interested to submit their ideas.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1936, an Eagle editorial said, “It is refreshing in more ways than one to read that narcotic addiction is decreasing in the United States. That means that the number of persons who are wrecking or have wrecked their lives by the use of narcotics is less than in the past. The report states that despite the decrease the country still has about 126,000 addicts, according to Treasury Department experts, or about one addict to every thousand of population. While the voluntary organizations working against the narcotic evil are carrying on a grand work in spite of great difficulties, they have added to their troubles on many occasions by sanctioning such absurdly high estimates of the number of victims that the man on the street began to suspect the organizations’ sincerity when they asked for financial support. Some years ago at a meeting of an international anti-narcotic association in Atlantic City it was baldly asserted that there were 4,000,000 addicts in the United States without a word of protest from others in the hall. That figure would have meant one dope addict to about every 31 persons in the land, from suckling babes to residents in old people’s homes, and the unchallenged statement was so grotesque that it did great harm to a good cause.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “The crime bosses are infecting our school children with the gambling fever. They are reaching into the schools, into the dark corridors, into the shadows behind the buildings where the ivy, bright green in the sun, turns an ugly purple. They are taking our children, their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. They are planting the gambling fever in them and they are hoping that it burns forever … Who’s the bookie? He might be the kid that sits behind you in class. You’ll find the kid bookies on every college campus in Brooklyn, in every high school, in most junior high schools and in some grammar schools. They are the junior leaguers of the nationwide crime syndicate, which leaves no stone unturned in its search for gambling dollars. The syndicate’s bookies infest the schools of Brooklyn and the rest of the city like rats infest a granary. They are planting the germ of the gambling fever in the flower of our youth. The syndicate believes that kid gamblers eventually make adult gamblers.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (UPI) – The Air Force and the Federal Space Agency announced an agreement yesterday to develop jointly a solid-fuel rocket 120 feet high and more than 21 feet in diameter. The experimental rocket is to have five or six times as much power as the rockets now being built to serve as the first stage of the Titan III space booster. A Defense spokesman said the project is unrelated at present to the government’s program for reaching the moon but said the big solid-fuel rocket might be used if moon program plans are changed. The present program is based on the use of liquid-fuel rockets.”

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Vanessa Hudgens
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Natascha McElhone
Joel Ryan/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include singer and actress Abbe Lane, who was born in Brooklyn in 1932; former Walt Disney Company president Michael Ovitz, who was born in 1946; International Tennis Hall of Famer Stan Smith, who was born in 1946; “E.T.” star Dee Wallace, who was born in 1948; The Waterboys singer Mike Scott, who was born in 1958;  Baseball Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, who was born in 1965; “The Evil Dead” actor Ted Raimi, who was born in 1965; “The Truman Show” star Natascha McElhone, who was born in 1969; singer-songwriter Beth Orton, who was born in 1970; “The Good Shepherd” star Tammy Blanchard, who was born in 1976; “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens, who was born in 1988; rapper Offset, who was born in 1991; and “Nobody Love” singer Tori Kelly, who was born in 1992.

Craig Biggio
David J. Phillip/AP

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VITAL SIGNS: Nostradamus was born on this day in 1503. The French physician, best remembered for his astrological predictions, was born Michel de Notredame at St. Remy, Provence. Many believed that his book of prophecies actually foretold the future. He died in 1566.

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FAREWELL TO A FOUNDER: George Washington died on this day in 1799. The commander in chief of the Continental Army and the first president of the U.S. died at his home at Mount Vernon, Va., at age 67. He had battled a sudden acute respiratory infection and had been bled four times. “I die hard, but I am not afraid to go,” were his famous near-dying words. He was mourned throughout the U.S. and in Europe.

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

 

Quotable:

“Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.”

— U.S. President George Washington, who died on this day in 1799

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