January 7: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

January 7, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1906, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorial said, “The Harvard authorities have the courage to support President [Charles William] Eliot in his demand for real football reform. Professor White has served notice on the rules committee that unless the new rules are such as to secure a real reform Harvard will refuse to accept them, and will control football for herself. A member of the rules committee at Harvard declares that what the rules committee now meeting in Philadelphia wants is nominal changes in rules, which will make no change in the play, and that they want this so that they can throw the odium of refusing to change the game on other shoulders than their own. Then he adds: ‘Let this be a warning to them. If any such plans are adopted, if means are not taken to so define holding and other offenses as to prevent them; if means are not taken to so prohibit piling on men; if means are not taken to prevent low tackling and hurdling and otherwise prevent injuries and roughness and brutality as far as possible, Harvard will prohibit the game for a year and perhaps permanently, unless enough colleges subscribed to her views, which will then be published, as to admit of her playing it with those institutions. But she will not continue with the others, even if they be members of the rules committee, if they permit any ineffectual changes.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1944, the Eagle reported, “MOSCOW (U.P.) — The government organ Izvestia reported today that the Red Army had broken the German defenses along a continuous 200-mile line now looping a dozen miles into pre-war Poland, and said the Nazi command had lost control of disorderly fleeing men in some sectors. West of Olevs’k in the northwest Ukraine, the Soviets smashed the boundary line and swampy, roadless terrain, beating down fierce German resistance, and captured Rokitno, a large station on the Kiev-Warsaw line and a fortified stronghold. While maintaining the westward pressure beyond Rokitno, Gen. Nikolai F. Vatutin’s forces mopped up along a line 30 miles southeastward as far as Gorodnitsa, bastion of the powerful Sluch River fortifications. Some 200 miles to the southeast, Vatutin’s left wing, which in three days had pushed 36 miles south of Belaya Tserkov, was within shelling distance of the railroad running westward from Cherkassy.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1955, the Eagle reported, “ALBANY (U.P.) — A bill calling for a $1.25 an hour minimum wage and creation of a nine-member wage and hours advisory council was among 118 measures introduced in the Legislature today. Senator Samuel L. Greenberg, Brooklyn Democrat, introduced his legislation on the heels of a similar recommendation by Governor [Averell] Harriman in his annual message to the Legislature. The bill also calls for extension of regulations for minimum wage and maximum hours now applying to women and minors, to include all employees, except public employees. Although Greenberg’s bill is in line with Democratic campaign pledges, Governor Harriman, it was understood, would prefer to have the $1.25 hourly wage floor set on a national basis. New York industry would be placed at a disadvantage, Mr. Harriman feels, if New York became the only state with the higher wage order.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “Cigarette sales in 1962 rose 2 percent, according to both government and industry figures, and sales are likely to rise 3 percent this year. Reasons for the expected rise are the increasing incidence of smoking by women and the increase of the number of adults in the smoking age. One trade source estimates that 65 million Americans, two out of every three adults, now smoke. The 20 to 35 age group, one of the highest in cigarette usage, is the fastest-growing group in the population as a whole … The cancer warnings caused some decline in 1953 and 1954, but since then they have not slowed the upward sales curve, which has been going up by 2 or 3 percent a year.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “Mighty Joe Young” star Terry Moore, who was born in 1929; Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, who was born in 1946; “Footloose” singer Kenny Loggins, who was born in 1948; painter and sculptor Robert Longo, who was born in Brooklyn in 1953; “CSI: Miami” star David Caruso, who was born in 1956; TV journalist Katie Couric, who was born in 1957; Go-Go’s bassist and songwriter Kathy Valentine, who was born in 1959; U.S. Sen. John Thune, who was born in 1961; Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage, who was born in 1964; “Avengers” star Jeremy Renner, who was born in 1971; former N.Y. Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano, who was born in 1976; “The Walking Dead” star Lauren Cohan, who was born in 1982; and “Nikita” star Lyndsy Fonseca, who was born in 1987.

Jeremy Renner
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

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BY THE SEAT OF THEIR PANTS: The first balloon flight across the English Channel took place on this day in 1785. Dr. John Jeffries, a Boston physician, and Jean-Pierre Francois Blanchard, a French aeronaut, crossed the channel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, landing in a forest after being forced to throw overboard all ballast, equipment and even most of their clothing to avoid a forced landing in the channel’s icy waters. Blanchard’s trousers are said to have been the last article thrown overboard.

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NET WORTH: The Harlem Globetrotters played their first game on this day in 1927. Basketball promoter Abe Saperstein’s “New York Globetrotters” took the floor in Hinckley, Ill. Despite the “New York” in their name, the team hailed from Chicago’s South Side. The talented African-American players — unable to play in white professional leagues — barnstormed the nation in serious basketball promotional events. They changed their name to “Harlem Globetrotters” in the 1930s and added humor to their games in the 1940s.

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

Quotable:

“Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom.”

— former U.S. President Millard Fillmore, who was born on this day in 1800