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April 5: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 5, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle History
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ON THIS DAY IN 1870, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Much dissatisfaction is expressed at the Senate Finance Committee’s bill to re-enact the income tax. Among the people this feeling is quite general. In Congress the measure will be warmly opposed and its chances are about even.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1918, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON — Brooklyn has been finally chosen as the site for the War Department’s great military terminal, warehouse and supply embarkation plant at the port of New York. Major General Goethals, acting quartermaster general, took over the Langley property lying to the south of the Bush Terminal yesterday, thereby clinching a project that has been under way for the past two months. The War Department already has possession of practically the whole of the Bush Terminal for the period of the war, and the land that has just been acquired adjoins it. The property acquired by the War Department lies between Forty-eighth and Sixty-third streets and Second and First avenues, running out to the pier head line. The Quartermaster General’s Department will not state the amount of money to be paid for it. Work, it was announced today, will begin immediately.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1946, the Eagle reported, “TEHRAN (U.P.) — Russia and Iran early today signed a treaty establishing a joint Russo-Iranian oil company and providing for evacuation of the Red Army by May 5. The signing came less than 12 hours after the United Nations Security Council had closed its books on the Iranian complaint against the Soviets. The treaty was announced by Premier Ahmed Ghavam at 4 a.m. today (8 p.m. last night Brooklyn time) after 48 hours of almost continuous negotiation with Soviet Ambassador Ivan Sadchikov. The composition of the joint Soviet-Iran oil company was not immediately announced but Russia had proposed that she hold a 51 percent stock interest and Iran 49 percent. The corporation would exploit the oil resources of northern Iran. It was not immediately indicated whether the Security Council action on Iran had affected the course of negotiations here.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1950, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — One House member who should know said flatly today there is no such thing as a flying saucer. But another member equally qualified said he has seen one himself. Representative George H. Mahon (D., Texas), chairman of the House Military Appropriations Subcommittee, said it just isn’t so what they say about those discs. He had no concrete evidence — but the solidest kind of support. President Truman, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, the Air Force and the Navy all backed him up. They said none of the armed services is messing around with saucers, and that nobody else is as far as they know. The people, they said, are seeing things. Representative Albert J. Engel (R., Mich.) is the man who says he saw one. A member of Mahon’s subcommittee, he is a candidate for governor of Michigan. Mahon put it this way: ‘I guess my subcommittee would know if there were anything to this flying saucer business. We even knew about the atomic energy experiments several years before the story was told.’ He pointed out, as have saucer enthusiasts, that there is $145,000,000 in a pending appropriations bill for guided missile research. That, he said flatly, is exactly what it goes for — every nickel of it. Engel said all those millions in the budget for research and other fairly generally items are elastic enough to cover all kinds of things. Even some new kind of aircraft — like flying saucers.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ came back to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. There is no entertainment to top the circus, and this is the biggest and best, so that for many all that need be said is ‘The circus is back.’ There is the expected wealth of great acts, some of them rather familiar by now. To use the circus phraseology, they are ‘return engagements by insistent popular demand,’ but great acts they remain.”

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Lily James
John Locher/AP
Pharrell Williams
Scott Roth/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include filmmaker Roger Corman, who was born in 1926; “Sleeping Beauty” star Mary Costa, who was born in 1930; “Law & Order” star Michael Moriarty, who was born in 1941; “Barney Miller” star Max Gail, who was born in 1943; former U.S. Rep. Pete King, who was born in 1944; Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who was born in 1951; “The X-Files” star Mitch Pileggi, who was born in 1952; blues musician Larry McCray, who was born in 1960; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), who was born in 1966; “I Don’t Want to Wait” singer Paula Cole, who was born in 1968; record producer Diamond D, who was born in 1968; “Happy” singer Pharrell Williams, who was born in 1973; “This Is Us” star Sterling K. Brown, who was born in 1976; “Captain America” star Hayley Atwell, who was born in 1982; and “Pam & Tommy” star Lily James, who was born in 1989.

Sterling K. Brown
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

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ALL IN THE FAMILY: “Married… With Children” premiered on this day in 1987. The raunchy Fox sitcom was meant as an antidote to Cosby-style family shows. It starred Ed O’Neill as boorish, luckless shoe salesman Al Bundy; Katey Sagal as his big-haired, sex-starved wife Peggy; Christina Applegate as airheaded daughter Kelly; and David Faustino as hormone-driven son Bud. The show ended in 1997.

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SLICE OF LIFE: Today is National Deep Dish Pizza Day, which was created to celebrate Chicago deep dish pizza and the efforts by UNO Pizzeria & Grill to bring it to the entire U.S. For more information, visit www.unos.com.

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

 

Quotable:

“Never believe the first thing you hear.”

— former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was born on this day in 1937

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