Milestones: Monday, July 3, 2023

July 3, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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GROWING ANTLERS — BUCK MOON forecast for July 3 this year, is one of four full moons to orbit in closest to the Earth. According to the customs of the native American tribes of New England and the Great Lakes, including the Algonquin nation of New England and the Great Lakes, the Buck Moon also represents the coming-of-age for bucks — male deer — whose antlers begin growing.

The Western Abanaki nation’s name for the Buck Moon is Thunder Moon, because of the frequent summer thunderstorms.

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CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY ESTABLISHED — CARIBBEAN DAY or CARICOM DAY, on July 3, marks the Treaty of Chaguaramas, which was signed on July 4, 1973, with the prime ministers of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago signing the treaty. CARICOM, a public holiday in Guyana and St. Vincent, in 2023 marks its 50th Jubilee and will take place July 3-4, in Trinidad and Tobago, the birthplace of CARICOM. At that time, the 45th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government will also convene. Other commemorative activities include digital exhibitions, cultural performances, and 5K and 10K road races.

Of course, Brooklyn has its own annual celebration of Caribbean culture: the annual West Indian Day Parade, along Eastern Parkway, on Labor Day.

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CREATED THE CULINARY ESSAY — Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, born on July 3, 1908 in Michigan, created a new literary genre, the culinary essay. Her first book, which was published in 1937 and titled “Serve It Forth,” offered a tour through worldwide culinary anthropology and history, exploring the eating habits of the ancient Greeks, and their love of honey. Fisher’s other books include The Gastronomical Me (1943) and With Bold Knife and Fork (1969).

“Serve it Forth” tells the story of Catherine de Medici, the 16th-century Florentine-born queen of France, who created quite a stir when her homesickness for native cooking led her to import Italian chefs.

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RESCUE OF HIJACKED FRENCH PLANE — The RAID ON ENTEBBE took place at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport on July, 1976, after pro-Palestinian forces the week before had hijacked an Air France plane bound from Tel Aviv to Paris. Ugandan soldiers joined the Palestinian fighters. Idi Amin, known for his atrocities against the Uganda and Kenyan peoples, was at the time president of Uganda. A commando unit from the Israeli Defense Force was deployed to a hostage-rescue mission. Their commander was Yonatan Netanyahu. At the conclusion of the skirmish, three hostages, seven hijackers and 20 Ugandan soldiers were killed in the raid, as well as Yonatan Netanyahu

The Israeli commander killed was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who would later become Prime Minister of Israel.

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EMANCIPATION DAY — A group of three islands in the eastern Caribbean between the North and South American continents were emancipated from Denmark on the eve of the U.S. Independence Day in 1948. The Danish Antilles, also called the Danish Virgin Islands, were a colony of Denmark and included Saint Thomas, St. John and Saint Croix. The United States purchased them in 1917 and the islands are now called the US Virgin Islands. The Danish government of the 17th and 18th centuries had their part in the triangular slave trade, but it was tolerant of non-African religions.

A ceremony at Frederiksted, St. Croix took place where the actual proclamation was first read by Governor-General Peter Von Scholten.

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ERRONEOUS ATTACK — In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes on July 3, 1988 shot down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistook for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. The U.S. was at the time guarding Kuwaiti oil tankers. The attack, which Iran called “a barbaric massacre,” killed all 290 passengers. At first defending its action, which took place just before the Iran-Iraq War ended, the United States later admitted the Iranian plane was within commercial airspace.

It took eight years (until 1996) for the U.S. to pay restitution totaling $62 million to the families of those killed.

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IMPROVING FLOOD CONTROL — President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 3, 1958 and after several revisions in Congress signed the Rivers and Harbors Flood Control Bill, which allocates funds to improve flood control and water-storage systems nationwide as well as preventing beach erosion. The impetus for this legislation had been catastrophic flooding when two hurricanes, Connie and Diane, slammed into the northeastern United States in August 1955, and when torrential rains two months later caused more damage.

The flooding was at that time declared to be the biggest disaster to hit the East Coast in the history of the United States. Connecticut alone was declared a disaster area twice in 1955.

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ROCK STARS DIE — Two famous “bad-boy stars — Brian Jones, lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones and Jim Morrison of The Doors, died on July 3, exactly two years apart from each other, and both at age 27. Jones, who had been the Stones’ original leader before Mick Jagger, and who was a gifted musician whose drug addiction was starting to impair him, is believed to have drowned accidentally in his swimming pool in England, dying on July 3, 1969, Jim Morrison on July 3, 1971, of less clear causes, and in his bathtub. His girlfriend, Pamela Coursin, who later died also, claimed Morrison had not been on drugs, a fact that was later disputed.

Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones had fired Brian Jones just three weeks before the drowning.

See previous milestones, here.