December 2: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

December 2, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1852, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “The Lowell News says, ‘We can endorse Mrs. Pierce with a hearty good will, from our own personal knowledge, whatever may be our politics. As a kind, affable and unostentatious woman, Mrs. Pierce has few equals. She has all that intelligence, dignity, and purity so necessary to make up the wife of an American President, and will shine at the White House not a wit less brightly than any of those who have preceded her.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1922, the Eagle reported, “PARIS — Tele-vision, or ‘long-distance sight,’ by wireless was given a preliminary experimental demonstration at the Sorbonne today by Edouard Belin, inventor of the transmission of photographs by wire. Flashes of light were directed on a selenium element, which, through another instrument, produced sound waves. These sound waves were then taken up by a wireless apparatus light on mirror. This was offered as proof that the general principle of projecting a stationary scene had been solved.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1923, the Eagle reported, “NAPLES, ITALY, DEC. 1 — A slight eruption of Mount Vesuvius is attracting the interest of tourists, especially the Americans, who are making excursions as near to the crater as possible. The sight is particularly impressive at night, when the top of the volcano, glowing brightly, emits burning stones, the emission being accompanied by detonations.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1947, the Eagle reported, “JERUSALEM (U.P.) — Angry Arabs started an orgy of burning, beating and stone throwing in Jerusalem today and police, helped by troops and members of the Jewish Hagana, threw barricades across a street to stop a mob of Jews, advancing upon the Arabs with cries of ‘Revenge! Revenge!’ British troops, with their rifles pointed toward the crowd and backed by armored cars, contained the angry Jews in Zion Square. The Jews threw stones through the windows of an Arab theater, but the British and the Hagana men managed to hold them back. Police said 30 buildings were set on fire around Barclay’s bank. At least one Jew was killed and five Jews and one Arab were injured, and the Arabs exchanged shots with police trying to stop their protest against the United Nations partition of Palestine. They set fires so fast to Jewish shops that firemen could not put out one before another was burning. One mob of several hundred Arabs surged out of the Damascus Gate just before noon, burning and wrecking all Jewish shops they could find. Barclay’s Square was a bedlam, with Arabs darting in and out of the smoke, starting new fires and heaving stones through windows while police vainly tried to restore order. Christians and Moslems scrawled crosses and crescents on their buildings to save them from destruction. When the mob started leaving Barclay’s Square, it moved back inside the old city, heading for the Jewish quarter.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1952, Eagle columnist Constantine Brown said, “Secretary of State-designate John Foster Dulles realizes that his first task in the weeks before he takes over full responsibility for our foreign relations is to obtain the help of assistants not only on the policy making level but in the middle and lower echelons of the present top-heavy State Department. The chiefs of desks or geographical divisions who handle the reports of the Ambassadors abroad; the men who handle the department’s personnel and the various advisers, some of whom are never heard of by the public, are the important cogs in the State Department. And unless these officials are absolutely above water, the work of any Secretary of State, regardless of how competent he may be, can be severely handicapped.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “Because of the unusually long Indian summer, the members of the Iceberg Athletic Club, Brooklyn’s human polar bears, will make their first beach trip of the season Sunday afternoon to the foot of W. 19th St. in Coney Island. In other years they began their frozen festival Oct. 1. The Icebergs, their muscles no doubt stiff after the long summer, will limber up with games of soft and hand ball, throwing the medicine ball, lifting weights, running races and tumbling. They will climax the afternoon with a dip in the ocean. A light snow has been forecast for Sunday.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “Wayne’s World” director Penelope Spheeris, who was born in 1945; “Frasier” star Dan Butler, who was born in 1954; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Rick Savage (Def Leppard), who was born in 1960; “Charlie’s Angels” star Lucy Liu, who was born in 1968; “Melrose Place” star Rena Sofer, who was born in 1968; International Tennis Hall of Famer Monica Seles, who was born in 1973; “I’m Like a Bird” singer Nelly Furtado, who was born in 1978; “Oops!… I Did it Again” singer Britney Spears, who was born in 1981; N.Y. Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was born in 1983; “NCIS: Los Angeles” star Daniela Ruah, who was born in 1983; “Degrassi: The Next Generation” star Cassie Steele, who was born in 1989; and former N.Y. Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez, who was born in 1992.