Milestones: January 4, 2024

January 4, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

UTAH GAINS STATEHOOD — A HALF CENTURY AFTER A GROUP OF PERSECUTED MORMON PIONEERS migrated westward from Illinois to the Great Salt Lake, the Territory Of Utah was admitted to the Union, on Jan. 4, 1896. The Mormon religion had its origins in 1823, when a Vermont man, Joseph Smith, experienced a vision that led him to an ancient Hebrew text that he believed to have been lost for 1,500 years, and that related the story of Jewish peoples who had lived in America in ancient times. His vision led him to establish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which expanded to other states, notably as converts joined. However, he was persecuted, imprisoned and murdered there. Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, found in the Great Salt Lake Valley “the place.”

The 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore, named Brigham Young as the territory of Utah’s first governor; but the Mormon community there had to forego its practice of polygamy, which federal law prohibited, before it could be granted statehood.

✰✰✰

U.S. HIRED REBELS….AGAIN — PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN ON JAN. 4, 1982, SIGNED A TOP SECRET DOCUMENT, National Security Decision Directive 17, authorizing the Central Intelligence Agency to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels, with a $19 million budget to accomplish this. Their mission was to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, which had started as a resistance movement against the U.S. occupation of that Central American country during the 1930s. The Reagan administration (rather than examining its own policies toward Latin America) believed the Sandinista regime had links to the Soviet Union, and feared that the Nicaraguans were supplying neighboring El Salvador with weapons.

However, Reagan’s and the CIA’s support of these Contras became politically charged and were further complicated with the Iran-Contra Scandal: the secret, lucrative and highly illegal weapons exchanges involving these two nations that had undergone revolutions in 1979.

✰✰✰

‘A GREAT SOCIETY’ — PRESIDENT LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, DURING HIS JAN. 4, 1965, STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS TO CONGRESS, presented his package of legislation needed to achieve his goal of “a Great Society.” Johnson, who as vice president had been thrust into the presidency upon John F. Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination, was elected a year later in his own right, by the largest popular vote margin in U.S. history. Johnson’s mandate to Congress aimed to improve the quality of life for Americans. Johnson’s urging led to Congress’ sweeping legislation in civil rights, health care, education and the environment. The 1965 State of the Union address led to Congress establishing Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the White House Conference on Natural Beauty.

However, Johnson’s term was marred by his decision to escalate the number of American troops deployed to Vietnam, for a war that large segments of the American public sharply denounced and protested.

✰✰✰

FIRST ASIAN WOMAN IN CONGRESS — THE FIRST ASIAN AMERICAN WOMAN TO SERVE IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS WAS PATSY T. MINK, WHO TOOK THE OATH OF OFFICE ON JAN. 4, 1965. The daughter of second-generation Japanese immigrants, Patsy Mink was the Japanese American admitted to the Hawaii bar in 1953 and the first woman to serve in the Hawaii territorial House of Representatives in 1956. During her time in Congress, (1965 to 1977) she advocated for civil and women’s rights, children, labor unions and education. Rep. Mink was a key author and sponsor of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which outlawed sex discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal funding.

Rep. Mink was also a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. After her 1990 re-election to Congress, Rep. Mink co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus in 1994. She served in Congress until her death in 2002.

✰✰✰

FIRST WOMAN HOUSE SPEAKER — THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD CONGRESS AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE WAS NANCY PELOSI, ON JAN. 4, 2007, WHEN HER PREDECESSOR, JOHN BOEHNER, HANDED HER THE GAVEL. Democrats had taken a majority in the House during the previous Congressional election cycle, a good two years before Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first Black President. Pelosi, a Democrat Representing California, became second in line via the presidential order of succession. When the Democrats again regained the House in 2018, Pelosi was elected speaker for a second time.

From the Biden administration’s inauguration in 2021 to late 2022, when she announced she was stepping down as speaker and Republicans gained a majority in the House, the second and third leaders in the line of succession for the Presidency both were women — Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Pelosi.

✰✰✰

FOUNDED ESTEEMED LAW FIRM — JUDGE EDGAR M. CULLEN OF BROOKLYN, WHO HAD SERVED AS CHIEF JUDGE OF THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NEW YORK STATE, WAS FETED ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on Jan. 4, 1914. Judge Cullen was also a founder of the preeminent Brooklyn law firm Cullen and Dykman, which had originally been established as McCue, Hall and Cullen in 1850. During Judge Cullen’s retirement fete, the speakers urged him to head the following year’s scheduled Constitutional Convention of 1915. Following his retirement from the state’s highest court, Judge Cullen rejoined the law firm he helped found, which by then had changed its name to Cullen and Dykman. After 1915, the number of partners grew significantly.

Among the notable attendees turning out at the Waldorf-Astoria’s Grand Ballroom to honor the widely-respected jurists was Justice Charles Evans Hughes of the U.S. Supreme Court, who had also previously served as Governor of New York.

See previous milestones, here.