Milestones: January 9, 2024

January 9, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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MERMAIDS? — EXPLORER CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS ON JAN. 9, 1493, UPON SPOTTING WHAT HE THOUGHT WERE MERMAIDS OFF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC COAST, remarked that the sea animals them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.” Columbus had just six months earlier embarked on his first of four journeys across the Atlantic Avenue with the goal of finding a western route to Asia. What he actually spotted were manatees, friendly herbivore aquatic animals with no natural predator other than human beings themselves, and thus considered an endangered species.

By contrast, mermaids (immortalized in fairy tales by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen) are mythical half-female, half-fish creatures. According to legend, they can marry mortal men.

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HAD ITS ORIGINS AS A CIRCLE — THE MODERN-DAY CIRCUS HAD ITS ORIGINS AS A TIGHT CIRCUS. A former cavalry sergeant major in England named Philip Astley, who was trained on horses, discovered that the centrifugal force from galloping in a tight circle would enable him to perform next-to-impossible stunts on the back of a horse. He held his first public exhibition of this feat on Jan. 9, 1768, in London as he waved his sword in the air, riding askew on the saddle. Known as trick riding, Astley’s stunt was so successful that he was able to expand the act, hiring other equestrians as well as a clown and musicians. He then built a roof over his ring and christened the new arena “Astley’s Amphitheatre.”

He later performed for King Louis XV of France, who was also enthralled. And notwithstanding a competitor’s establishing his turf, Astley set up 18 other circuses for the rest of his life.

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CALIFORNIA’S FIRST OPENLY-GAY ELECTED LEADER — ON THIS DATE, HARVEY MILK, THE FIRST OPENLY-GAY elected official in the history of California and arguably the most visible, was sworn into the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Jan. 9, 1978. A Navy veteran of the Korean War, Milk had been a conservative and hesitated to push for gay rights. However, his perspective changed after he and his partner in a camera shop on San Francisco’s famed Castro Street faced harassment from both the police and other local officials. He decided to lead his community and ran for the city’s Board of Supervisors shortly after opening his store. Although he did not win his first political raise, his ability to organize helped gain him supporters, including some he had initially alienated through his abrasive style. He was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977 and immediately introduced a bill to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Mayor George Moscone signed that bill into law.

However, Milk presaged his own death. He was assassinated on Nov. 27, 1978, the perpetrator being the lone member of the Board of Superintendents who had voted against Milk’s anti-discrimination bill.

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TRANSFORMED DIGITAL MEDIA — THE COMPUTER GIANT APPLE, ON JAN. 9, 2001, LAUNCHED iTunes, a media player that transformed the way people consumed digital media. iTunes was the brainchild of Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robbin, two former Apple employees who had developed an MP3 player called SoundJam MP in the late 1990s. They were rehired with the goal of producing a similar player that would be incorporated into Apple computers. During 2001, Apple introduced the MP3 player and iTunes provided customers a way to listen to a seemingly endless library of musical that was portable.

The iPod was actually released later than iTunes, on Oct. 23, 2001. With the player now incorporated into its iPhone, the iPod Touch was discontinued in 2022.

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A PHONE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY — EXACTLY SIX YEARS AFTER THE RELEASE OF THE IPOD AND ITUNES on Jan. 9, 2007, Steve Jobs, who by then was the CEO of Apple, introduced consumers to the iPhone. This was a mobile touchscreen device complete with iPod, camera and web-browsing features. By November of that year, more than 1.4 million iPhones had been sold, and Time Magazine named this the intention of the year. The following July, Apple launched the online App Store (the first three letters of both the words Apple and software applications). The downloadable apps allowed the user to do everything from plan travel to play game, and cruise social media.

The iPhone joined a list of innovative Apple products, including the Macintosh, which had been launched in 1984.

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GOOD FLOOR PLAN VITAL — THE BROOKLYN EAGLE, HOLDING A CONTEST FOR ITS READERS TO DESIGN THEIR DREAM HOME, on SUNDAY, JAN. 9, 1927, published page a feature offering tips from Brooklyn architect J. Sarsfield Kennedy on how to design a smaller, more economical home to avoid conformity. Kennedy pointed out to Gertrude M. Fisher, director of the Model Home Demonstration, “A good floor plan is even more essential than an attractive exterior and is not altogether dependent on cost. A successful plan embodies three very important qualities. They are the economy of space, of operation and the making of the plan as attractive as possible.”

The Brooklyn Eagle was at the time offering cash prizes of $250 each to four winners of its “Best Floor Plan Competition.”

See previous milestones, here.