Milestones: January 11, 2024

January 11, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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ICON OF CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY — THE ROMAN EMPEROR KNOWN AS THEODOSIUS THE GREAT (THEODOSIUS I) WAS BORN on Jan. 11, 347, (mid-4th century, C.E.) in Gallaecia, Spain. A year after Emperor Gratian summoned Theodosius to become emperor of the East, as a response to a military emergency in which that predecessor was killed in battle, Theodosius unilaterally issued the edict that made the Nicene Creed binding on all subjects. The doctrine in the Nicene Creed is that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all of the same substance. In the early 4th century, the Emperor Constantine had already legalized Christianity. Constantly struggling with the West for power, Theodosius adhered strongly to the Christian orthodoxy of his time, working to end paganism, yet still hired non-Christians to high-ranking offices.

Theodosius adhered to the Christian Eucharistic doctrine of consubstantiality and declared Arianism — which held that the Son of God was not co-eternal with the Father — to be a heresy.

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HELPED ANNE FRANK’S FAMILY — MIEP GIES, THE LAST SURVIVOR OF A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO HELPED HIDE A JEWISH FAMILY DURING THE HOLOCAUST, DIED ON Jan. 11, 2010, having reached her centennial birthday. Born into a Catholic working-class family in Vienna with the name Hermine, she was sent to live with a family in the Netherlands following World War I and the food shortages that followed. She eventually was hired as a secretary to Otto Frank, who made an ingredient used in jams and jellies. Otto Frank and his family, including daughters Anne and Margot, moved hastily to the Netherlands as the Nazis seized power throughout Europe. Gies, along with her husband Jan, a Dutch social worker, and several of Otto Frank’s other employees risked their own lives to smuggle food, supplies and news of the outside world into the secret apartment (which came to be known as the Secret Annex).

It was Miep Gies who retrieved Anne Frank’s diary after the family was arrested and kept the chronicles safe after her death, until Otto Frank returned from Auschwitz in June 1945.

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LINKED SMOKING TO CANCER — U.S. SURGEON GENERAL LUTHER TERRY DECLARED CIGARETTES TO BE HAZARDOUS TO ONE’S HEALTH, 60 YEARS AGO, on Jan. 11, 1964. Intentionally choosing a Saturday to make his report public so as not to disrupt the stock market, Dr. Terry stated a definite link between smoking and cancer, confirming earlier suspicions that other medical professionals already had formed.

Over the past few decades, many health advocates waged legal and political fights to enact laws restricting or prohibiting altogether smoking in public places like workplaces, restaurants or airplanes.

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ESTABLISHED U.S. BANKING SYSTEM — AMERICAN FOUNDING FATHER ALEXANDER HAMILTON, BORN ON Jan. 11, 1755, in the British West Indies, was also a diplomat, soldier and co-author of “The Federalist Papers.” George Washington appointed Hamilton the first secretary of the treasury in 1789, and in that role, Hamilton established the foundation for all future American fiscal policy, including the establishment of a federal bank. Congress created the Bank of the United States in 1791, utilizing a system in which the government deposited tax revenue money from taxes into the bank, which in turn issued paper money to pay the government’s bills and to make loans to farmers and businesses.

Hamilton engaged in a duel that one of his political rivals, Aaron Burr, had instigated and which took place on July 11, 1804. Burr at the time was U.S. vice president (under Thomas Jefferson. Burr shot Hamilton in the abdomen. Although transported to a hospital in Greenwich Village, Hamilton died the next day, destroying Burr’s political aspirations.

See previous milestones, here.