Milestones: January 24, 2024

January 24, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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BOY SCOUTS FOUNDED IN ENGLAND — THE BOY SCOUTS MOVEMENT HAD ITS START IN ENGLAND ON JAN. 24, 1908, when British army officer, Lt. General Robert Baden-Powell’s first installment of the handbook, “Scouting for Boys,” was published. Baden-Powell’s already-familiar name quickly turned the handbook into a best-seller, and it became serialized. Eight years earlier, having become a hero in the defense of Mafeking in South Africa, Baden-Powell had produced an “Aids to Scouting” manual that became popular not just with soldiers but also with boys, so he decided to write a non-military book for male youths that would also emphasize good morals. He first tried his idea on a group of boys, setting up camp and learning skills from boating, lifesaving and woodcraft through a series of innovative games. The camp proved successful.

Two years later, the Boy Scouts of America was founded, on February 8, 1910, after the British Boy Scouts helped a lost American newspaperman named W.D Boyce. A meeting with Baden-Powell impressed Boyce, and he brought the Scouting program to the United States.

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PULITZER-WINNING NOVELIST — EDITH WHARTON, BORN IN NEW YORK CITY ON JAN. 24, 1862, was an author whose novels intensely probed the lives of 19th-century upper-class society. Her most famous works were “The House of Mirth” (1905) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Age of Innocence” (1920). However, the setting for her 1911 novel, “Ethan Frome,” was New England, with the plot centering on a man; his sickly wife, Zeena; and their maid, Mattie, with whom Frome had fallen in love. A real-life sledding accident in Lenox, Massachusetts was the inspiration for the novel’s climax and ironic ending.

Wharton, who later moved to — and died in — France, had originally written “Ethan Frome” as a composition while studying French in Paris.

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PROPOSED A UNIFORM WORLD CALENDAR — THE PUSH FOR A CALENDAR THAT NEVER CHANGED WAS THE BRAINCHILD OF BROOKLYN NATIVE ELISABETH ACHELIS, born on Jan. 24, 1880. Miss Achelis was the author of and an impassioned advocate for the World Calendar, which made every year uniform — with every year starting Jan. 1 on a Sunday. The 12-month, perennial calendar would have set February at 30 days. The extra, 365th day would be called World Day and would be a celebration. Miss Achelis’ idea of an international fixed calendar had a steadfast lobbyist in George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, who saw a standardized system as a benefit to business. However, plans to adopt the World Calendar were disrupted when World War II broke out.

Some opponents of the World Calendar claimed that it disregarded and even disrespected religious holiday cycles, many of which were based on lunar calendars. And Sabbath observers criticized the loss of each week’s seventh day. However, according to articles published during the 1930s-40s in the Brooklyn Eagle and the Tablet diocesan newspaper, the World Calendar had advocates in the Catholic Church, who believed it would unify the date of Easter.

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‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’ — PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, AFTER THE CASABLANCA CONFERENCE ON JAN. 24, 1943, CALLED FOR THE “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER of Germany, Italy And Japan.” Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston had convened a press conference, at which time the U.S. President declared, “Peace can come to the world only by the total elimination of German and Japanese war power. That means the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan.” The statement was meant as a unified Allied forces voice, expressing the tenacity in fighting the Axis to that enemy’s ultimate defeat.

Ironically, Roosevelt’s statement did not prove popular, with many criticizing it in retrospect for having prolonged World War II.

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GIVEN A STATE FUNERAL — SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, WHO WAS PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN, stood with President Roosevelt at the 1943 Casablanca Conference, died to the day, 22 years later, on Jan. 24, 1965. Churchill, in addition to being knighted, was also made an honorary American citizen during his lifetime. His mother, Jennie Jerome, had been born in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, and his father had been Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough. Although a political and military mishap (the amphibious assault against the Ottoman Empire) early in Winston’s career, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, almost routed his future, he redeemed himself. He was called back to serve again as First Lord of the Admiralty and pledged full resistance against the Nazis. He also nimbly persuaded both President Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin to form an alliance that crushed the Axis.

Before Churchill’s death, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his six-volume historical study of World War II and his political speeches. Upon his Jan. 24, 1965 death, Churchill became the first 20th century civilian, and the second prime minister, to be given a state funeral.

See previous milestones, here.