Milestones: February 26, 2024

February 26, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACKED — THE FIRST BOMBING OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN LOWER MANHATTAN broke out on Friday, Feb. 26, 1993 during the lunch hour. A terrorist bomb exploded in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, at 12:18 p.m. causing a multi-story crater and the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast, which killed six people and injured more than a thousand. The bomb failed to damage the skyscraper’s main foundation, but it did cause $500 million in damages. More than 50,000 people had to be evacuated. A massive search and investigation on the part of city law enforcement and the FBI led to the arrest of several radical Islamic fundamentalists; a year later a federal jury convicted them. It took two years for the attack’s mastermind, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, to be tracked down in Pakistan, with several other plots in the making. As he was extradited, Yousef bragged about setting the fuse for the WTC bomb.

The World Trade Center was destroyed eight and a half years later, during the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 Islamist radicals hijacked four airplanes and, using them as weapons plowed two of them into the Twin Towers, and killing thousands.

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16TH CENTURY PLAYWRIGHT — POET AND PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE WAS BAPTIZED IN CANTERBURY, ENGLAND on Feb. 26, 1564. Often the dates of baptism were considered more important than birthdates, not only for religious reasons but because the Church urged parents not to wait long before ensuring their newborns’ eternal inheritances. A bright student, he readily won scholarships to prestigious schools and earned his baccalaureate degree from Cambridge at age 20. However, Christopher Marlowe turned out rebellious and aroused suspicions of being a spy for Queen Elizabeth while studying at Cambridge. He nearly forfeited his master’s degree until the monarch herself interceded. Among Marlowe’s works was his blank-verse play, “Tamburlaine the Great,” which he wrote while at school, about a 14th-century shepherd who became an emperor. Marlowe wrote five more plays before he died in 1593, including “The Jew of Malta” and “Dr. Faustus”; and a translation of Ovid’s “Elegies.”

Marlowe died tragically and under a cloud. His former roommate, another playwright named Thomas Kyd, implicated Marlowe when he was being tortured for treason. Marlowe was arrested but released on bail, during which time he got in a fight over a tavern tab and was fatally stabbed.

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DYNASTY OF LIVINGSTON — ONE OF THE FAMOUS MEN OF A NEW YORK DYNASTY, PATRIOT ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, DIED on Feb. 26, 1813. He was the eldest of nine children born to Judge Robert Livingston and Margaret Beekman Livingston at their estate, Clermont, on the Hudson River. He survived a 1766 tenant revolt against his family because of the British army’s intervention. Ironically, 11 years later, it was the British who would burn down Clermont after Livingston decided to become a Patriot for independence. In the meantime, he graduated from King’s College (now Columbia University), becoming a lawyer and political leader, representing the Provincial Congress of New York at the Continental Congress in 1776. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence but had to return to New York before he could sign it. Livingston later became chancellor of the state of New York, and the title stayed with him for the remainder of his life, even though he held other posts. Livington became a key negotiator for the Louisiana Purchase and sponsored Robert Fulton’s development of the steamboat.

The Robert Livingston high-rise building at 85 Livingston St. in Brooklyn is named for him.

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LUFTWAFFE ESTABLISHED — NAZI LEADER ADOLF HITLER ON FEB. 26, 1935, SIGNED A SECRET DECREE THAT AUTHORIZED THE FOUNDING OF THE REICH LUFTWAFFE as a third German military service, adding to the Reich army and navy. Hitler also appointed Hermann Goering, a German air hero from World War I and a high-ranking Nazi, as commander in chief of the new German air force. Even though the Versailles Treaty ending World War I had banned military aviation in Germany, the nation had in 1926 established a civilian airline named Lufthansa — which covertly gave flight training to the men who would later become Luftwaffe pilots. The Luftwaffe then engineered the blitzkrieg, its aerial firebombing that targeted several northern European countries, including Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. The Luftwaffe set its sights on Great Britain but did not expect that nation’s steady resistance during the Battle of Britain. Although outnumbered, the British Royal Air Force managed to resist the Nazis through England’s radar technology and its new aircraft — the highly maneuverable Spitfire aircraft. With the airmen’s courage, Britain served the Luftwaffe with its first defeat.

Other miscalculations on the Nazis’ part, including the invasion of the Soviet Union and underestimation of that nation’s harsh winters, plus reinforcement from the United States, decimated the Luftwaffe by D-Day, another victory for the Allies.

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‘RALPH KRAMDEN’ BORN — BROOKLYN’S OWN JACKIE GLEASON WAS BORN ON FEB. 26, 1916, AS HERBERT JOHN GLEASON; the nickname was derived from his middle name. His iconic role became the irascible bus driver Ralph Kramden, who often got involved in poorly-thought-out get-rich-quick schemes, in the television series “The Honeymooners.” That beloved early comedy had originated as a recurring sketch on Gleason’s variety show, “The Cavalcade of Stars” in 1951. Gleason’s other film roles included pool shark Minnesota Fats in “The Hustler,” for which he earned an Oscar nomination, and Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the “Smokey and the Bandit” franchise.

Gleason also played a powerful Louisiana magnate U.S. Bates in “The Toy,” opposite Richard Pryor. Although it received mixed reviews, “The Toy” was a tender story about the friendship between Bates’ spoiled but lonely son Eric and Pryor — in the title role of a Black man hired to be the kid’s playmate.

See previous milestones, here.