February 29: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1880, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Today is the last day of the month which marks this as Leap Year. The happy fiction, that in Leap Year, ladies, with an eye upon matrimony have the privilege of ‘popping the question’ to the men of their choice, is about as far as many very good people care to penetrate into the mystery of why there should be one year different in its length and varying in its effect upon calculations that are involved in business and scientific bases. It seldom occurs, even to intelligent people, that the division of time, so as to make one year as nearly equal to another year as possible, is a subject which has occupied the minds of some of the greatest sages of the centuries. Many pious persons have puzzled their brains with the question of, why Easter and Lent do not occur at uniform periods in every year, but they mostly content themselves with the assurance that the Church calendar is correct, and their spirit of inquiry passes into sweet contentment with things as they have been arranged. And so, perhaps, this subject of Leap Year and Church feasts or fasts will continue to be one of periodical discussion in all circles of men and women until some newer and better system of measurement of days shall have been determined.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1920, Eagle columnist Frederick Boyd Stevenson said, “Tomorrow the Government of the United States will return the railroads to their private owners, after having operated them since Jan. 1, 1918 — a period of 26 months. There are 275,000 miles of railroad tracks in this country and at the time the Government took them over their book cost was estimated at $20,000,000,000. What has the Government done for the railroads? What are the railroads worth today? It will require in the next three years an expenditure of more than $6,000,000,000 for the railroads to get even on their shortages, to make good their deterioration and be in readiness to meet the needs of the 110,000,000 people in the United States who depend upon the railroads for their very existence. Two-thirds of the railroads in this country are bankrupt. They were in that condition in 1919 and were unable to meet their fixed charges out of their earnings, to say nothing whatever about paying dividends. When the roads are returned to their owners tomorrow they will have less cash, less supplies, less current assets than they had on Jan. 1, 1918. A few strong railroads should be excepted from the general class of roads in this plight, but they are very few in number.”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.