April 5: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 5, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1870, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Much dissatisfaction is expressed at the Senate Finance Committee’s bill to re-enact the income tax. Among the people this feeling is quite general. In Congress the measure will be warmly opposed and its chances are about even.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1914, the Eagle reported, “‘Twice in the same place, and in the same way!’ Such is the burden of the lament of the citizenry of Brooklyn today as it contemplates the score of 6 to 1 by which the New York Americans trimmed the Brooklyn Nationals yesterday afternoon at Ebbets Field. And it was a double burden, for the day before the same teams met and the same score was amassed against the Superbas, who thought, until they met Frank Chance and his fast flying infield, that they were the only pebbles on the Eastern beach of the National League. Loud cries of, ‘Tell us how it happened,’ coming from the rear of the hall, we hasten to explain. The drubbing of yesterday was due to the fact that the Americans had their batting eyes and battered the deliveries of Ragan and Rucker with much abandon, while the Superbas’ swatters couldn’t have made a hit if they had given money to the unemployed.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1914, the Eagle reported, “Every member of the police army of 11,000 men in the Greater City will have received an appeal by tomorrow from the Rev. Francis J. Sullivan, a Catholic police chaplain, requesting donations to a fund that is being raised for the widows and children of Patrolman Thomas Wynn of the Gates avenue station, and Detective Joseph Guarnieri, both of whom were shot and killed in the performance of their duty. Wynn was felled by the bullet of a burglar in a running fight with three desperadoes on the morning of March 6, and died in St. John’s Hospital last Wednesday. Guarnieri was shot and instantly killed last Thursday night in attempting to arrest William Horgan in an apartment at 1880 Second avenue, Manhattan, after Horgan had shot and dangerously wounded a saloon-keeper on First avenue. Both policemen, who, without flinching in the face of death, sacrificed their lives in efforts to bring lawbreakers to bay, left widows and small children who would have to struggle along on pensions of $700 a year but for the action of Commissioner McKay in requesting their brother officers to subscribe to a special fund.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1914, the Eagle reported, “BERLIN, MARCH 28 — German astronomers are already taking a lively interest in a total eclipse of the sun that occurs August 21. The city of Hamburg is fitting out an expedition, at its own expense, and Prussia will give assistance to an expedition. A number of German astronomers will attach themselves to American expeditions. The German expedition, which will be chiefly for the purpose of making photographs of the eclipse, will go to the island of Alsten, far up on the coast of Norway, where the path of totality first touches the European Continent.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — The U.S. Public Health Service today assured the nation that the new Salk polio vaccine to be used on some 1,000,000 school children this Spring is undergoing the ‘most exact’ scientific testing to make sure it is safe. A spokesman issued the statement after commentator Walter Winchell said the new vaccine ‘is claimed to be a cure but may be a killer’ because the Public Health Service found seven of ten test batches contained live rather than dead polio virus. The Public Health Service said there was nothing unusual in finding some test batches positive and that ‘technical difficulties’ were to be expected in switching from laboratory to commercial production of a vaccine. But ‘any lots found positive will of course not be released for clinical trial,’ it said. Dr. Jonas E. Salk, who developed the new vaccine, said in Pittsburgh there is no possibility the live virus could be contained in any inoculations. ‘Massive safety tests in three separate laboratories guarantee that live virus will be dissolved and discarded — that is the purpose of the test,’ he said. And Dr. Hart E. Van Riper, medical director of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, asserted that ‘any product that contains live polio virus is not the vaccine developed by Salk and to be tested by the National Foundation.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ came back to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. There is no entertainment to top the circus, and this is the biggest and best, so that for many all that need be said is ‘The circus is back.’ There is the expected wealth of great acts, some of them rather familiar by now. To use the circus phraseology, they are ‘return engagements by insistent popular demand,’ but great acts they remain.”

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Pharrell Williams
Scott Roth/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include filmmaker Roger Corman, who was born in 1926; “Sleeping Beauty” star Mary Costa, who was born in 1930; “Law & Order” star Michael Moriarty, who was born in 1941; “Barney Miller” star Max Gail, who was born in 1943; former U.S. Rep. Peter King, who was born in 1944; Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who was born in 1951; “The X-Files” star Mitch Pileggi, who was born in 1952; blues musician Larry McCray, who was born in 1960; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), who was born in 1966; “I Don’t Want to Wait” singer Paula Cole, who was born in 1968; record producer Diamond D, who was born in 1968; “Happy” singer Pharrell Williams, who was born in 1973; “This Is Us” star Sterling K. Brown, who was born in 1976; “Captain America” star Hayley Atwell, who was born in 1982; and “Pam & Tommy” star Lily James, who was born in 1989.