April 7: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 7, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1858, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON — In the Senate yesterday, the bill providing for a new ‘Auxiliary Guard’ for Washington city was passed by a vote of 34 to 9. A bill for the admission of Oregon Territory as a State was also reported from the Committee on Territories.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1896, an Eagle editorial said, “The biggest and strongest of the republics sends its respects to an ex-republic that is one of the oldest and most interesting, and asks how it likes it. The Olympian games are on, and in contests that are open to the world, Robert Garrett of Princeton has defeated the Greek champion, Paraskevopoulos, at disk throwing; in the 100 meter race F.W. Lane of Princeton distanced the smartest runners of Greece and Germany in one heat; H.B. Jamison won in another, while James B. Connelly of Boston, an independent athlete, beat a Frenchman in a hop, skip and jump. All this was done by Americans who had been but a few days ashore, who hardly had their land legs on. These trials are not conclusive, to be sure, but they are hopeful and suggestive. If the Greek states had only kept on being republics the matter might not have been so easy. Republics breed heroic types and Greece began to fall when it adopted monarchs — even sending abroad to hire a king. There is a thrill of epic times in these games, and there is no spot in all the world where so wide an interest and so general a share in them could have been assured as in Greece. Brave, sturdy, manful little country, seed of earth’s civilizations, teacher of the virtues, founder of philosophies, creator of the drama, patron of the arts, whose language lives in a hundred alien tongues, whose Venus and Parthenon are still the despair of sculptors and architects! Hellas may yet refute the charge that it is ‘living Greece no more,’ and rise to its old station among the nations of the world.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “Literally the biggest show on earth, bigger than the circus, which usually claims all the top superlatives, will do its stuff again today, reaching its climax, so far as the New York audience is concerned, at 5:05 p.m. The show is appropriately called an annular eclipse of the sun, since that is what it will be. An eclipse of the sun is a show in which the whole sky is the stage and the star performers are not stars at all (pun) but the sun and the moon. The main act is a dance by the moon across the path of the sun, blotting it out for its customers in the orchestra seats, meaning anybody who sees it. An annular eclipse, which is what we’ll get today, is the same as the regular kind in quality but less in quantity. It’s the same old lunar jitterbug across the solar line of sight, but it happens when — as is the case today — the moon is so far away from the boys in the orchestra that the most it can blot out is part of the sun. Thus an annular eclipse casts a partial shadow and, as a show, lacks that punch line climax which comes in a non-annular eclipse when, so to speak, all the lights are put out and the audience says ‘Ooh!’ wondering whether, in spite of what the scientists say, this isn’t really the end of the world. That sort of thing makes shivers run up and down your spine and sends the audience home exhausted but happy.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (U.P.) — Potential enemies of the United States were on notice today that President Truman would not hesitate to use the atom bomb again if he believed the welfare of the democracies was at stake. But the president solemnly told a gathering of congressmen: ‘I hope and pray that that will never be necessary.’ He recalled in a speech last night that soon after he became president in 1945, he was called upon to authorize use of the atom bomb against two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ‘Now I believe,’ he said, ‘that we are in a position where we will never have to make that decision again. But if it has to be made for the welfare of the United States, and the democracies of the world are at stake, I wouldn’t hesitate to make it again.’ Mr. Truman said he hopes the signing of the North Atlantic Security Pact ‘is a step that will prevent our having to make a decision of that sort.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported “PORTSMOUTH, VA. — Duke Snider, recently acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers, joined the New York Mets yesterday and helped his new club rout the Baltimore Orioles, 7-2. The 36-year-old outfielder was not the biggest gun in the 14-hit offensive, mainly against Robin Roberts, but he made his presence felt with a run-scoring single and contributed a spectacular catch that robbed Bob Saverine of an extra-base hit off Jay Hook. Ed Kranepool, 18-year-old bonus boy, and Charlie Neal led the Mets’ attack. Kranepool hit three homers; Neal hit two, plus a double.”

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Francis Ford Coppola
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who was born in 1938; author Iris Johansen, who was born in 1938; Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who was born in 1939; basketball player Zaid Abdul-Aziz, who was born in Brooklyn in 1946; Chiffons singer Patricia Bennett, who was born in 1947; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer John Oates, who was born in 1948; former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who was born in 1949; “At Seventeen” singer Janis Ian, who was born in 1951; martial artist and filmmaker Jackie Chan, who was born in 1954; Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett, who was born in 1954; former heavyweight champion Buster Douglas, who was born in 1960; Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe, who was born in 1964; and former N.Y. Giants running back Tiki Barber, who was born in 1975.