Milestones: April 17, 2024

April 17, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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CELEBRATING VERRAZZANO — NEW YORK CITY AND STATEN ISLAND IN PARTICULAR are commemorating April 17 as Giovanni da Verrazzano Day, in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Italian explorer’s arrival in East Coast harbors. The bill passed City Council last week. The 16th-century explorer had studied navigation in his native Tuscany, becoming a master mariner, whom the King of France commissioned to lead a voyage of North America and learn more about the landmass. Sailing in his small ship, the Dauphine, Verrazzano and his crew explored the coastal areas from present-day North Carolina northward to New York. He engaged with the Lenape and other indigenous peoples. Verrazzano completed what is considered the earliest documented European exploration of the middle and northeastern Atlantic Coast.

Former Mayor Robert Wagner, who led the city from 1954-65, had originally declared April 17 as “Verrazzano Day” in the 1950s following a recognition campaign that the Italian Historical Society of America initiated.

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GAZA SIEGED IN 1917 — THE CURRENT WAR IN GAZA IS FAR from that region’s first conflict. The Second Battle of Gaza (one of three during World War I) was launched on April 17, 1917, with the British military’s goal of capturing from the Ottoman Empire this city on Palestine’s Mediterranean coast. The Allied forces considered Gaza vitally important to protect from the Ottoman Empire and its Axis friend Germany because of the region’s water supply. Some historical records note that the British military was in the region also to protect the Suez Canal on the Sinai peninsula. Three weeks earlier, the British had failed in their initial assault on Gaza, as their commander had erroneously claimed victory based on an inflated report of Turkish casualties. However, this first attack alerted not only the Ottoman military but also the German general who was in command of troops, Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, and they were prepared for the British army’s next move. Even though the British outnumbered Turkish troops, their tank equipment proved unsuitable in Gaza’s dry climate.

Heavy British casualties and Turkish reinforcements forced Britain to abort this attack, but they would try again in November 1917 under the command of Sir Edward Allenby, after whom a bridge would later be named. The Allenby Bridge connects Israel and Jordan and, in the latter nation, is named the King Hussein Bridge.

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NAZIS TAKE YUGOSLAVIA — YUGOSLAVIA SURRENDERED TO THE NAZIS on April 17, 1941, and her land was divided by invaders from the four European Axis powers: German, Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops, who exploited the region’s ethnic and religious differences and escalated conflicts between these groups, particularly brutalizing the Serbians. Croatia at the time was turned into a puppet state for the Nazis. However, resistance movements emerged that year. Leading one of these was Colonel Dragoljub Mihailovich, loyal to the Yugoslav government-in-exile. The other leader — who would later become dictator of Yugoslavia — was Josip Broz Tito, who was made up of members of the illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia. His resistance fighters were members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, deemed an illegal group.

Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Eagle, in its overseas war coverage, reported on April 17, 1941, that, according to the Nazis, the resistance had degenerated into “complete chaos among with the remnant of the Yugoslav army.”

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PRAGUE SPRING’S LEADER — ALEXANDER DUBCEK, THE ARCHITECT OF PRAGUE SPRING, was forced to resign on April 17, 1969, due to a set of liberal reforms initiated in 1968. Dubcek, a communist leader, as part of his effort to establish “communism with a human face,” had established some far-reaching political and economic reforms, such as an end to state censorship, and increased freedom of speech. This brief period of liberties was called the Prague Spring. Prague was no stranger to autocratic control; just 24 years earlier during World War II, the Czech police and citizenry had launched an uprising against their Nazi occupiers. Following the August 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Dubcek was forced down and his successor, pro-Soviet Gustav Husak was appointed leader in his place, repealing the reforms and returning the country to an authoritarian communist dictatorship.

Dubcek had another chance to lead 20 years later when, in 1989, communist governments collapsed across Europe. Prague was the center of calls for democratic reform. Dubcek became chairman of the new parliament.

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FAILED MILITARY OPERATION — THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION, A STRATEGY INITIATED by the Eisenhower administration that President John F. Kennedy then inherited, began on April 17, 1961, with the goal of taking down Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The operation was a major failure with far-reaching consequences that not only escalated conflict between the United States and Cuba but led to the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. Concerned for what they viewed as a growing closeness between the incendiary Castro and the Soviet Union, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had ordered the CIA to train and arm a force of Cuban exiles for an armed attack on Cuba. John F. Kennedy inherited this program when he became president in 1961. A force of 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of rallying Cuban citizens to arise and overthrow Castro from power. Instead, Castro’s military quickly responded, sinking the exiles’ supply ships. The exiles did not in reality have America’s backing, as the US refrained from offering air support. Most of the exiles were captured, and the rest were killed.

The Bay of Pigs invasion proved advantageous to Castro; it solidified his stance toward the U.S. as “Yankee imperialists,” reinforced his power, and got him military aid from the Soviet Union, including missiles, leading to a major crisis in 1962.

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AN ENDURING MODEL — THE FORD MUSTANG WAS OFFICIALLY UNVEILED by Henry Ford II at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, on April 17, 1964. That was also the premiere day for this new model in showrooms. The Mustang, named for a World War II fighter plane, proved to be an instant success, with buyers snatching up 400,000 Mustangs in its first year of production. By March 1966, Ford had already built its one millionth Mustang. In 2004, Ford built its 300 millionth car, the Mustang GT convertible 40th anniversary model. The Mustang proved so enduring, even with several evolutions, that it is still in production.

The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in 1999, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the original Mustang model.

See previous milestones, here.