Milestones: April 25, 2024

April 25, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

THE SUEZ CANAL — GROUND WAS BROKEN ON APRIL 25, 1859 FOR THE SUEZ CANAL, an artificial waterway intended to stretch 101 miles across the isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the Red Seas. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who organized the colossal undertaking, delivered the pickax blow that inaugurated construction at Port Said in Egypt. The Suez region, connecting the continents of Asia and Africa, has been recognized as strategic since ancient times Europeans of the 15th century sought ways for their traders to travel the Mediterranean Sea directly to the Indian Ocean without having to circumnavigate southern Africa. In the mid-19th century, de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal. An international team of engineers drew up a construction plan.

The Suez Canal Company was formed in 1856 and was granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work. Construction began in April 1859.

✰✰✰

YOUNG CORRESPONDENT —THE SOVIET UNION ON APRIL 26, 1983, RELEASED A LETTER that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to an American fifth grader named Samantha Smith, addressing her fears about nuclear war and inviting her to visit his country. Samantha, age 10, had sent her letter to Andropov the previous December, during the height of the Cold War, asking the Soviet leader whether war could be avoided. Andropov, who had in 1982 succeeded longtime Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev, responded to Samantha in a way that may have turned upside down Americans’ stereotype of the Soviets as a harsh enemy. “Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are endeavoring and doing everything so that there will be no war between our two countries so that there will be no war at all on earth.” Meeting Andropov turned Samantha into an international celebrity and youth ambassador, writing speeches and authoring a book.

Andropov’s invitation would prove auspicious and it would turn out to be their only chance to meet. Andropov died in 1984 of kidney failure and Samantha Smith was tragically killed in a plane crash the following year.

✰✰✰

A BASKETBALL FIRST — CHUCK COOPER, AN ALL-AMERICAN FORWARD from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, on April 25, 1950, became the first African American picked in the NBA draft. The Boston Celtics made Cooper the first pick in the second round, Cooper thus breaks the NBA’s color barrier and changes the league for the better. Responding to skepticism, Celtics founder and original owner Walter Brown famously quipped that Cooper could be “striped, plaid or polka dot … All I know is the kid can play basketball, and we want him on the Boston Celtics.”. Cooper’s selection would then open a pathway for other African American players to play in the league. Earl Lloyd, who became the first African American to play in an NBA game, with the Washington Capitols, was selected later in the same draft as Cooper, who died of cancer on Feb. 5, 1984.

Bob Cousy, a Celtics star player during in the 1950s and early 1960s, was Cooper’s roommate, breaking a social racial barrier among teammates. Cousy, a white player, bonded with Cooper over their mutual love of jazz. We bonded, became friends and remained so for years,” said Cousy the same year that Cooper was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

✰✰✰

AVOIDING TIED GAMES — THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE ON APRIL 25, 1974 adopted a new overtime rule for regular-season games to prevent the unpopular tied games. The change, which was made as part of a major reform to the pace and action of football games, required teams to play an extra period if the score was tied at the end of regulation play. In overtime, the first team to score (sudden death) was declared the winner. If the score was still tied after the overtime, the game resulted in a tie, a rule that has since been further revised.

The season before the overtime rule was adopted, the NFL had seven ties in the regular season.

✰✰✰

ESTEEMED JOURNALIST —EDWARD R. MURROW, BORN APRIL 25, 1908 in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. — became the most respected radio and television broadcaster during that industry’s early years. Based in London during World War II, he covered the Blitz. Murrow later became CBS vice president in charge of news, education, and discussion programs. He returned to radio broadcasting in 1947 with a weeknight newscast. He and colleague Fred W. Friendly produced Hear It Now, an authoritative hour-long weekly news digest, which later expanded into a television series, Murrow was a reliable exponent of the free and uncensored dissemination of information, particularly during the American anticommunist hysteria of the early 1950s, producing an expose in 1954 of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s unethical tactics. Murrow died on April 27, 1965, two days after his 57th birthday.

A school in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood is named after Murrow. Designated a School of Excellence by the United States Department of Education, Edward R. Murrow High School on Avenue L offers AP capstone programs as well as behavioral research and several modern languages from Chinese to Italian.

✰✰✰

BOWLING IN THE WHITE HOUSE — PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN OFFICIALLY OPENED THE FIRST WHITE HOUSE bowling alley on April 25, 1947. The two-lane bowling alley, situated in the West Wing, had been funded by a group from Truman’s home state of Missouri in his honor. It was constructed earlier in 1947 and beat the deadline of being ready in time for the President’s birthday on May 8. Although Truman himself did not use the alley much personally, he did encourage his staff to play and supported the formation of the White House Bowling League in 1950.

Although Truman’s successor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, closed that bowling alley (and turned it into a mimeograph room which later became the Situation Room), another one was later opened. The White House today has a bowling alley in the basement under the North Portico area. More recently, the Nixons enjoyed bowling as did Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

See previous milestones, here.