December 1: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

December 1, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1941, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “The spirit of Kris Kringle and his sturdy, antlered prancers will prevail at Radio City during the Yuletide, with four live reindeer cavorting alongside the Prometheus Fountain in Rockefeller Plaza. The reindeer, three of them does and one a buck, will be exhibited from Dec. 12 to Jan. 2 in two enclosures which will be carpeted with peat moss. Evergreens will form backgrounds closely resembling the natural habitat of reindeer. One of the herd is harness broken, but sleighriding about the skating rink will not be permitted. The animals were obtained from a private estate at Lake Placid through the courtesy of the New York Zoological Park. Christmas observance in Rockefeller Plaza will begin at dusk on Dec. 12 when the 80-foot Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, towering above the skating rink, will be lighted and candles in more than 300 windows facing east in the R.C.A. Building and adjacent buildings will glow in blue.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “Roland La Starza of the Bronx and Cesar Brion of South America, a pair of the world’s outstanding young heavyweights, fight the 10-round main event in Madison Square Garden tomorrow night, but there will be a lot of curious eyes on Rocky Marciano, Brockton, Mass., heavyweight, who battles in the semi-final. The eight-rounder that will mark Marciano’s debut in New York and Madison Square Garden will provide a line on the 25-year-old puncher who has kayoed 21 opponents in winning all of his 23 professional fights. Marciano meets Pat Richards, a six-foot, one-inch former Ohio State athlete who has a reputation for being a pretty fair hitter himself. Marciano started as a professional fighter on July 12, 1948, and proceeded to run up a string of 15 straight kayo victories — nine of them in the first round — before the veteran Dom Mogard managed to go ten rounds with him on May 23, this year. There are some who claim that Marciano hasn’t been tested but it takes a punch to knock people out for the full count and it is obvious that Marciano packs the wallop that has been missing from the heavyweight division since the retirement of Joe Louis. Whether or not he can take a punch remains to be seen.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1952, the Eagle reported, “President-elect Eisenhower scheduled more appointments today after a busy weekend during which he nominated an Ambassador to Great Britain, a chief of the United States mission to the United Nations and a committee to study plans for streamlining the executive branch of the Government. The Ambassadorial post went to a banker, Winthrop W. Aldrich, while Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., lame duck Senator from Massachusetts who has been serving as Eisenhower’s liaison man with the outgoing administration, was nominated for the U.N. job. Both Aldrich and Lodge were listed on Eisenhower’s schedule of appointments for today, along with John Foster Dulles, who will be Secretary of State in the new cabinet; and Gen. Lucius D. Clay, former military governor of the U.S. zone in Germany and now chairman of the Continental Can Company, who will head the Mutual Security Agency.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “A wave of strikes hit the Port of New York today when mobster-ruled longshoremen refused to work in sections of Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey as the new pier law abolishing the shape-up hiring system took effect under authority of the Bi-State Waterfront Commission. In most cases the dock workers struck because the hiring bosses who have controlled all jobs on the idled piers had been refused licenses by the commission. The United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan immediately began looking into the question of whether action could be taken against the strike leaders on ground they were violating the 80-day Taft-Hartley injunction against work stoppages on the docks. Dissatisfaction with operation of the new law was expressed by rank-and-file longshoremen reporting for work at the four Brooklyn employment information centers set up by the commission to wrest control of hiring from mob elements.”

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Janelle Monae
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include World Golf Hall of Famer Lee Trevino, who was born in 1939; Blue Oyster Cult singer Eric Bloom, who was born in Brooklyn in 1944; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer John Densmore (The Doors), who was born in 1944; “Wind Beneath My Wings” singer Bette Midler, who was born in 1945; actor and comedian Jonathan Katz, who was born in 1946; “Sex and the City” creator Candace Bushnell, who was born in 1958; model and actress Carol Alt, who was born in 1960; Baseball Hall of Famer Larry Walker, who was born in 1966; “Lost” star Nestor Carbonell, who was born in 1967; actress and comedian Sarah Silverman, who was born in 1970; “Hidden Figures” star Janelle Monae, who was born in 1985; and “Spider Man” star Zoe Kravitz, who was born in 1988.

Sarah Silverman
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

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STANDING UP: Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., on this day in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat and move to the back of a municipal bus. Her arrest triggered a yearlong boycott of the city bus system and led to legal actions that ended racial segregation on municipal buses throughout the southern U.S. The event has been called the birth of the modern civil rights movement.

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KING OF COMEDY: Richard Pryor was born on this day in 1940. The African-American comedian and actor was known for his use of profanity, and his humor was frequently based on racial stereotypes. Extremely successful as a stand-up, he won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums, and he also wrote or starred in numerous classic comedy films, including “Stir Crazy,” “Silver Streak” and “Car Wash.” His drug problems were well documented in his comedy act and he struggled with multiple sclerosis late in his life. He died in 2005.

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Special thanks to “Chase’s Calendar of Events” and Brooklyn Public Library.

Quotable:

“There’s a thin line between to laugh with and to laugh at.”

— comedian Richard Pryor, who was born on this day in 1940