December 26: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

December 26, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

Share this:

ON THIS DAY IN 1876, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Trenton proposes to have a good time tomorrow, celebrating the centennial anniversary of the crossing of the Delaware. It is intended that the affair shall be as nearly as possible an exact representation of the actual engagement. So enthusiastic are the Trentonians over the matter that they are looking far and near for some obliging tramps who will be kind enough to permit themselves to be frozen on the march to that city, in order that the representation may be complete.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1928, Home Talk/The Item reported, “Christmas Day is gone, but no observer, walking through the streets of Brooklyn, would ever suspect it. On every lawn stands a twinkling evergreen, disguised in a glittering web of Christmas tinsel and spangles. Every church and institution in Bay Ridge and South Brooklyn is decorated with Christmas tokens. In every window hangs a wreath, for the great holiday is still with us. Through Flatbush, every crossroads flaunts a giant tree, towering like the Liberty Poles of old, flaming like symbols of the spirit it honors. Merriment filled this section to the brim and flowed over into the rest of Brooklyn with the passing of Christmas Day. Scores of political organizations, social clubs, private gatherings and public groups held functions with Santa as guest of honor. Many of the affairs were for the benefit of the poor and unfortunate.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1933, the Eagle reported, “RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ― For the first time in several years Brazil did not adopt daylight saving time for the Southern Summer. Shopkeepers led the protest against the old schedule.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1944, the Eagle reported, “WITH AMERICAN FORCES IN BELGIUM, DEC. 25 (Delayed) (U.P.) ― American tanks and infantrymen are fighting their way slowly northward over the snow-covered Belgian hills this Christmas day toward Bastogne, where an encircled band of doughboys is holding out against everything the Germans can throw at them. There has been no direct contact with the Bastogne garrison since it was overrun and surrounded by the German advance last week, but radio messages from the pocketed doughboys said they still were holding out after German armor and infantrymen broke into the town. The last messages received by radio said the Americans were ‘mopping up’ survivors of the Nazi force that penetrated Bastogne. The relief column has reached the Tintange area eight miles south of Bastogne, and fully-loaded American trucks are waiting to dash through with food, ammunition and medical supplies when the break comes.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1948, the Eagle reported, “The Brooklyn ‘Chanukah Milk Week’ drive of the SOS (Supplies for Overseas Survivors) Collection of the Joint Distribution Committee has received advance gifts of more than 40,000 quarts of canned milk. ‘SOS Chanukah Milk Week,’ opening at sundown today, has a goal in Brooklyn of 175,000 quarts of canned condensed milk to be shipped to children in Europe’s DP camps as a Chanukah gift from the people of Brooklyn. The week was officially launched by Borough President John Cashmore. SOS ‘Stop Hunger’ trucks will pick up gifts of three or more cartons of milk upon a call to Chickering, 4-8400, SOS headquarters at 1 W. 39th St., Manhattan. Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, commemorates the liberation of the Jews in Palestine from Greek domination in 165 B.C.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “Thousands of Brooklyn longshoremen yesterday took Christmas Day off ― not a day off from work, but a day off from picketing the miles of waterfront idled by the dock strike. In their place they left ‘silent pickets’ ― oil drums bearing the strike placards like a label, and placards decorating every possible fixture and object: telephone poles, fences, locked doors and gates. Mass picketing is scheduled to begin for the first time today. The strike, reinforced by support from maritime unions, has already brought activity at Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports to an almost complete halt. The only movement at semi-deserted piers from Maine to Texas came from skeleton crews manning ships tied up at dockside and from watchmen guarding the millions of dollars worth of cargo. No prospects are in sight for resumption of negotiations. The longshoremen struck at 5 p.m. Sunday after expiration of an 80-day ‘cooling off’ period invoked under the Taft-Hartley Law. The key issue preventing agreement between the ILA and the New York Shipping Association, which represents 145 American and foreign shippers, is the size of the work gangs. The NYSA wants to cut the minimum size of the gangs from 20 to 17 men. The ILA has claimed this would cost the jobs of 500 longshoremen.”

***

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include novelist Catherine Coulter, who was born in 1942; anti-crime activist and TV host John Walsh, who was born in 1945; Baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk, who was born in 1947; news anchor Candy Crowley, who was born in 1948; Baseball Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, who was born in 1954; “Me Talk Pretty One Day” author David Sedaris, who was born in 1956; “Sherman’s Lagoon” creator Jim Toomey, who was born in 1960; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Lars Ulrich (Metallica), who was born in 1963; Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto, who was born in 1971; musician and actor Chris Daughtry, who was born in 1979; “2 Broke Girls” star Beth Behrs, who was born in 1985; “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harrington, who was born in 1986; and “The Middle” star Eden Sher, who was born in 1991.