February 18: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

February 18, 2025 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1913, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Over 1,000 troops were engaged in a desperate battle in Brooklyn a few days ago. Bridges were blown up, battalions of fighters were captured, camps were assaulted and thrilling engagements took place ― all without the loss of a single life. This ‘Battle of Brooklyn’ was waged by two war parties of American Boy Scouts, the White and the Red Armies. The accompanying pictures show some of the stirring events that took place on the field of action. The war photographer sent out by The Eagle to cover the event was theoretically blown up when he sat on a bag of salt that had been placed as a mine on the Long Island Railroad Bridge. The plan of campaign was worked out by Andrew C. Zabriskie, instructor general of the American Boy Scouts.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1925, the Eagle reported, “Trade of the United States with Greenland, says the National City Bank of New York, runs at the rate of nearly $250,000 a year, and has aggregated approximately $2,000,000 in the last dozen years. Nearly all of our trade with Greenland consists of imports, and our own purchases from that island are chiefly composed of cryolite produced by an American corporation from a mine near Ivigtut on the southwest coast. This particular mineral deposit, cryolite, discovered by the Danes 130 years ago, is the biggest known deposit of this material in the world, and the fact that we have a limited supply of this material in the State of Colorado has not prevented the American company, which controls the Ivigtut mine under a concession from the Danish Government, from bringing many thousands of tons from the west coast of Greenland, about 2,000 miles, to the Eastern ports of the United States, chiefly Philadelphia.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Eagle reported, “Henny Youngman, this week’s headliner at Loew’s State, tells about the two inebriates who paid a dollar each to go into the Music Hall. Stumbling up to the balcony, they finally got seated, took one look at ‘Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs’ on the screen and immediately got up again. ‘Lesh go out for a schmoke,’ one of them muttered. ‘The cartoon is on!’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1948, the Eagle reported, “Al Sherman, the Brooklyn College halfback who made good in the National League with the Philadelphia Eagles, has become an enterprising basketball coach and player despite the fact he never engaged in the sport at B.C. Al is the star scorer of the Philadelphia Eagles combination of football players turned hoopsters in the off season. His club is made up of such stars as Pete Pihos, Steve Van Buren, Dick Humbert and Bob Pritchard, and they’re hoping to make an appearance in New York shortly, preferably at the Garden. The Eagles aren’t the only grid-hoop quintet. The Redskins have a similar outfit and so have the Pittsburgh Steelers. Some day Sherman hopes to form a regular hoop league featuring these stars.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “BOSTON (UPI) ― The records of 25,000 Harvard graduates, possibly including those of two of the university’s most famous sons, will be surveyed in a massive, five-year study of heart disease, it was announced today. The Massachusetts Heart Assoc. said that the study, believed the largest of its kind ever undertaken, would test the theory that stocky, muscular men are more susceptible to heart disease than men of other builds. The records to be examined include the body measurements and physical qualifications of 17,000 members of the classes of 1880 to 1920, and 8,000 men from the classes of 1943 to 1949. The association did not list whose records would be checked, but the groups could include former ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, class of 1912, and his son, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, class of 1948. The records of the President, who was graduated in 1940, and his youngest brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, class of 1954, will not be among those surveyed, according to the class listings supplied by the association. Dr. Albert Damon, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, will direct the research teams, which will use computer techniques to sort the records.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1963, the Eagle reported, “The Yankees are odds-on favorites with the Dodgers in a squeaker. That’s the way the gamblers have tabbed the 1963 major league pennant races. They made the Yankees 1-3 favorites ― the shortest odds on a ball club in a decade ― to win their 4th straight pennant, and the Dodgers, despite their 1962 collapse, 9-5 to wrap up the National League flag. So dominant do they figure the Yankees that only one other club was given much of a chance ― the Tigers at 3-1. The Twins, who put up quite a scrap last year, are pegged at 20-1. At that figure there ought to be quite a bundle wagered on them and on the Angels, last year’s Cinderella team. The Dodgers, who needed only 2 victories in their final 7 games last season to win the pennant but got only one and then proceeded to lose to the Giants in a playoff, were accorded a slight edge over their California rivals, who were listed at 12-5. The usual dogfight was forecast in the National League. The Reds were quoted at 3-1, the Cardinals and Pirates at 5-1 and the Braves at 7-1. Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston and the Mets are listed at 100-1.”

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Molly Ringwald
Alexandra Wyman/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include musician and artist Yoko Ono, who was born in 1933; former L.A. Dodgers outfielder Manny Mota, who was born in 1938; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Herman Santiago (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers), who was born in 1941; World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Rankin, who was born in 1945; Styx co-founder Dennis DeYoung, who was born in 1947; “Moonlighting” star Cybil Shepherd, who was born in 1950; “It’s a Heartache” singer Juice Newton, who was born in 1952; “Saturday Night Fever” star John Travolta, who was born in 1954; “Wheel of Fortune” co-host Vanna White, who was born in 1957; “The Outsiders” star Matt Dillon, who was born in 1964; “The Facts of Life” star Molly Ringwald, who was born in 1968; and former N.Y. Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius, who was born in 1990.

John Travolta
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

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A MODERN WOMAN: Helen Gurley Brown was born on this day in 1922. The Arkansas native wrote “Sex and the Single Girl” in 1962 and became an outspoken advocate for sexual freedom, breaking the mythology that women had to be “good girls” who saved themselves until marriage. She was also the longtime editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan. She died in 2012.

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A WHOLE NEW WORLD: Pluto was discovered on this day in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Az. It was given the name of the Roman god of the underworld and was considered the ninth planet of the solar system until 2006, when astronomers reclassified it as a dwarf planet.

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

Quotable:

“Beauty can’t amuse you, but brainwork — reading, writing, thinking — can.”

— writer and editor Helen Gurley Brown, who was born on this day in 1922