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October 17, ON THIS DAY in 1945, triumphant U.S. Navy returns to NYC

October 17, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Eagle file photo
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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “A spearhead of the mighty U.S. fleet which blasted the fighting forces of Japan out of the Pacific streamed into New York Harbor today for the most triumphal welcome since Admiral Dewey returned from Manila after the Spanish-American War. Paced by the mighty 20,000-ton carrier Enterprise, 10 ships arrived for the celebration of Navy Day, Oct. 27. They were the vanguard of the 50 fighting ships which President [Harry] Truman will review in the Hudson River after commissioning the super-carrier Midway at the Brooklyn Navy Yard … Their coming yesterday was heralded yesterday afternoon by a spectacular flight of 101 fighter planes and torpedo bombers from the decks of the carriers. Taking off far out at sea, the planes came roaring over lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to land at Floyd Bennett Field.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1859, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Baltimore, Oct. 17. A dispatch just received here from Frederick, dated this morning, states that an insurrection has broken out at Harper’s Ferry, where an armed band of Abolitionists have full possession of the Government Arsenal. The express train going east was twice fired into, and one of the railroad hands and a negro [were] killed while endeavoring to get the train through the town. The insurrectionists stopped and arrested two men who had come to town with a load of wheat, and using their wagon, loaded it with rifles and sent them into Maryland. They number about 250 whites, aided by a gang of negroes. At the last accounts from there fighting was going on.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1893, the Eagle reported, “One Year for Anarchy. — There were no bombs thrown when Emma Goldman was sentenced in New York yesterday. The woman did not even make a speech. Judge Martine did right when he told her that in answering the question whether she had anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon her she must confine her remarks strictly to that subject and must not talk of irrelevant things. When a prisoner is arraigned for sentence the time for ranting has passed … The woman was sentenced to imprisonment for one year. It is supposed that her sentence will be commuted for good behavior, so that she may be released in a few weeks less than one year. Such commutation is possible, but it will not be made under the command of the law, but according to an option of the authorities. If it is thought best that she should serve out her full term, the provision in the law for commutation amounts to nothing.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1910, the Eagle reported, “Middletown, R.I., Oct. 17 — Mrs. Julia Ward Howe died at her summer home here today … She was 91 years of age. Her last public appearance was at Smith College, about ten days ago, when she received a degree from that institution … Mrs. Howe’s first distinct essay in literature was the volume of poems called ‘Passion Flowers,’ published in 1853 …  It was while visiting the camps of the army, near Washington, that there came to her that vision which found expression in the poem, one of the great poems produced during the war, to which she gave the name ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ … It was about 1870 that Mrs. Howe became convinced of the importance of the political enfranchisement of women. For years before, Mrs. Lucy Stone had led this hope, so forlorn. To her and Mrs. Howe is owed chiefly whatever recognition it has attained.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1936, the Eagle reported, “A new drive for the demolition of antiquated Raymond Street Jail was under way today with the Kings County Grand Jurors Association taking the lead. Assailing the prison as a ‘hotbed for the breeding of vice and crime’ and an ‘institution that should have been demolished long ago,’ the association has placed the situation before Mayor [Fiorello] LaGuardia and Corrections Commissioner Austin H. McCormick. The abuses existing in the jail were emphasized in a resolution adopted by the organization at a meeting last night in the Central Court Building, Smith and Schermerhorn streets, and copies were dispatched to the mayor and the commissioner … The association, long in the forefront to get rid of the jail, had the full support last night of William B. Cox, well-known criminologist and executive secretary of the Osborne association, who addressed the meeting. He stated that the jail is one of 1,273 institutions in the country which are ‘unfit for human habitation.’”

 

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