Brooklyn Today: August 6, 2012
Good morning. Today is the 219th day of the year. We think of the era of train robberies in the West as being in the 1870s and 1880s, but in some places they lasted until the early 20th century. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Aug. 6, 1902, talks about a daring train robbery in Mt. Carroll, Illinois. The armed bandits got onto the train, threatened the conductor and engineer, then uncoupled the passenger coaches, which were in the back, from the locomotive and “express car,” containing all the valuables, in the front. They ran the locomotive a little ways up the line, removed all cash and valuables from the express car, then blew it up with dynamite (possibly to get rid of evidence) before escaping on horseback. The Eagle suspected the thieves were railroad men, since one of them knew how to run the locomotive.
Well-known people who were born today include actress Melissa George, actress Catherine Hicks, physicist Shirley Ann Jackson and Hall of Fame basketball player David Robinson.
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