Brooklyn Today for Jan. 17

January 16, 2013 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Michelle_Obama_official_portrait_headshot.jpg
Share this:

Good morning. Today is the 17th day of the year. On this day in 1902, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Prof. Caronant Campbell, of Macon Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, aimed to construct an aluminum, hydrogen-filled “airship” to compete at the St. Louis Exposition. It went on to say that the professor’s background was in designing balloons, but he was confident that he could produce airships as well.

The type of airship he was referring to would be called a dirigible, or blimp, today. The airplane as we know it today would not be invented until the following year, when the Wright Brothers demonstrated the first successful heavier-than-air craft in history at Kitty Hawk. As for the St. Louis Exposition, it’s mainly remembered today because it was the setting of the 1944 classic movie, “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

Well-known people who were born today include former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, actor Jim Carrey (‘Dumb and Dumber,” “Ace Ventura”), actor James Earl Jones (“The Great White Hope,” ‘Roots: The Next Generations”), First Lady Michelle Obama, and former baseball manager and player Don Zimmer (a one-time Brooklyn Dodger).

Subscribe to our newsletters


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment