ON THIS DAY IN 1945: Peace jitters sweep world
ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “New Yorkers today awaited the news that peace again reigned in the world in a state of high expectancy but, at the same time, in a skeptical frame of mind. They had traveled the emotional roller coaster culminating in the high thrill and spill of a false United Press flash announcing the end of the war … The fires of celebration flared high shortly after 9:30 o’clock when the United Press unglued people’s ears from their radios and sent them cheering into the streets. In Brooklyn, Navy Yard whistles screeched as the streets filled rapidly … GIs and civilians in bars rushed into the streets with joy unconfined. Shipyards up and down the river joined in the tooting, auto horns melted into the din and tons of paper scraps were fluttering from windows when, at 9:36 p.m., the U.P. wired editors: ‘Hold that flash!’”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1925, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “More than 1,000 curious onlookers lined the Battery sea wall this afternoon when the two-masted auxiliary fishing schooner ‘Annie Louise,’ with approximately 500 cases of liquor valued at $30,000 secreted beneath 500 pounds of codfish, was brought to the barge office and tied up by the Customs authorities. The captain and members of the crew abandoned the ship under the nose of the Coast Guard authorities at Fulton Market and the East River where the vessel tied up last evening … It is understood that the Customs authorities will ask the Board of Health to condemn the codfish, as they believe the fish has been aboard to vessel too long to be edible.”