MILESTONES: August 30, birthdays for Bebe Rexha, Warren Buffett, Lewis Black

August 30, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Bebe Rexha arrives at the 2018 iHeartRadio MuchMusic Video Awards on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018, in Toronto. Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP

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ON THIS DAY IN 1877, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Brigham Young, the head of the Mormon Church, died in Salt Lake City at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. The dead prophet was born in Whittingham, Vt., on June 1, 1801 … His conversion was brought about by Samuel H. Smith, a brother of Joseph Smith, and in September 1832, having been baptized by Eleazer Miller, he joined the Mormon Church at Kirtland, Ohio. An intimacy soon sprang up between Brigham and Joseph Smith. The new convert was ordained elder, and soon began to preach. His shrewdness, powerful will and knowledge of character gave him great influence in a community where general ignorance prevailed. In 1835 Brigham was ordained one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church and in the following year became their President.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1883, the Eagle reported, “A convulsion of nature which in a few hours has swept from life some 75,000 persons, has swallowed islands, engulfed mountains, obliterated towns and converted forests into cinders, uplands into dreary wastes of sulphur and rock and fertile plains into arms of the sea is an event in the physical history of our planet which possesses few known parallels. The burial of Herculaneum and Pompeii in 79 in the ashes and scorise of Vesuvius, the sudden and terrific fate of Lisbon seventeen centuries later, just when the exploration of the newly discovered cities had commenced, and the shaking of the South American republics in Chile and Peru furnish the only parallels in history to the awful display of nature’s hidden forces that has recently been made in Java. Removed as the island is from us almost as far as it can be upon the surface of the planet, and different as are the conditions of life there in its unsurpassed climate and other conditions, the telegraph has so annihilated distance that we can more fully share the horrors of the scene with the survivors of the cataclysm than could have been done a century ago in adjoining states.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1920, the Eagle reported from Boston, “The operations of Charles Ponzi’s Securities Exchange Company and of the Old Colony Foreign Exchange Company will be the subject of investigation by the Suffolk County Grand Jury. Attorney General [J. Weston] Allen, who has before him the claims of some 11,000 persons for more than $5,000,000 against the Ponzi project and of several hundred creditors with claims of $300,000 against the Old Colony Company, made request today that the Grand Jury be convened in special session to hear the evidence which he has obtained in conjunction with the two schemes. Chief Justice [John J.] Aiken authorized District Attorney Joseph C. Pelletier to call the jurors together on Wednesday. For the present, action in the State court against Ponzi will have no effect, as he is a Federal prisoner at the East Cambridge jail on charges of using the mails with fraudulent intent. Three of the officials of the other quick-rich enterprise are now at liberty on bail under charges of larceny.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1934, the Eagle reported, “New York City’s lovers of surf and sun may bathe with impunity today at any of the beaches, including Coney Island, on the Health Department’s list, knowing that the list has been approved by a special committee of Fellows of the New York Academy of Medicine. In a report made public yesterday, as the individual opinion of members, the committee sustained conclusions reached by the department from bacteriological data, sanitary surveys and other records, and praised the work as ‘painstaking’ and the data as ‘complete and reassuring.’ The city was urged, however, to rush its program of sewage disposal plant construction so that there might be no increase in the slight amount of existing pollution. The committee found no reason to believe that any cases of typhoid fever could be traced to bathing at city beaches.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “General MacArthur’s Headquarters, Yokohama, Japan, Aug. 30 (U.P.) – General Douglas MacArthur set up headquarters in Yokohama today as the first 40,000 troops of his occupation army raised the Stars and Stripes over Japan’s largest naval base, two airfields and a big slice of the Tokyo plain. A half-dozen or more Japanese towns, some within a few miles of the southern outskirts of Tokyo, were occupied by Allied air and seaborne forces in their first few hours ashore. General MacArthur, supreme occupation commander, established his headquarters at Yokohama’s new Grand Hotel with other top American officers less than an hour after landing at Atsugi Airfield from Okinawa. From the top of the hotel, General MacArthur could see Emperor Hirohito’s palace in the heart of Tokyo. Both Hirohito and the Japanese Government now must take their orders from General MacArthur.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include actress ELIZABETH ASHLEY, who was born in 1939; comedian LEWIS BLACK, who was born in 1948; actor TIMOTHY BOTTOMS, who was born in 1951; Emmy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning actor MICHAEL CHIKLIS, who was born in 1963; actor and comedian BILL DAILY, who was born in 1927; actress CAMERON DIAZ, who was born in 1972; Olympic alpine skier JEAN-CLAUDE KILLY, who was born in 1943; actress PEGGY LIPTON, who was born in 1947; actress MICHAEL MICHELE, who was born in 1966; actor DAVID PAYMER, who was born in 1954; tennis player ANDY RODDICK, who was born in 1982; and U.S. Sen. THOM TILLIS, who was born in 1960.

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ROY WILKINS WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1901. The civil rights leader was the grandson of a Mississippi slave and was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He retired as its executive director in 1977. Wilkins died in New York in 1981.

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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1797. The English novelist was the daughter of philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In addition to being the author of the famous novel “Frankenstein,” Shelley is important in literary history for her work in the editing and publishing of her husband’s unpublished work after his early death. She died in 1851 in England.

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ERNEST RUTHERFORD WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1871. The physicist established the nuclear nature of the atom and the electrical structure of matter and achieved the transmutation of elements, research that later resulted in the atomic bomb. Rutherford died in Cambridge in 1937.

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TED WILLIAMS WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1918. He played his first major league baseball game for the Boston Red Sox in 1939. In the years that followed, he became known as perhaps the best hitter ever to play the game. His career batting average was .344, and his record average of .406 set during the 1941 season stands unsurpassed. He played 19 seasons for the Red Sox, but during the prime of his career, he missed three full seasons while serving as a navy pilot in World War II and most of two seasons serving as a marine pilot in the Korean War. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. Williams died in 2002 in Florida.

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DR. CLAIRE STRAITH WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1891. After attending an international meeting in Paris at the end of World War I to share information regarding reconstructive surgical techniques used on the battlefield, Straith dedicated his career to the new field of plastic surgery. He developed many of the techniques used in plastic and cosmetic surgery, designed new surgical instruments and led a campaign that persuaded automakers, in 1930, to use safety glass and remove dangerous projections from the interior of cars. Straith died in 1958.

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

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“Muffle your rage. Get smart instead of muscular.” — Roy Wilkins, who was born on this day in 1901