What's News: Prison Escapes, Winston Churchill's Mum, and Titanic Artifacts for Sale

AFTER NEWS BROKE LAST WEEK that the much-maligned Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill would once again be loading up with prisoners, the McBrooklyn blog dug into the jail's history and came out with a list of escapes from the facility and other sordid details. Highlights include "horse-trainer, inn-owner, embezzler and sensational murderer Buddy Jacobson" who escaped with the help of "Tony Two Suits," and a riot in 1970 in which the prisoners took 26 hostages. McBrooklyn

TODAY, JANUARY 9, IS THE BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF JENNIE JEROME. She was born to a wealthy stock speculator in Cobble Hill. After she married into British aristocracy, she became Lady Randolph Churchill and gave birth to the one and only Winston Churchill. Brooklyn Eagle and some more detail on her life at Brooklyn Before Now

A NEW BOOK ON BAY RIDGE HISTORY will be launched this Thursday at the Yellow Hook Grille (7003 Third Ave.). Bay Ridge Etc. was written by local journalist Ted General, Bay Ridge Historical Society President Jack LaTorre, and Bay Ridge Historical Society President Emeritus Peter Scarpa. Brownstoner

THE BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY WILL HOST EVAN HUGHES, author of Literary Brooklyn, and scholar Edgar Garcia, who will discuss Walt Whitman and his role in Brooklyn's publishing history, on Jan. 18  at 7 p.m. (128 Pierrepont St.)  It's Free! Brooklyn Historical Society

ARTIFACTS FOUND ON THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN NEAR THE WRECK OF THE TITANIC will be auctioned off on April 11, the 100th anniversary of the infamous tragedy. There are more than 5,000 artifacts, valued at close to $200 million, but they are being sold as one big collection, as opposed to individually, at the insistence of Premier Exhibitions, the company that recovered the artifacts from the site.  Huffington Post