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February 23, birthdays for Aziz Ansari, Niecy Nash, D’Angelo Russell

Brooklyn Today

February 23, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Actor and comedian Aziz Ansari celebrates his birthday today. Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
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Greetings, Brooklyn.  Today is the 53rd day of the year.

Notable people born on this day include Peter Fonda and Joe-Max Moore, among others.

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ON THIS DAY IN 1924, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an article titled “Firemen Rescue Aged Couple From Parish Fire.”

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The article focused on an electrical fire that broke out in a rectory on Concord Street.

“The flames were extinguished before much damage was done, and the two old people were able, after a while, to be returned to their home without having suffered in any way. The material damage was slight,” the Eagle reported.

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include comedian and actor AZIZ ANSARI, who was born in 1983; actress EMILY BLUNT, who was born in 1983; former baseball player BOBBY BONILLA, who was born in 1963; broadcast journalist SYLVIA CHASE, who was born in 1938; actor PETER FONDA, who was born in 1939; former football player and boxer EDWARD LEE “TOO TALL” JONES, who was born in 1951; singer HOWARD JONES, who was born in 1955; actress KELLY MACDONALD, who was born in 1976; Hall of Fame soccer player JOE-MAX MOORE, who was born in 1971; comedian and actress NIECY NASH, who was born in 1970; actress PATRICIA RICHARDSON, who was born in 1951; and basketball player D’ANGELO RUSSELL, who was born in 1996.

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EMMA HART WILLARD WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1787. Intent on improving educational opportunities for women, she sent her Plan for Improving Female Education to the governor of New York. In it she described her ideal for a girls’ school, including the instruction usually offered the girls of her day (music, drawing, penmanship, dancing), as well as adding religious and moral instruction, natural philosophy and domestic science. The New York Legislature granted her a charter for the Waterford Academy for Young Ladies. The school later moved to Troy, New York, where it was first named the Troy Female Seminary and later the Emma Willard School. She began the Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Female Teachers in 1837, and she authored several textbooks on geography, history and astronomy. Willard died in New York in 1870.

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W.E.B. Du BOIS WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1868. The American educator was a seminal leader of the movement for black equality. “The cost of liberty,” he wrote in 1909, “is less than the price of repression.” Du Bois died in Ghana in 1963.

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WILLIAM L. SHIRER WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1904. The American journalist and author served as the European correspondent from 1927 to 1934 for the Chicago Tribune. While working for the paper, he became a friend of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the leader of India’s independence movement. As a result of this he published “Gandhi: A Memoir” in 1980. His best-known book is “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” (1960), in which he used his experiences in Europe with the New York Herald Tribune, the Universal News Service and CBS Radio. Shirer died in 1993 in Massachusetts.

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VICTOR LONZO FLEMING WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1889. The film director’s talents are manifest in two of Hollywood’s most popular and enduring movies: “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) and “Gone with the Wind,” (1939) for which he won an Academy Award. Fleming died in Arizona in 1949.

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THE BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY (BHS) WILL HOST “A CHAMBER MUSIC Celebration of Black History Month” tonight at 7:30 p.m. Together with Groupmuse, the arts organization that brings classical musicians to living rooms for intimate listening parties, this Black History Month event will showcase the works of African-American composers and lyricists, including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Maya Angelou. Violin, cello and piano ensemble Warp Trio, percussionist Rick Martinez and vocalist Sylver Wallace will perform. For more information, visit brooklynhistory.org.

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

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“Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.” — historian and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, who was born on this day in 1868


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