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MILESTONES: July 29, birthdays for Wil Wheaton, Ken Burns, David Warner

Brooklyn Today

July 29, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

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Greetings, Brooklyn. Today is the 210th day of the year.

Notable people born on this day include Wil Wheaton and Ken Burns, among others.

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ON THIS DAY IN 1935, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a front-page article titled “7 Thugs Foiled in $15,000 Raid.”

The article focused on a patrolman who single-handedly foiled a $15,000 safe robbery.

“The gang of seven bandits, all armed, held up 15 employees of the Green Bus Lines, Inc., in the garage at 51-01 Rockaway Beach Boulevard and were about to steal the company safe when bullets from the heroic patrolman’s gun interrupted him,” the Eagle reported.

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include documentary filmmaker KEN BURNS, who was born in 1953; musician and music producer DANGER MOUSE, who was born in 1977; former U.S. secretary of Labor and Transportation and former U.S. Sen. ELIZABETH HANFORD DOLE, who was born in 1936; tennis player FERNANDO GONZALEZ, who was born in 1980; fashion consultant and TV personality TIM GUNN, who was born in 1953; country singer MARTINA McBRIDE, who was born in 1966; actress ALEXANDRA PAUL, who was born in 1963; actor JOSH RADNOR, who was born in 1974; singer PATTY SCIALFA, who was born in 1956; dancer and choreographer PAUL TAYLOR, who was born in 1930; Emmy Award-winning actor DAVID WARNER, who was born in 1941; and actor WIL WHEATON, who was born in 1972.

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PETER JENNINGS WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1938. The TV news anchor had immense success as a journalist despite never graduating from high school or college. Jennings was highly respected for his calm delivery and known for his travels around the world, reporting the news wherever it happened. He received 16 Emmy Awards as well as two George Foster Peabody Awards, and served as chief anchor of ABC-TV’s “World News Tonight” from 1983 until April 2005, when he announced during his broadcast that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He died in New York in 2005.

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CHESTER HIMES WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1909. The groundbreaking African-American author accosted American racism in such novels as “If He Hollers Let Him Go.” In the 1950s, after he relocated to a friendlier France, Himes created a series of hard-boiled mystery novels set in Harlem, N.Y., including “Cotton Comes to Harlem” that featured black detectives “Coffin Ed” Johnson and “Grave Digger” Jones. Born in Missouri, Himes died in 1984 in Spain.

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ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1805. The French politician and author’s 1831 trip to the U.S. inspired “Democracy in America”, one of the most insightful books written on the U.S. Tocqueville died in France in 1859.

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

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“America is a land of wonders in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement.” — Alexis de Tocqueville, who was born on this day in 1805