MILESTONES: November 7, birthdays for Lorde, David Guetta, David de Gea

Brooklyn Today

November 7, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Lorde. Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

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Greetings, Brooklyn. Today is the 313th day of the year.

On this day in 1945, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported on the election that swept William O’Dwyer in as New York City’s 100th mayor. That same Democratic-American Labor Party alliance swept Miles F. McDonald in as Brooklyn district attorney. Vincent Impelliterri, on O’Dwyer’s ticket, became City Council president. And John Cashmore was re-elected as Brooklyn borough president in a record 300,000 plurality vote. Impelliterri would later become acting mayor when O’Dwyer was forced to resign in the midst of a huge police scandal.

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On this day in 1928, the aftermath of Election Day, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported the sweep of Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover over former NYC Gov. Al Smith. The South was divided. Smith’s Catholic faith was largely viewed as contributing to his defeat. The projections were for Hoover to have won 444 electoral votes. Meanwhile, the Eagle projected Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt to win the New York gubernatorial race in a Democratic sweep statewide. And “below the fold,” the Eagle carried a news brief about the funeral of slain gambler Arnold Rothstein. Attendees included notable Broadway notables, who praised Rothstein for his “generosity in life.” Police were also present to try to flush out Rothstein’s killer.

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On this day in 1938, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page featured a story on an assassination that would lead to the Holocaust and Nazism’s “Final Solution.” A 17-year-old Polish Jew, seeking to avenge his countrymen who were being expelled from Germany, shot and gravely wounded Ernst vom Rath, secretary of the German Embassy. Rath died of his wounds two days later on Nov. 9. The Nazis that same night conducted a widespread pogrom, destroying Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. The nocturnal violence was called “Kristallnacht,” translated from German as “night of the broken glass.” Jewish communities around the world commemorate Kristallnacht each year on or close to Nov. 9.

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On this day in 1954, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported that the Senate was expected to censure Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy for his “reprehensible” conduct toward an Army general and the subcommittee investigating him during the anti-communist “witch hunts” he had conducted. The Senate was believed to have waited until after Election Day because they feared losing their seats if the voters knew about their plans to publicly reprimand McCarthy.

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include former soccer player Rio Ferdinand, who was born in 1978; Manchester United goalie David de Gea, who was born in 1990; televangelist Billy Graham, who was born in 1918; international DJ David Guetta, who was born in 1967; Boston Pops conductor Kevin Lockhart, who was born in 1959; actor Jeremy London, who was born in 1972; Grammy Award-winning singer Lorde, who was born in 1996; singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell, who was born in 1943; actor Lucas Neff, who was born in 1985; actor Barry Newman, who was born in 1938; singer Johnny Rivers, who was born in 1942; and political activist and musician Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was born in 1989.

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TODAY IS GENERAL ELECTION DAY. Many state and local government elections are held annually on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, as well as presidential and congressional elections in the appropriate years. All U.S. congressional seats and one-third of U.S. senatorial seats are up for election in even-numbered years. Presidential elections are held in even-numbered years that can be divided equally by four. General Election Day is a state holiday in 12 states.

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MARIE CURIE WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1867. She and her husband were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of the element radium. She died in France in 1934.

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TODAY IS JOB ACTION DAY. It is a day encouraging workers and job seekers to put their career and job in the forefront. For more information, visit www.jobactionday.com.

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ROOSEVELT WAS ELECTED TO HIS FOURTH TERM ON THIS DAY IN 1944. After defeating Thomas Dewey, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first and only person elected to four terms as president of the U.S. Roosevelt was inaugurated the following January but died in office in 1945, serving only 53 days of his fourth term.

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ALBERT CAMUS WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1913. The French writer and philosopher won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. Camus is renowned for his novels, particularly “The Stranger,” which proffered themes — widely reflective of the feelings of the postwar intellectual — of the isolation of man and the estrangement of the individual from himself. With Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus is seen as the leading existential novelist of the era, although he rejected that or any other label. Camus died in an automobile accident in Paris in 1960.

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

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“There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.” — Joni Mitchell, who was born on this day in 1943