MILESTONES: November 27, birthdays for Bill Nye, Blackbear, Jimmy Rollins

Brooklyn Today

November 27, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Bill Nye. Photo by Phil McCarten/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images

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Greetings, Brooklyn. Today is the 333rd day of the year.

On this day in 1926, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported on the retrial of the Hall-Mills murder mystery. The case, being tried in Somerville, New Jersey, had a Brooklyn connection because one of the victims had been raised in Brooklyn: Edward Wheeler Hall, an Episcopal priest who received his theological degree in Manhattan and was serving a parish in New Brunswick. The other victim was the wife of the church’s sexton … That same front page covered the start of the Army-Navy football game, which attracted 11,000 fans from all over the country.

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On this day in 1932, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle carried the obituary and tribute of its longtime former publisher, Herbert Foster Gunnison, who had died the morning of Nov. 27 at his Ridge Boulevard, Bay Ridge, home after a long illness. Gunnison devoted 50 years of his career to the Eagle, starting as a $16-a-week reporter and rising steadily through the ranks. Obituary writer John Alden described Gunnison as a man of respect, wisdom and discretion.

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On this day in 1943, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported that a thousand (British) Royal Air Force bombers raided Berlin, leveling a third of that Nazi-controlled city. The RAF, in what United Press International called a “massive air armada,” also aimed for an arms center in Stuttgart, to “to “smash the Nazi heart.” Meanwhile, the Eagle reported that Hitler would have loved to see the ‘civil war’ taking place between the U.S. Army and Navy as they battled each other — but this time on the football field. It was the 44th annual football match held at West Point between these two branches of the armed services.

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On this day in 1953, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle front page reported that Mayor-elect Robert Wagner was set to appoint Brooklyn attorney Peter Campbell Brown as his Commissioner of Investigation, and that Brown would be establishing a Municipal Loyalty Board. Wagner denied on the record that he planned such a board and that denial was termed “a trial balloon.” However, as reporter Ken Johnston noted, “a Municipal Loyalty Board would probably be the first such board established in an American city to supervise loyalty checks of city employees.” …The story underneath reported that NYC’s 35,000 teachers would be receiving — at taxpayer expense — “Anti-Red” booklets, spelling out reasons why Communists should not be teachers. A philanthropist was underwriting the printing and distribution of additional booklets to teachers at the city colleges and the parochial schools within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include Oscar Award-winning director KATHRYN BIGELOW, who was born in 1951; pop star BLACKBEAR, who was born in 1990; actress ROBIN GIVENS, who was born in 1964; TV personality SAMANTHA HARRIS, who was born in 1973; TV host and mechanical engineer BILL NYE, who was born in 1955; baseball player JIMMY ROLLINS, who was born in 1978; author GAIL HENION SHEEHY, who was born in 1937; actor FISHER STEVENS, who was born in 1963; and actor JALEEL WHITE, who was born in 1976.

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BRUCE LEE WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1940. The actor and martial artist was born in California but raised in Hong Kong. In 1959, he returned to the U.S. to teach martial arts, opening schools in Washington and California. Spotted at a competition by a TV producer, Lee was cast as Kato in TV’s “The Green Hornet” in 1966. He moved on to film, where he displayed an intense charisma that would make him a star. Before he could enjoy this new success, Lee died of a cerebral edema in 1973, at Hong Kong. His films include “Fists of Fury” and “Enter the Dragon.”

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TODAY IS CIDER MONDAY. Cider Monday is both an invitation to shoppers to visit a real store to see and touch real products and meet real people and an opportunity for the retailers to thank them warmly with a cup of cider and maybe some other delicious treats. And it offers a moment to talk about the effects cyber shopping has on the brick-and-mortar stores in one’s community. First observed in 2013 by the Toadstool Bookshop and other New England bookstores and retail establishments, it is celebrated annually on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

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JIMI HENDRIX WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1942. One of the greatest rock guitarists in history, Hendrix revolutionized the guitar sound with heavy use of feedback and incredible fretwork. His success first came in England, and then he achieved fame in the U.S. after his appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He died in London in 1970.

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THE FIRST FACE TRANSPLANT WAS PERFORMED ON THIS DAY IN 2005. In a five-hour operation, French surgeons transplanted the skin, muscles, veins, arteries, nerves and tissues of a brain-dead patient onto the face of a woman who had lost her nose and the bottom part of her face after a dog attack. Doctors said the partial transplant, the first of its kind, created a “hybrid” face — resembling neither the dead donor nor the original face of the recipient.

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TODAY IS CYBER MONDAY. The day marked the traditional beginning of the online Christmas shopping season, when consumers return to work and start ordering online. It is recognized annually on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

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

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“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” — Bruce Lee, who was born on this day in 1940