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April 27, birthdays for Cory Booker, Jenna Coleman, Nick Kyrgios

Brooklyn Today

April 27, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker celebrates his birthday today. Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
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Greetings, Brooklyn.  Today is the 117th day of the year.

Notable people born on this day include Sally Hawkins and Nigel Barker, among others.

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an article titled “4,000 Pupils Get Polio Shots.”

The article focused on groups of city schoolchildren who received the polio vaccination.

“Health Department doctors estimated 5,300 injections had been given by 11 a.m. in the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Bronx areas selected for the test,” the Eagle reported.

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include actress ANOUK AIMEE, who was born in 1934; TV personality NIGEL BARKER, who was born in 1972; U.S. Sen. CORY BOOKER, who was born in 1969; actress JENNA COLEMAN, who was born in 1986; singer SHEENA EASTON, who was born in 1959; actress SALLY HAWKINS, who was born in 1976; tennis star NICK KYRGIOS, who was born in 1995; and King of the Netherlands WILLEM-ALEXANDER, who was born in 1967.

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CORETTA SCOTT KING WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1927. The wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. picked cotton as a child but was able to go to college, where she met and married the young minister-turned-civil-rights-activist. She worked by his side, establishing Freedom Concerts and other social-change movements, while also raising the couple’s four children. After King’s 1968 assassination, she took on his mission, founding the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta (now just called The King Center), and also spearheading the efforts to have a national holiday established in her late husband’s honor. The American Library Association established a prestigious children’s literature award for African-American writers and illustrators in her name in 1970, and in her later years she was a tireless advocate for gay and lesbian rights. King died in Mexico in 2006.

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ULYSSES S. GRANT WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1822. The 18th president of the U.S. graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1843. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general in command of all the Union armies in 1864. He died in New York in 1885, just four days after completing his memoirs. Grant was buried at Riverside Park, where his tomb was dedicated in 1897.

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SERGEI PROKOFIEV WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1891. Regarded as one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, he created a wide array of music, including symphonies, ballets, operas, orchestral suites, concertos for piano, violin and cello and works for solo piano. His best-known works include the ballet “Romeo and Juliet,” the opera “The Love for Three Oranges” and the orchestral piece “Peter and the Wolf.” Prokofiev left Russia in 1918 to avoid the upheaval of the Russian Revolution. He composed, performed as a pianist and conducted extensively in the U.S. and Europe before returning to the Soviet Union in 1936. He had conflicts with Soviet authorities, which, in 1948, banned several of his works for allegedly having renounced “the basic principles of classical music.” Prokofiev died in 1953 in Moscow.

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CITY TECH WILL HOST ITS 36th ANNUAL LITERARY ARTS FESTIVAL TONIGHT at 5:30 p.m at the Voorhees Theater, 186 Jay St. Poet and essayist Rowan Ricardo Phillips will be the event’s featured guest.  The festival will also include performances by City Tech students and readings by award winners of the Literary Arts Festival Writing Contest. For more information, visit openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/literaryartsfestival.

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

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“Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.” — Coretta Scott King, who was born on this day in 1927

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