Jan. 7, birthdays for Rand Paul, Nicolas Cage, Jeremy Renner

Brooklyn Today

January 7, 2016 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Actor Nicolas Cage celebrates his birthday today. Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File

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Greetings, Brooklyn. Today is the seventh day of the year.

ON THIS DAY IN 1915, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an article titled “Official Probes of Fire in Subway Have Been Started.”

The article focused on a fire a day earlier at a subway station that sent 70 people to the hospital due to negligence of station staff.

“’I feel that there was a great deal of stupidity on the part of Interborough employees in not sending in an alarm of fire for over an hour after the short-circuit occurred,’ said Coroner Feinberg,” the Eagle reported.

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include novelist William Blatty, who was born in New York City in 1928; actor Nicolas Cage, who was born in 1964; actor David Caruso, who was born in 1956; Deputy Prime Minister of Great Britain Nick Clegg, who was born in 1967; journalist Katie Couric, who was born in 1957; actor Brett Dalton, who was born in 1983; actor Dustin Diamond, who was born in 1977; former baseball player Eric Gagne, who was born in 1976; actress Erin Gray, who was born in 1950; singer and songwriter Kenny Loggins, who was born in 1948; U.S. Senator and GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul, who was born in 1963; actor Jeremy Renner, who was born in 1971; singer and pianist Paul Revere, who was born in 1938; baseball player Alfonso Soriano, who was born in 1978; and journalist and publisher Jann Wenner, who was born in New York City in 1947.

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THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS played their first game on this day in 1927. The Globetrotters (who included Inman Jackson, Lester Johnson and Walter Wright) hailed from Chicago’s South Side, despite being called the New York Globetrotters in the beginning. The talented African-American players — unable to play in white professional leagues — barnstormed the nation in serious basketball promotional events. They changed to “Harlem Globetrotters” in the 1930s and added humor to their games in the 1940s.

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