History Brooklyn Boro

August 29, birthdays for Lea Michele, Liam Payne, Richard Gere

Brooklyn Today

August 29, 2016 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Actress Lea Michele celebrates her birthday today. Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP

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Greetings, Brooklyn. Today is the 242nd day of the year.

ON THIS DAY IN 1944, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an article titled “New Suspect Held in Park Strangling.”

The article focused on the investigation of the murder of a woman near the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan.

“A squad of 60 detectives were working on the case, alert for the appearance of any clue that would give them definite information leading to the slayer,” the Eagle reported. “[Officer] Mandel said one of the calls to his office was from a woman who said she had vital information she would give him at the Riverside Chapel … in the room where the body of Mrs. Newmark was taken.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include Gov. of Guam EDDIE BAZA CALVO, who was born in 1961; actress REBECCA DE MORNAY, who was born in 1959; Oscar Award-winning filmmaker WILLIAM FRIEDKIN, who was born in 1939; actor RICHARD GERE, who was born in 1949; actor ELLIOTT GOULD, who was born in Brooklyn in 1938; TV host ROBIN LEACH, who was born in 1941; U.S. Secretary of the Treasury JACK LEW, who was born in Queens in 1955; soccer coach and former player PABLO MASTROENI, who was born in 1976; actress LEA MICHELE, who was born in the Bronx in 1986; choreographer and dancer MARK MORRIS, who was born in 1956; baseball player ROY OSWALT, who was born in 1977; One Direction member LIAM PAYNE, who was born in 1993; former basketball player WILL PERDUE III, who was born in 1965; actor JAY RYAN, who was born in 1981; and former hockey player PIERRE TURGEON, who was born in 1969.

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MICHAEL JACKSON was born on this day in 1958. The self-styled “King of Pop” rose from humble beginnings to become a child star at Motown with his older brothers as the Jackson 5. He later launched a solo career and achieved enormous success as both a singer and dancer/choreographer. He changed the face of music videos with his inventive dance sequences, and his albums “Off the Wall,” “Bad” and “Thriller” are among the bestselling of all time. His musical legacy was almost overshadowed by his frequent plastic surgeries, eccentric behavior and legal difficulties, but he remained one of the most popular artists in the world and his influence on the musical landscape of the 1970s and ’80s was unsurpassed. He died in 2009.

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HURRICANE KATRINA struck on this day in 2005. After hitting the southern Florida coast, the storm moved into the Gulf of Mexico and grew into one of the most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history. Levees in New Orleans were breached, and within two days more than 80 percent of the city was underwater, stranding tens of thousands of people. The death toll in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida was more than 1,300. Thousands remained missing at the end of the year. The estimated 1 million people who evacuated before and after the storm accounted for the largest movement of people in the U.S. since the Great Depression and the Civil War. And with $100 billion to $200 billion in damage within 90,000 square miles, Katrina was the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

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

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.” — The late Michael Jackson, who was born in 1958