MILESTONES: February 13, birthdays for Penn & Teller, Simon Pegg, Jadeveon Clowney

February 14, 2019 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Simon Pegg. Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP

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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include journalist and author Carl Bernstein, who was born in 1944; former football player Drew Bledsoe, who was born in 1972; former mayor of New York City and business executive Michael Bloomberg, who was born in 1942; football player Jadeveon Clowney, who was born in 1993; actor Enrico Colantoni, who was born in 1963; broadcaster Hugh Downs, who was born in 1921; opera singer Renee Fleming, who was born in 1959; actor Zach Galligan, who was born in 1964; former basketball player Richard Hamilton, who was born in 1978; hockey player Milan Hejduk, who was born in 1976; actor Simon Pegg, who was born in 1970; actor Andrew Prine, who was born in 1936; magician Teller, who was born in 1948; actress Meg Tilly, who was born in 1960; and filmmaker Jessica Yu, who was born in 1966.

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TODAY IS FERRIS WHEEL DAY. It is a day in honor of the birthday of American engineer and inventor Gale Ferris. Among his many accomplishments as a civil engineer, he is best remembered as the inventor of the Ferris wheel, which he developed for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Built on the Midway Plaisance, the 250-foot-diameter Ferris wheel (with 36 coaches, each capable of carrying 40 passengers) was one of the greatest attractions of the fair. It was America’s answer to the Eiffel Tower of the Paris International Exposition of 1889. Ferris died in Pennsylvania in 1896.

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JACK BENNY WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1894. The American comedian entered vaudeville at age 17, using the violin as a comic stage prop. His radio show first aired in 1932 and continued for 20 years with little change in format. He also had a long-running TV show. One of his most well-known comic gimmicks was his purported stinginess. Benny died in 1974 in California.

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“THE MALTESE FALCON” WAS PUBLISHED ON THIS DAY IN 1930. Former Pinkerton agent–turned author Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel introducing Sam Spade was published by Alfred A. Knopf in New York. (The novel had been serialized in Black Mask magazine in the fall of 1929, but Hammett revised the text.) The novel was a milestone in American literature, offering the model that all “hard-boiled” crime fiction would follow. The notably dark-haired Humphrey Bogart played Spade in the 1941 film version directed by John Huston.

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WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1824. After his service as a Union general in the Civil War, his command of the military division of Texas and Louisiana won him much favor from the Democratic Party because he allowed local civil authorities to retain their power. He pleased the Democrats so well that they made him their presidential candidate in 1880. He lost to James A. Garfield by a narrow margin. Hancock died in New York in 1886.

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THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS WAS FORMED ON THIS DAY IN 1920. While meeting in Chicago to celebrate the imminent ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approved the formation of a new organization — the League of Women Voters. With the vote for women just a few months away, the new organization was created to help American women exercise their new political rights and responsibilities.

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

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“It’s not so much knowing when to speak, but when to pause.” — comedian Jack Benny, who was born on this day in 1894