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MILESTONES: March 12, birthdays for Mitt Romney, Jaime Alexander, Jake Tapper

March 12, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle
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NOTABLE PEOPLE born on this day include actress Jaimie Alexander, who was born in 1984; actor Jason Beghe, who was born in 1960; producer and director Rob Cohen, who was born in 1949; opera singer David Daniels, who was born in 1966; actor Aaron Eckhart, who was born in 1968; actress Barbara Feldon, who was born in 1933; singer Marlon Jackson, who was born in 1957; singer and Oscar Award-winning actress Liza Minnelli, who was born in 1946; former baseball player Raul Mondesi, who was born in 1971; former baseball player Dale Murphy, who was born in 1956; 2012 presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, who was born in 1947; former baseball player Darryl Strawberry, who was born in 1962; journalist and anchor Jake Tapper, who was born in 1969; singer and musician James Taylor, who was born in 1948; actor Courtney B. Vance, who was born in 1960; and civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was born in 1932.

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JACK KEROUAC WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1922. The American poet and novelist, leader and spokesman for the Beat movement is best known for his 1957 novel “On the Road,” which celebrates the Beat ideal of nonconformity. Kerouac published The Dharma Bums in 1958, followed by The Subterraneans the same year, Doctor Sax and its sequel Maggie Cassidy in 1959, Lonesome Traveler in 1960, Big Sur in 1962 and Desolation Angels in 1965. Kerouac died in Florfiain 1969. A previously unpublished part of On the Road called Visions of Cody was published posthumously in 1972.

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TODAY IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF FDR’S FIRST FIRESIDE CHAT. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made the first of his Sunday evening “fireside chats” to the American people on this day in 1933. Speaking by radio from the White House, he reported rather informally on the economic problems of the nation and on his actions to deal with them.

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WALLY SCHIRRA WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1923. One of the original seven Mercury astronauts, a U.S. Navy pilot during WWII and the Korean conflict, Schirra entered the U.S. space program in 1959. He was the only man to fly all three of the first manned space missions (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo), logging a total of 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. He won an Emmy Award for the footage he sent back from Apollo 7, the first televised pictures from space, and later worked with Walter Cronkite on broadcasts of other NASA missions. Schirra died in 2007 in California.

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SIMON NEWCOMB WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1835. Newcomb investigated the orbits of Uranus, Neptune and the inner planets and devised planetary tables that were used universally by observatories. He died in Washington, D.C. in1909.

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THE GIRL SCOUTS OF THE USA WERE FOUNDED ON THIS DAY IN 1912. Juliette Low founded the organization in Savannah, Georgia.

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

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“It is a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.” — civil rights leader Andrew Young, who was born on this day in 1932

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