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MILESTONES: October 15, birthdays for Tito Jackson, Paige Davis, Jim Palmer

October 15, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History
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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include actress and television personality Paige Davis, who was born in 1969; singer and musician Tito Jackson, who was born in 1953; Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who was born in 1959; actress and singer Linda Lavin, who was born in 1937; actor Victor Banerjee, who was born in 1946; Governor of Alabama Kay Ivey, who was born in 1944; and Hall of Fame baseball player Jim Palmer, who was born in 1945. 

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BOUNDARY-BREAKING FIRST LADY: Edith Wilson served as first lady of the U.S. from 1915 to 1921. After her husband, President Woodrow Wilson, suffered a stroke in 1919, Edith decided which matters of state merited her bedridden husband’s attention, managing all communication between the president and his cabinet. When Secretary of State Robert Lansing began to hold cabinet meetings without the president or Edith present, Edith had him fired. She also was the first first lady to travel to Europe, bringing the position into the realm of international politics. Edith died on Dec. 28, 1961, in Washington, D.C.

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GREAT ECONOMIST AND PROLIFIC AUTHOR John Kenneth Galbraith was born on this day in 1908. A proponent of American liberalism, Galbraith was advisor to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Galbraith wrote dozens of books and over a thousand articles during his career, served as U.S. ambassador to India from 1961-63 and taught economics at Harvard University. Galbraith died on Apr. 27, 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

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REGARDING THOSE RINGS: On this day in 1997, NASA launched its Cassini-Huygens spacecraft from Cape Canaveral. The mission flew by Venus in 1998, passed through the asteroid belt starting in 1999, approached Jupiter in 2000, and studied Saturn and its rings and satellites beginning in 2004. On September 15, 2017, the spacecraft, having completed its mission, descended into Saturn’s atmosphere and was vaporized. The data it collected has greatly improved scientists’ understanding of the Saturn system.

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

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“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: It was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” —John Kenneth Galbraith, who was born on this day in 1908

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