The Almanac
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 3, the 34th day of 2016 with 332 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Mercury and Venus. Evening stars
are Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. Those born on this date
are under the sign of Aquarius. They include: German composer Felix
Mendelssohn in 1809; U.S. journalist Horace Greeley in 1811; Elizabeth
Blackwell, the first woman doctor of medicine, in 1821; poet and
novelist Gertrude Stein in 1874; artist Norman Rockwell in 1894;
gangster Charles Arthur Pretty Boy Floyd in 1904; author James Michener
in 1907; comedian Joey Bishop in 1918; comedian Shelley Berman in 1925
(age 91); actor John Fiedler in 1925; football Hall of Fame quarterback
Fran Tarkenton in 1940 (age 76); actor Blythe Danner in 1943 (age 73);
football Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese in 1945 (age 71); musician
Dave Davies (The Kinks) in 1947 (age 69); Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo in 1948 (age 68); actor Morgan Fairchild in
1950 (age 66); actor Pamela Franklin in 1950 (age 66); actor Nathan
Lane in 1956 (age 60); actor Thomas Calabro in 1959 (age 57); actor
Maura Tierney in 1965 (age 51); professional golfer Retief Goosen in
1969 (age 47); actor Warwick Davis in 1970 (age 46) and Isla Fisher in
1976 (age 40). On this date in history: In 1377, 2,000 people in
Cesena, Italy, were killed by papal troops in what became known as the
Cesena Bloodbath. In 1690, Massachusetts Colony issued the first paper
money in America. In 1783, Spain recognized the independence of the
United States from Great Britain. In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution was ratified. It decreed that the right to vote shall
not be denied on account of race, color or previous condition of
servitude. In 1913, the 16th Amendment, allowing establishment of an
income tax, became part of the U.S. Constitution after ratification by
Wyoming. In 1917, the United States severed relations with Germany
following the former's announcing its intention of waging unrestricted
submarine warfare the previous day, on Feb. 2, 1917. In 1924, Woodrow
Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, died in Washington at
the age of 67. In 1959, singers Buddy Holly, J.P. The Big Bopper
Richardson and Ritchie Valens and their pilot, Roger Peterson, were
killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. In 1966, the Soviet
Union accomplished the first controlled landing on the moon when the
unmanned spacecraft Luna 9 touched down on the Ocean of Storms. In
1973, the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by U.S. President
Richard Nixon. In 1994, Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off into space
with the first Russian cosmonaut aboard a U.S. spacecraft. In 1998,
Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker, the first female inmate to be put to
death by the state in 135 years. In 2004, the discovery of the lethal
poison ricin in the mailroom of U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the
Senate majority leader, forced the temporary closing of three Senate
office buildings in Washington. In 2005, more than 50 people died when
a train rammed a trailer carrying a wedding party at a railroad
crossing in India. In 2006, an Egyptian ferry sank in the Red Sea off
the coast of Egypt, an accident that killed nearly 1,000 people. In
2007, a truck bomb exploded in a Baghdad market killing at least 135
people and injuring more than 300. In 2008, Serbian President Boris
Tadic, a pro-Western leader who favored closer ties with the United
States, won re-election over a hard-line Radical Party candidate. In
2011, the New York City Council approved a measure banning smoking in
1,700 parks and along 14 miles of beaches. In 2014, Michael David
Elliot, 40, convicted of killing four people in 1993, was captured in
Indiana's LaPorte County, a day after he escaped from the Ionia
Correctional Facility in Michigan. In 2015, a Metro-North commuter
train struck a vehicle on the tracks in Valhalla, NY, killing six
people and injuring 12 others. A thought for the day: The purpose of
life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be
compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and
lived well. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson .
