The Almanac
Today is Friday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2016 with 323 to follow. The
moon is waxing. 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 French architect Etienne-Louis
Boullee in 1728; philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1791; Abraham Lincoln,
16th president of the United States, in 1809; biologist Charles Darwin
in 1809; labor leader John L. Lewis in 1880; Russian ballerina Anna
Pavlova in 1881; U.S. Army Gen. Omar Bradley in 1893; actor Lorne
Greene in 1915; actor Forrest Tucker in 1919; Italian film director
Franco Zeffirelli in 1923 (age 93); baseball player and sports
commentator Joe Garagiola in 1926 (age 90); Charles Van Doren, subject
of U.S. TV quiz scandals, in 1926 (age 90); former U.S. Sen. Arlen
Specter, D-Pa., in 1930; basketball Hall of Fame member Bill Russell in
1934 (age 82); actor Joe Don Baker in 1936 (age 80); author Judy Blume
in 1938 (age 78); musician Ray Manzarek (The Doors) in 1939; former
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1942 (age 74); actor Maud Adams in
1945 (age 71); actor Joanna Kerns in 1953 (age 63); former talk show
host Arsenio Hall in 1956 (age 60); actor Josh Brolin in 1968 (age 48);
singer Chynna Phillips in 1968 (age 48); actor Christina Ricci in 1980
(age 36); football quarterback Robert Griffin III (nicknamed RG3 ) in
1990 (age 26). On this date in history: In 1541, Santiago, Chile, was
founded. In 1733, the American colony of Georgia was founded by James
Oglethorpe. In 1877, Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the
telephone, was publicly demonstrated with a hookup between Boston and
Salem, Mass. In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People was founded by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and
W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1914, a dedication ceremony was held and the first
stone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid. It took eight years to complete
the monument honoring the 16th president. In 1973, 116 prisoners of war
were flown from Hanoi to the Philippines in the first release of U.S.
POWs in North Vietnam. In 1993, about 5,000 demonstrators marched on
Atlanta's Capitol to protest the Confederate symbol on the Georgia
state flag. In 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted U.S. President Bill
Clinton of impeachment charges. In 2000, Charles Schulz, creator of the
popular comic strip Peanuts and the world of Charlie Brown and Snoopy,
died of colon cancer at age 77. In 2001, a NASA spacecraft landed on
the asteroid Eros. In 2004, South Korean scientists announced they had
created the world's first mature cloned human embryos. In 2008, General
Motors, which offered buyouts to its 74,000 unionized employees,
reported a loss of $38.7 billion for 2007, the largest ever for an
automaker. In 2012, Israeli officials announced the end of a nationwide
general strike aimed at improving worker conditions, which paralyzed
the public sector for four days. In 2013, North Korea said it safely
tested its third nuclear device underground, drawing condemnation from
the U.N. Security Council. In 2014, U.S. comedian Sid Caesar, one of
TV's first big stars, died after a brief illness at his home in Beverly
Hills, Calif. He was 91. A thought for the day: The trouble with
telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of
a dull one. -- Sid Caesar .
