The Almanac
Today is Saturday, Feb. 13, the 44th day of 2016 with 322 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 Bess Truman, wife of
former U.S. President Harry Truman, in 1885; artist Grant Wood in 1891;
writer Georges Simenon in 1903; golf Hall of Fame member Patty Berg in
1918; singer Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1919; football Coach Eddie
Robinson in 1919; pilot Chuck Yeager, the first man to fly faster than
the speed of sound, in 1923 (age 93); actor Kim Novak in 1933 (age 83);
actor George Segal in 1934 (age 82); actor Oliver Reed in 1938;
musician Peter Tork of the Monkees in 1942 (age 74); actor Carol Lynley
in 1942 (age 74); talk show host Jerry Springer in 1944 (age 72); actor
Stockard Channing in 1944 (age 72): singer Peter Gabriel (Genesis) in
1950 (age 66); actor David Naughton in 1951 (age 65); Hall of Fame
basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski in 1947 (age 69); fitness activist
Denise Austin in 1957 (age 59). On this date in history: In 1635, the
Boston Latin School was founded. It is the oldest public school in the
United States. In 1668, Portugal was recognized as an independent
nation by Spain. In 1861, the first Medal of Honor was awarded. It went
to Col. Bernard Irwin, an assistant surgeon serving in the first major
U.S. Army-Apache conflict. In 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was
convicted of America's most colossal crime, and a jury determined that
he would forfeit his life in the electric chair for the murder of baby
Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. In 1945, thousands of Allied planes started
bombing the German city of Dresden in World War II. The attack caused a
firestorm that destroyed the city over a three-day period. Reports of
the death toll varied widely over the years, with many researchers
eventually estimating it was in the 25,000 range. In 1960, France
tested its first atomic weapon. In 1974, the Soviet Union expelled
dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In 1984, Konstantin Chernenko
succeeded the late Yuri Andropov as Soviet leader. In 2001, more than
400 people were killed in an earthquake in El Salvador. In 2006, a U.N.
report accused the United States of violating prisoners' rights at its
military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 2009, a Continental airlines
turboprop commuter plane crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y.,
killing 50 people, including one person in the house. In 2013,
authorities announced that 10 police officers in the Atlanta area had
been charged with taking payoffs to protect a drug gang. The U.S.
attorney in the city said the breadth of corruption is troubling. In
2014, the Afghan government, despite protests from the U.S. military,
released 65 suspected members of the Taliban from prison. A thought for
the day: U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said, I hope for an
America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we
will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make
this nation safe for both democracy and diversity. .
