The Almanac
Today is Tuesday, July 28, the 209th day of 2015 with 156 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Mars, Neptune and Uranus. Evening
stars are Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn and Venus. Those born on this date
are under the sign of Leo. They include Beatrix Potter, British
author/illustrator of the Peter Rabbit stories, in 1866; French
surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp in 1887; comedian Joe E. Brown in
1891; singer/actor/band leader Rudy Vallee in 1901; Tupperware founder
Earl Tupper in 1907; conductor Carmen Dragon in 1914; former U.S. first
lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1929; pianist/bandleader Peter
Duchin in 1937 (age 78); former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in
1938 (age 77); Bill Bradley, former U.S. senator and basketball Hall of
Fame member, in 1943 (age 72); rock musician Mike Bloomfield in 1943;
Garfield creator Jim Davis in 1945 (age 70); singer/songwriter Jonathan
Edwards in 1946 (age 69); actor Linda Kelsey in 1946 (age 69); actor
Sally Struthers in 1947 (age 68); actor Georgia Engel in 1948 (age 67);
actor Lori Loughlin in 1964 (age 51); activist Terry Fox, who ran
across Canada after his right leg was amputated because of cancer, in
1958. On this date in history: In 1868, the ratified 14th Amendment was
adopted into the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing citizenship and all
its privileges to African-Americans. In 1976, a 7.8-magnitude
earthquake struck the Tangshan, China, area, killing more than 240,000
people. It was among the deadliest quakes in recorded history. In 1984,
U.S. President Ronald Reagan opened the Summer Olympic Games in Los
Angeles. A Soviet-led bloc of 15 nations, as well as Iran, Libya,
Albania and Bolivia, boycotted the Games. In 1990, the collision of a
freighter and two barges spilled 500,000 gallons of oil in the Houston
Ship Channel near Galveston, Texas. In 2003, J.P. Morgan Chase and
Citigroup, the two largest U.S. banks, agreed to pay nearly $300
million in fines and penalties to settle charges they had aided Enron
in deceiving investors. In 2004, Democrats nominated Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts to oppose Republic incumbent George W. Bush in the
November presidential election. In 2008, Iraqi authorities said suicide
bombers, including three females, killed 61 people and injured 249
others in ethnic violence in Kirkuk and Baghdad. In 2010, a plane
flying in intense fog and rain to Islamabad crashed in the Himalayan
foothills near its destination, killing all 152 people aboard. In 2011,
a federal judge in Washington threw out a lawsuit seeking to end the
Obama administration's funding of embryonic stem cell research into
possible cures for deadly diseases. In 2013, a tour bus carrying people
who had visited a Catholic shrine plunged nearly 100 feet down a slope
in southern Italy. The death toll was at least 39, with many others
injured. In 2014, a California Judge gave Shelly Sterling approval to
sell the LA Clippers for $2 billion over the objections of her
estranged husband, Donald, longtime owner of the NBA team who was
banned from the league. (Former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer bought
team for that amount.) A thought for the day: Politics is the art of
looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it
incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy. -- Ernest Benn .
