The Almanac
Today is Monday, Aug. 1, the 214th day of 2016 with 152 to follow. The
moon is waning. 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 Roman Emperor Claudius I, born
in 10 B.C.;; explorer William Clark in 1770; Francis Scott Key,
composer of The Star-Spangled Banner, in 1779; lawyer/writer Richard
Henry Dana Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast, in 1815; author
Herman Melville ( Moby-Dick ) in 1819; activist/labor organizer Mary
Harris Mother Jones in 1837; tennis Hall of Fame member Jack Kramer in
1921; actor Arthur Hill in 1922; actor Geoffrey Holder in 1930);
musician Ramblin' Jack Elliott in 1931 (age 85); comic actor Dom
DeLuise in 1933; French fashion designer Yves St. Laurent in 1936;
musician Jerry Garcia, co-founder of the Grateful Dead rock group, in
1942; basketball Hall of Fame member Roy Williams in 1950 (age 66);
rapper Coolio, born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., in 1963 (age 53); British film
director Sam Mendes in 1965 (age 51); actor Tempestt Bledsoe in 1973
(age 43). On this date in history: In 1498, Italian explorer
Christopher Columbus set foot on the American mainland for the first
time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. In 1790, the
first U.S. census showed a population of 3,929,214 people in 17 states.
In 1907, an Aeronautical Division was added to the Army Signals Corps.
The first aircraft bought by this forerunner of the U.S. Air Force was
built by the Wright brothers. In 1966, Charles Whitman killed 16
people, including his wife and mother, in Austin, Texas. Thirty-two
people were wounded. Most of Whitman's victims were struck by shots
fired from the University of Texas Tower. The gunman, a student and
ex-Marine, was killed by a police officer. In 1977, Francis Gary
Powers, pilot of a U-2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in
1960, was killed in the crash of his weather helicopter in Los Angeles.
In 1981, MTV premiered with the Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star.
In 1994, Lisa Marie Presley confirmed rumors that she had married pop
star Michael Jackson May 26 in the Dominican Republic. The couple
divorced less than two years later. In 2004, nearly 400 people died in
a supermarket fire on the outskirts of Asuncion, Paraguay. In 2005,
Saudi King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, who had ruled since 1982, died after a
long illness at the age of 83. He was succeeded by his half-brother,
Crown Prince Abdullah. In 2007, an eight-lane bridge across the
Mississippi River at Minneapolis, collapsed during the evening rush
hour, killing 13 people and injuring nearly 150. About 50 vehicles were
thrown into or near the water when the steel-and-concrete Interstate
35W span buckled and fell. In 2010, a worldwide ban on cluster bombs
went into effect. Cluster bombs, usually dropped from planes, are
filled with smaller anti-personnel bombs, which are scattered over wide
areas. In 2011, when the U.S. House of Representatives approved the
deficit reduction bill, one of the yes votes was cast by Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords, D-Ariz., taking part in her first congressional business
since she was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in January
in Tucson. She was greeted with a standing ovation. In 2014, U.S.
President Barack Obama said some CIA agents who interrogated suspects
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States
crossed a line and tortured some folks. A thought for the day: Learn
from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing
is not to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein .
