The Almanac
Today is Monday, Aug. 8, the 221st day of 2016 with 145 to follow. The
moon is waxing. Morning stars are Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are
Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn and Neptune. Those born on this date are
under the sign of Leo. They include the United States' first
professional architect, Charles Bulfinch, in 1763; American black
explorer Matthew Henson in 1866; Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata
in 1879; poet Sara Teasdale in 1884; author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (
The Yearling ) in 1896; film music composer/conductor Victor Young in
1900; musician Benny Carter in 1907; Supreme Court Justice Arthur
Goldberg in 1908; actor Sylvia Sidney in 1910; movie producer Dino De
Laurentiis in 1919; aquatic actor Esther Williams in 1921; actor Rory
Calhoun in 1922; singer Mel Tillis in 1932 (age 84); singer Joe Tex in
1933; actor Dustin Hoffman in 1937 (age 79); singer Connie Stevens in
1938 (age 78); actor Keith Carradine in 1949 (age 67);
writer/journalist Randy Shilts in 1951; former Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi (age 65) in 1951; TV personality Deborah Norville in 1958
(age 58); musician The Edge (born David Evans) in 1961 (age 55); tennis
star Roger Federer in 1981 (age 35); actor Katie Leung in 1987 (age
29); Beatrice, princess of York, in 1988 (age 28). On this date in
history: In 1911, newsreels became a standard part of U.S. movie
screenings when the French film company Pathe began releasing weekly
black-and-white features to theaters. In 1940, the German Luftwaffe
began a series of daylight air raids on Britain. In 1945, the Soviet
Union declared war on Japan, two days after an atomic bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima and several days before Tokyo surrendered. In 1968,
Richard Nixon won the Republican nomination for president. He was
elected in November, defeating Democrat Hubert Humphrey and independent
George Wallace. In 1974, facing expected impeachment over the Watergate
scandal, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign. He
left office the next day. Listen to UPI Radio's original report. In
1988, the first night game at Chicago's Wrigley Field was played. The
park was the last major league stadium to add lights for night
baseball. In 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait. In
2003, U.S. leaders of the Episcopal Church approved a landmark
local-option resolution on the issue of same-sex marriages, leaving it
to local dioceses whether to bless unions of gay and lesbian couples.
Church leaders earlier in the week approved their first openly gay
bishop. In 2007, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, pleaded guilty to
disorderly conduct on a charge of making sexual advances to an
undercover police officer at a Minneapolis airport restroom. In 2008,
former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who ran for president in 2004
and dropped out of the 2008 race in January, admitted he had an affair
in 2006 with a campaign worker. In 2009, a sightseeing helicopter with
six people aboard collided with a small plane carrying three people
over the Hudson River in New York. There were no survivors. In 2010,
U.N. officials estimated 1,600 people had been killed in
monsoon-triggered flooding in Pakistan, and authorities said China's
deadliest mudslides had claimed more than 1,100 lives. Hundreds of
people were missing in the two disasters. In 2012, New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo, expressing his support for tougher anti-gun laws, said it's hard
for anyone to refute the damage being done by firearms. In 2014, U.S.
officials said airstrikes killed dozens of Islamic State militants in
Iraq, hitting targets that included artillery units and a convoy. A
thought for the day: Actress Julia Roberts said, You can be true to the
character all you want but you've got to go home with yourself. .
