The Almanac
Today is Friday, Aug. 19, the 232nd day of 2016 with 134 to follow. The
moon is waning. 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 English poet John Dryden in 1631;
clockmaker Seth Thomas in 1785; statesman Bernard Baruch in 1870;
aviation pioneer Orville Wright in 1871; French fashion designer Coco
Chanel in 1883; actor Alfred Lunt in 1892; humorist Ogden Nash in 1902;
pioneer television engineer Philo Farnsworth in 1906; singing Mills
Brother Harry Mills in 1913; writer Ring Lardner Jr. in 1915; publisher
Malcolm Forbes in 1919; Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1921;
writer Frank McCourt in 1930; jockey Willie Shoemaker in 1931; actor
Diana Muldaur in 1938 (age 78); actor Jill St. John in 1940 (age 76);
drummer Ginger Baker (Cream) in 1939 (age 77); singer Johnny Nash in
1940 (age 76); Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, in
1946 (age 70); political commentator Mary Matalin in 1953 (age 63);
actor Gerald McRaney in 1947 (age 69); actor Jonathan Frakes in 1952
(age 64); actor Peter Gallagher in 1955 (age 61); actor Adam Arkin in
1956 (age 60); actor John Stamos in 1963 (age 53); actor Kyra Sedgwick
in 1965 (age 51); actor Matthew Perry in 1969 (age 47). On this date in
history: In 1812, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution defeated the
British ship Guerriere in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova
Scotia and earned its nickname of Old Ironsides. Witnesses said British
shots seemed to bounce off the Constitution. In 1960, U-2 spy plane
pilot Francis Gary Powers was convicted in a Moscow court and sentenced
to 10 years in prison. He was released 18 months later in exchange for
Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. In 1977, Julius Groucho Marx, leader of the
Marx Brothers comedy troupe, died at the age of 87. In 1987, gun
enthusiast Michael Ryan went on a shooting rampage in Hungerford,
England, killing 16 people. In 1991, a coup orchestrated by hard-line
Communists and led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev removed Mikhail
Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union. The coup would endure for
three days before being put down. The action led to the dissolution of
the Soviet Union which would formally occur on December 26, 1991. In
1992, delegates to the Republican National Convention nominated
President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle for
re-election. They were defeated in November by Democrats Bill Clinton
and Al Gore. In 1995, three U.S. negotiators, including Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Robert Frasure, were killed when their
vehicle plunged from a mountain road near Sarajevo in Bosnia and
Herzegovina In 1996, the Green Party nominated Ralph Nader as its
presidential candidate. In 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United
Nations' representative to Iraq, was killed in a car-bomb attack on UN
headquarters in Iraq. In 2008, the resignation of Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf was followed by insurgent bombing attacks that killed
roughly 100 people. In 2009, two massive bomb attacks killed at least
95 people and wounded more than 600 others in Baghdad. It was said to
be the worst attack in the region since the U.S. military gave control
of the country's security back to the Iraqi government. In 2013, an
express train killed at least 37 people and injured many others
crossing tracks at a remote transit station in the eastern India state
of Bihar. After the accident, an angry mob severely beat the operator
of the train, authorities said. In 2014, police in St. Louis said
officers shot and killed a knife-wielding 22-year-old African-American
man, increasing tension in an area already rocked by violence following
the police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in suburban
Ferguson 10 days earlier. A thought for the day: The older I get the
better I used to be. -- golfer Lee Trevino .
