The Almanac
Today is Monday, Aug. 22, the 235th day of 2016 with 131 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 French composer Claude Debussy in
1862; Charles Jenkins, inventor of airplane brakes and the conical
drinking 'cup', in 1867; writer-critic Dorothy Parker in 1893; heart
surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley in 1920; science fiction writer Ray Bradbury
in 1920; actor Honor Blackman in 1925 (age 91); French fashion designer
Marc Bohan in 1926 (age 88); retired U.S. Army Gen. H. Norman
Schwarzkopf in 1934; writer E. Annie Proulx in 1935 (age 79); baseball
Hall of Fame member Carl Yastrzemski in 1939 (age 76); baseball Hall of
Fame member Paul Molitor in 1956 (age 60); actor Valerie Harper in 1939
(age 76); actor Cindy Williams in 1947 (age 69); swimming Hall of Fame
member Diana Nyad in 1949 (age 67); singer/songwriter Tori Amos in 1963
(age 55); tennis Hall of Fame member Mats Wilander in 1964 (age 52);
actor Richard Armitage in 1971 (age 45); actor Kristen Wiig in 1973
(age 43). On this date in history: In 1851, the U.S. -built schooner
America outran a fleet of Britain's finest ships around England's Isle
of Wight in an international race that became known as the America's
Cup. In 1881, American humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons
founded the National Red Cross. In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa
was discovered stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. It was recovered
two years later. In 1922, Michael Collins, a founder of the Irish
Republican Army and a key figure in Ireland's independence movement,
was assassinated by political opponents. In 1968, Pope Paul VI arrived
in Colombia, becoming the first pontiff to visit South America. In
1986, Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of nuclear industry
worker Karen Silkwood more than $1 million, ending a 10-year legal
battle waged by her family over her exposure to radioactive materials
at the company's Oklahoma plant. In 2004, two masked robbers stole
Edvard Munch's The Scream and another painting from the Munch Museum in
Oslo, Norway. They were found about two years later. The Scream had
been stolen once before, 10 years earlier, but was recovered within
three months. In 2005, the last Jewish settlers moved peacefully out of
the Gaza Strip after carrying Torah scrolls down the main street of
Netzarim, last of 21 settlements to be evacuated. In 2006, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration decided to make the morning-after
contraceptive pill known as Plan B available without a prescription to
people 18 and older. In 2011, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National
Memorial in Washington opened to the public. The $120 million memorial,
25 years in the making, is on a four-acre site on the National Mall. In
2013, former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was
indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Odin Lloyd, a
27-year-old landscaper and acquaintance of the football player. In
2014, Hernandez was charged with two more murders. In 2014, the United
Nations reported that the death toll in three years of Syria's civil
war had surpassed 191,000. A thought for the day: Democracy cannot
succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose
wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. --
Franklin D. Roosevelt .
