The Almanac
Today is Sunday, Aug. 28, the 241st day of 2016 with 125 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 Virgo. They include German poet/novelist/dramatist
Johann von Goethe in 1749; Elizabeth Ann Seton, first U.S. -born saint
of the Roman Catholic Church, in 1774; French actor Charles Boyer in
1899; psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in 1903; actor Nancy Kulp in 1921;
actor/dancer Donald O'Connor in 1925; actor Ben Gazzara in 1930; former
U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen in 1940 (age 76); former
baseball Manager Lou Piniella in 1943 (age 73); singer/actor David Soul
in 1943 (age 73); actor Daniel Stern in 1957 (age 59); Olympic gold
medal ice skater Scott Hamilton in 1958 (age 58); actor Emma Samms in
1960 (age 56); singer Shania Twain in 1965 (age 51); actor Billy Boyd
in 1968 (age 48); actor Jack Black in 1969 (age 47); actor Jason
Priestley in 1969 (age 47); figure skater Todd Eldredge in 1971 (age
45); Olympic gold medal swimmer Janet Evans in 1971 (age 45); singer
LeAnn Rimes in 1982 (age 34); Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured in
2006 and held captive by Palestinian militants for more than five
years, in 1986 (age 30); actor Armie Hammer in 1986 (age 30). On this
date in history: In 1922, a New York City realty company paid $100 for
the first radio commercial, on station WEAF. In 1955, while visiting
family members in Money, Miss., 14-year-old Emmett Till, an
African-American from Chicago, was slain for supposedly flirting with a
white woman four days earlier. His alleged killers were acquitted. In
1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I have a dream speech from
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before more than 200,000 people
gathered for a Freedom March in Washington. In 1968, the Democratic
Party nominated Hubert Humphrey for president as thousands of
anti-Vietnam War demonstrators battled police in the streets and parks
of Chicago. In 1986, Soviet spy Jerry Whitworth was sentenced to 365
years in prison and fined $410,000. In 1990, a tornado struck Will
County in Illinois, southwest of Chicago, killing at least 27 people
and injuring more than 350. In 1996, after four years of separation,
Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess
Diana, were formally divorced. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina picked up
strength as it roared toward the U.S. Gulf Coast, reaching Category 5
status, with winds of almost 150 miles an hour, touching off one of the
largest evacuations in U.S. history. In 2008, U.S. Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., the presumed Republican nominee for president, chose Alaska
Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. In 2009, the
June 27 death of entertainer Michael Jackson was ruled a homicide by
drug overdose after his personal physician admitted giving him the
powerful anesthetic propofol and the sedative lorazepam on the day of
his death. In 2011, Tony Tan was elected the seventh president of
Singapore after more than 83 percent of eligible voters cast their
ballots. In 2012, delegates at the Republican National Convention in
Tampa, Fla., chose Mitt Romney as the party's presidential nominee. In
2013, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, who admitted to killing 13
people and wounding many others at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, was
sentenced to death. In 2014, a World Health Organization report said an
Ebola epidemic had killed more than 1,552 people in four West African
countries: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. A thought for the
day: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character. -- Martin Luther King Jr. .
