The Almanac
Today is Saturday, Sept. 17, the 261st day of 2016 with 105 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Uranus and Venus.
Evening stars are Mercury, Neptune and Saturn. Those born on this date
are under the sign of Virgo. They include the second chief justice of
the United States, John Rutledge in 1739; Norwegian historian/Nobel
Peace Prize laureate Christian Lous Lange in 1869; radio news
commentator Gabriel Heatter in 1890; Marriott Corp. founder J. Willard
Marriott in 1900; former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger
in 1907; country music pioneer Hank Williams Sr. in 1923; football Hall
of Fame member George Blanda in 1927; actor Roddy McDowall in 1928;
race car driver Stirling Moss in 1929 (age 87); actor David Huddleston
in 1930 (age 86); actor Anne Bancroft in 1931; actor Dorothy Loudon in
1933; tennis Hall of Fame member Maureen Connolly in 1934; author Ken
Kesey in 1935; baseball Hall of Fame member Orlando Cepeda in 1937 (age
79); former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter in 1939 (age 77);
basketball Hall of Fame member Phil Jackson, coach of 11 NBA champions,
in 1945 (age 71); cartoonist Jeff MacNelly in 1947; actor John Ritter
in 1948; spooky movie hostess Elvira, whose real name is Cassandra
Peterson, in 1951 (age 65); actor/comedian Rita Rudner in 1953 (age
63); designer/television host Nate Berkus in 1971 (age 45); NHL star
Alex Ovechkin in 1985 (age 31). On this date in history: In 1787, the
U.S. Constitution, completed in Philadelphia, was signed by a majority
of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. In 1862, Union
forces led by Gen. George McClellan attacked Confederate troops led by
Gen. Robert E. Lee near Antietam Creek in Maryland. McClellan blocked
Lee's advance on Washington but fell short of victory. In 1939, Soviet
troops invaded Poland, 16 days after Nazi Germany moved into the
country. In 1976, NASA displayed its first space shuttle, the
Enterprise, an airplane-like spacecraft costing almost $10 billion that
took nearly a decade to develop. In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David
Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between
Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. In 1983, Vanessa
Williams of New York became the first African-American to be named Miss
America. She resigned 11 months later after nude photos were published
but regained stardom as a singer and actress. In 1991, North Korea,
South Korea, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania were admitted to the United Nations. In 1993, Cambodia's two
leading political parties agreed that Prince Norodom Sihanouk would
lead the nation. Sihanouk was installed as king a week later. In 2001,
U.S. President George W. Bush said Osama bin Laden, the suspected
ringleader in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was wanted dead or alive.
Bin Laden was killed in a 2011 U.S. commando raid in in Pakistan. In
2004, the death toll from Hurricane Ivan was set at 38 in the United
States and 75 in at the Caribbean. In 2009, final unofficial results
from a controversial presidential election in Afghanistan indicated
that incumbent Hamid Karzai got 54.6 percent of the vote, enough to
avoid a runoff. In 2011, a widespread U.S. outbreak of listeria food
poisoning was traced to contaminated cantaloupes sold by a Colorado
company that recalled millions of melons. Officials said about two
dozen people had died of listeriosis in 20 states. In 2012, U.S.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said his comment about 47
percent of Americans who believe that they are victims... was not
elegantly stated. Romney's response came after the 47 percent comment,
secretly recorded at a GOP fundraiser in May, was released on the
Internet and drew harsh criticism. In 2014, President Barack Obama said
U.S. troops do not and will not have a combat mission in Iraq against
the Islamic State , which had seized large areas of Iraq and Syria. A
thought for the day: French aviator and writer Antoine Marie Roger de
Saint-Exupery said, Love does not consist in gazing at each other but
in looking outward together in the same direction. .
