The Almanac
Today is Sunday, Sept. 18, the 262nd day of 2016 with 104 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 English poet/lexicographer
Samuel Johnson, writer of the first English dictionary, in 1709; U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in 1779; French physicist Leon
Foucault, inventor of the gyroscope, in 1819; choreographer Agnes de
Mille in 1905; actor Greta Garbo in 1905; actor Leon Askin in 1907;
actor Jack Warden in 1920; actor Robert Blake in 1933 (age 83); film
producer Bud Greenspan in 1926; comedian Fred Willard in 1939 (age 77);
singer/actor Frankie Avalon in 1940 (age 76); musician Dee Dee Ramone
in 1951; Dr. Ben Carson, surgeon/political commentator, in 1951 (age
65); basketball Hall of Fame member Rick Pitino in 1952 (age 64);
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges in 1956 (age 60);
baseball Hall of Fame member Ryne Sandberg in 1959 (age 57); actor
Holly Robinson Peete in 1964 (age 52); actor Jada Pinkett Smith in 1971
(age 45); cyclist Lance Armstrong in 1971 (age 45); singer/actor Megan
Lee in 1992 (age 24.) On this date in history: In 1850, the U.S.
Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, allowing slave owners to
reclaim slaves who escaped into another state. In 1927, the Columbia
Broadcasting System was born. Originally known as the Tiffany Network,
its first program was an opera, The King's Henchman. In 1928, a
hurricane that lashed Florida and Caribbean islands for several days
left an estimated 4,000 people dead and $30 million in damage. In 1961,
U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold died when his plane crashed
under mysterious circumstances near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia (now
Zambia). In 1970, rock star Jimi Hendrix died at the age of 27
following a drug overdose in London. In 1975, FBI agents in San
Francisco captured former hostage Patricia Hearst along with two
members of a group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Hearst was
convicted in an SLA bank robbery and served 22 months in prison before
her sentence was commuted. She later was granted a full pardon by U.S.
President Bill Clinton. In 1983, British adventurer George Meegan
finished a 19,021-mile, six-year walk from the tip of South America to
the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. In 1996, the shuttle Atlantis
docked with the Mir space station to pick up U.S. astronaut Shannon
Lucid, who had set a U.S. record for time spent in space. In 2003,
Hurricane Isabel slammed into the North Carolina coast, causing nearly
40 deaths and inflicting property damage estimated at $4 billion. In
2005, Afghanistan had its first free election in 25 years, drawing
millions of voters despite Taliban threats. In 2008, the U.S. House of
Representatives joined the Senate in approving a civil rights bill that
broadens the definition of disability to include epilepsy, diabetes,
cancer, multiple sclerosis and other illnesses. In 2009, the final
episode of The Guiding Light was broadcast. The soap opera had run on
radio and television for 72 years. In 2010, violence and threats of
violence during Afghanistan's parliamentary elections kept 60 percent
of eligible voters from polls and left at least 14 people dead. A total
of 2,514 candidates vied for seats in the 249-member Parliament. In
2013, Ken Norton, who shocked the boxing world with an upset of
Muhammad Ali in 1973 and later became heavyweight champion, died in
Arizona. The 70-year-old Norton had been in failing health for several
years. In 2014, Scotland chose to remain in the United Kingdom,
rejecting independence in a historic national referendum that had a
voter turnout of 84 percent. More than 55 percent of voters were
against leaving the U.K. A thought for the day: Doing research on the
Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and
vandalized nightly. -- Roger Ebert .
