The Almanac
Today is Thursday, Sept. 29th, the 273rd day of 2016 with 93 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 Libra. They include Spanish poet-novelist Miguel
de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, in 1547; Italian artist Caravaggio
in 1571; Adm. Horatio Nelson, British naval hero, in 1758; pioneer
nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi in 1901; actor Greer Garson in 1904;
singing movie cowboy Gene Autry in 1907; film director Michelangelo
Antonioni in 1912; film director Stanley Kramer in 1913; actor Trevor
Howard in 1913; British writer Colin Dexter in 1930 (age 86); actor
Anita Ekberg in 1931; rock 'n' roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis in 1935
(age 81); former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 1936 (age
80); actor Larry Linville in 1939; singer/songwriter Tommy Boyce in
1939; actor Madeline Kahn in 1942; actor Ian McShane in 1942 (age 74);
Polish leader/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa in 1943 (age 73);
composer Mike Post in 1944 (age 72); TV personality Bryant Gumbel in
1948 (age 68); rock guitarist Mark Farner in 1948 (age 68); Olympic
gold medal-winning runner Sebastian Coe in 1956 (age 60); former
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 1961 (age 55). On this date
in history: In 1789, the U.S. War Department organized the country's
first standing army -- 700 soldiers who would serve for three years. In
1923, Britain began to govern Palestine under a League of Nations
mandate. In 1936, in the U.S. presidential race between Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Alf Landon, the Democratic and Republican parties used
radio for the first time. In 1941, the Babi Yar massacre of nearly
34,000 Jewish men, women and children began on the outskirts of Kiev in
Nazi-oc'cup'ied Ukraine. In 1992, Earvin Magic Johnson announced he was
returning to the Los Angeles Lakers less than a year after he retired
because he had the AIDS virus. A month later, Johnson announced his
retirement for a second time. In 2005, John Roberts Jr. easily won
confirmation by the U.S. Senate and was sworn in as chief justice of
the U.S. Supreme Court. He succeeded the late William Rehnquist. In
2006, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned in the wake of revelations
he sent inappropriate email messages to an underage former Capitol Hill
page. In 2008, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped almost 778
points, its biggest one-day point decline. In 2011, a special court in
India convicted 269 police officers and others for their roles in a
1992 raid on a small village that resulted in multiple rapes and
beatings. In 2014, Ashraf Ghani was sworn in as president of
Afghanistan, succeeding Hamid Karzai. A thought for the day: British
statesman Edmund Burke said, Superstition is the religion of feeble
minds. .