The Almanac for Friday
Today is Friday, Sept. 9, the 253rd day of 2016 with 113 to follow. The
moon is waxing. 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 Cardinal-duc de
Richelieu, French statesman/Roman Catholic cardinal, in 1585; British
Capt. William Bligh, of the HMS Bounty, in 1754; Russian author Leo
Tolstoy in 1828; baseball Hall of Fame member Frank Chance in 1876; Alf
Landon, the Kansas Republican who lost the 1936 presidential election
to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1887; Kentucky Fried Chicken
founder Harland Sanders in 1890; movie composer Arthur Freed in 1894;
oddsmaker Jimmy the Greek Snyder in 1918; philanthropist Robert Wood
Johnson III in 1920; actor Cliff Robertson in 1923 ; rhythm and blues
singer Otis Redding in 1941; football Hall of Fame member Joe Theismann
in 1949 (age 67); actor Tom Wopat in 1951 (age 65); actor Angela
Cartwright in 1952 (age 64) ; actor Hugh Grant in 1960 (age 56); actor
Adam Sandler in 1966 (age 50); actor Rachel Hunter in 1969 (age 47);
actor Henry Thomas ( E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial ) in 1971 (age 45);
actor Goran Visnjic in 1972 (age 44); singer Michael Buble in 1975 (age
41); rapper Soulja Slim in 1977; singer Hunter Hayes in 1991 (age 25).
On this date in history: In 1776, the second Continental Congress
officially changed the new American nation's name from United Colonies
to United States. In 1850, California became the 31st state. In 1956,
rock 'n' roll singer Elvis Presley appeared on national television for
the first time -- on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1971, more than 1,000
convicts took over the state prison at Attica, N.Y. and held hostages.
Four days later, 28 convicts and nine hostages were killed as state
police reclaimed the prison. The overall death toll was later set at
43. In 1976, Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong died at age 82. In
1990, Liberian President Samuel Doe was killed by rebels after visiting
the headquarters of West African peacekeeping forces in Monrovia. In
1993, in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the PLO
recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist in peace and
security. In turn, Rabin declared the PLO the representative of the
Palestinian people. In 1995, Steffi Graf won her fourth of five U.S.
Open women's singles title, defeating Monica Seles in her first
appearance since a fan stabbed her in 1993. Graff ended her career with
22 Grand Slam singles championships. In 1999, more than 90 people died
in the bombing of a Moscow apartment building. The blast was blamed on
militants from the breakaway republic of Chechnya. In 2003, the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million in lawsuits by
more than 500 people who said they sexually abused by priests. In 2008,
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was ousted for moonlighting as a
paid performer on a TV cooking show. In 2010, a federal judge in
California ruled that the don't ask, don't tell policy preventing
homosexuals from serving openly in the U.S. armed services was
unconstitutional. In 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told
Russian leaders in Vladivostok their support of the government of
Syria, which had been torn by a civil war for a year and a half, is an
affront to Washington. In 2015, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II became
England's longest-serving monarch, surpassing the record set by her
great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, more than a century earlier. A
thought for the day: A country's competitiveness starts not on the
factory floor or in the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom. --
former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca .
