The Almanac
Today is Monday, Feb. 20, the 51st day of 2017 with 314 to follow. This
is observed in the United States as Presidents' Day. The moon is
waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. Evening stars
are Neptune, Venus, Mars and Uranus. Those born on this date are under
the sign of Pisces. They include American Revolutionary War hero
William Prescott in 1726; photographer Ansel Adams in 1902; Soviet
leader Alexei Kosygin in 1904; actor Gale Gordon in 1906; TV emcee John
Daly in 1914; fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt in 1924 (age 93); film
director Robert Altman in 1925; author Richard Matheson in 1926; actor
Sidney Poitier in 1927 (age 90); actor Amanda Blake in 1929; auto racer
Bobby Unser in 1934 (age 83); singer Nancy Wilson in 1937 (age 80);
auto racing businessman/team owner Roger Penske in 1937 (age 80);
singer Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1941 (age 76); hockey Hall of Fame member
Phil Esposito in 1942 (age 75); actor Sandy Duncan in 1946 (age 71);
actor Peter Strauss in 1947 (age 70); actor Jennifer O'Neill in 1948
(age 69); socialite Ivana Trump in 1949 (age 68): heiress Patty Hearst
Shaw in 1954 (age 63); comedian Joel Hodgson in 1960 (age 57);
basketball Hall of Fame member Charles Barkley in 1963 (age 54); actor
French Stewart in 1964 (age 53); model Cindy Crawford in 1966 (age 51);
actor Andrew Shue in 1967 (age 50); musician Kurt Cobain in 1967;
singer Rihanna Fenty in 1988 (age 29). On this date in history: In
1816, The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini opened in Rome. In
1872, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City. In 1938,
Anthony Eden resigned as Britain's foreign secretary to protest the
appeasement policy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain toward Nazi
Germany. In 1947, Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee told the House of
Commons that it was the government's definite intention to take
necessary steps to effect the transfer of power to responsible Indian
hands by a date not later than June 1948. In 1947, a portion of the
Iraq Petroleum Co. s pipeline, which carries oil from the rich fields
in the Euphrates Valley to the Mediterranean at Jaffa, was blown up at
two places in North Palestine in a new outburst of underground
violence. In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to
orbit Earth. He landed safely after three orbits in a Mercury
spacecraft. The previous year, Russian Yuri Gagarin was the first
person to orbit Earth. In 1991, U.S. troops penetrated Iraq, capturing
as many as 500 Iraqi soldiers. In 1998, Tara Lipinski, 15, of the
United States became the youngest winner of a ladies Olympic gold medal
in figure skating. In 2003, fire broke out during a rock concert at a
West Warwick, R.I., nightclub, killing 100 people. In 2006, the Danish
newspaper that published controversial cartoons of Muslim Prophet
Muhammad and triggered widespread, angry and often deadly protests ran
a full-page apology in Saudi papers. In 2008, a missile interceptor
launched from a U.S. Navy ship knocked down a dying satellite 130 miles
over the Pacific Ocean. Officials said the satellite contained 1,000
pounds of frozen toxic fuel. In 2010, a minaret and part of the roof
fell into a historic 18th-century mosque during services, killing at
least 38 people and injuring 71 more in the ancient city of Meknes,
Morocco. In 2012, officials said poachers in search of ivory in
northern Cameroon had slaughtered about 300 elephants for their tusks
since mid-January. In 2013, a U.S. Census Bureau report said American
Indians had the highest poverty rate of any ethnic group in the
country. A thought for the day: Fly-fishing author John Gierach wrote,
The solution to any problem -- work, love, money, whatever -- is to go
fishing, and the worse the problem the longer the trip should be. .
