The Almanac
Today is Tuesday, Feb. 21, the 52nd day of 2017 with 313 to follow. 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 Mexican revolutionary and
military commander Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (conqueror of the Alamo)
in 1794; Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman in 1801; German
bacteriologist August von Wassermann, who developed the blood test for
syphilis, in 1866; classical guitarist Andres Segovia in 1893; writer
Anais Nin in 1903; poet/author W.H. Auden in 1907; filmmaker Sam
Peckinpah in 1925; humorist Erma Bombeck in 1927; King Harald V of
Norway in 1937 (age 80); actor Rue McClanahan in 1934; actor Gary
Lockwood in 1937 (age 80); film/record executive David Geffen in 1943
(age 74); actor Tyne Daly in 1946 (age 71); Tricia Nixon Cox, daughter
of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, in 1946 (age 71); actor Anthony
Daniels in 1946 (age 71); actor Alan Rickman in 1946; former U.S. Sen.
Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in 1947 (age 70); author Jeffrey Shaara in 1952
(age 65); actor Kelsey Grammer in 1955 (age 62); singer Mary Chapin
Carpenter in 1958 (age 59); actor Christopher Atkins in 1961 (age 56);
actor William Baldwin in 1963 (age 54); Chinese dissident Chen Wei in
1969 (age 48); actor Jennifer Love Hewitt in 1979 (age 38); singer
Charlotte Church in 1986 (age 31); actor Ellen Page in 1987 (age 30).
On this date in history: In 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published
by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In 1878, the New Haven, Conn.,
Telephone Co. published the first phone directory. It listed 50
subscribers. In 1885, the Washington Monument, a 555-foot-high marble
obelisk built in honor of America's revolutionary hero and first
president, was dedicated in Washington. In 1916, Germans launched the
Battle of Verdun. More than 1 million soldiers in the German and French
armies were killed in nearly 10 months of fighting. It was the longest
battle of World War I. In 1925, the first issue of The New Yorker was
published. In 1934, Nicaraguan guerrilla leader Cesar Augusto Sandino
was killed by members of the country's national guard. In 1953, Francis
Crick and James D. Watson discovered the double helix structure of the
DNA molecule. In 1965, Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was assassinated
at a rally in New York. In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first U.S.
president to visit the People's Republic of China. In 1994, longtime
CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames and his wife, Maria, were
arrested and charged with selling information to the Soviet Union and
Russia. Ames was sentenced to life in prison; his wife got a five-year
term. In 1995, a Russian commission estimated as many as 24,400
civilians died in a two-month uprising in the separatist republic of
Chechnya. In 2007, nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan signed a treaty
in New Delhi aimed at preventing the accidental use of atomic weapons.
In 2013, former Illinois police Sgt. Drew Peterson, 59, was sentenced
to 38 years in prison for the 2004 murder of his third wife, Kathleen
Savio. Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, who disappeared in 2007, remains
missing. In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama,
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, at the White House after the Chinese
government warned the meeting would damage U.S. -China relations. A
White House statement said Obama reiterated the U.S. position that
Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China and that the United
States does not support Tibet independence. A thought for the day: The
worst prison would be a closed heart. -- Pope John Paul II .
