The Almanac
Today is Friday, Feb. 24, the 55th day of 2017 with 310 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 Wilhelm Grimm, historian and,
with his brother Jacob, compiler of Grimm's Fairy Tales, in 1786;
painter Winslow Homer in 1836; Irish author George Moore in 1852;
baseball Hall of Fame member Honus Wagner in 1874; Adm. Chester Nimitz,
World War II commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, in 1885; actor
Marjorie Main in 1890; actor Abe Vigoda in 1921; composer Michel
Legrand in 1932 (age 85); co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight in 1938 (age
79); actor James Farentino in 1938; former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman,
Ind-Conn., in 1942 (age 75); actor Barry Bostwick in 1945 (age 72),
actor Edward James Olmos in 1947 (age 70); musician George Thorogood in
1950 (age 67); actor Helen Shaver in 1951 (age 66); Steve Jobs, founder
of the Apple computer company, in 1955; race car driver Alain Prost in
1955 (age 62); baseball Hall of Fame member Eddie Murray in 1956 (age
61); TV personality Paula Zahn in 1956 (age 61); actor Billy Zane in
1966 (age 51); the Kienast quintuplets of Liberty Corner, N.J., in 1970
(age 47); boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 1977 (age 40); tennis player
Lleyton Hewitt in 1981 (age 36). On this date in history: In 1803, the
U.S. Supreme Court, in its Marbury v. Madison decision, ruled the power
of the federal government was no greater than that of any individual
state. In 1868, Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln, was
impeached by the U.S. House. (ohnson, the first U.S. president to be
impeached, was acquitted by a single vote three weeks later, ending a
three-week trial in the Senate. In 1916, under the eyes of the Kaiser,
the German Crown Prince Wilhelm and his army smashed their way toward
the fortress of Verdun, in France. In 1922, Henri Landru, better known
as Bluebeard, was executed in France for killing 10 of his girlfriends.
In 1933, Japan shocked the world, withdrawing from the League of
Nations. The stunned international conclave, representing almost every
nation on earth, sat in silence while the delegation, led by the dapper
Yosuke Matsuoka, clad in black, walked from the hall. The crowded
galleries broke into mingled hisses and applause. In 1945, U.S. troops
took the Philippines capital of Manila from the Japanese. In 1946, Juan
Peron was elected president of Argentina. In 1968, South Vietnam
recapture the city of Hue, as the Tet Offensive comes to an end after
25 days of brutal combat. In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court defended the
right to satirize public figures when it voted 8-0 to overturn a
$200,000 settlement awarded the Rev. Jerry Falwell over a parody of him
in Hustler magazine. In 1989, nine people were killed when a
10-by-40-foot section of a United Airlines 747 ripped away from the
jetliner's outer skin on a flight from Hawaii to New Zealand. In 1992,
General Motors announced a record $4.5 billion loss in 1991 and said it
would close 21 plants and idle 74,000 workers over four years. In 1995,
diver Greg Louganis, who won four gold medals in the Olympic Games in
1984 and 1988, revealed he had AIDS. In 2004, an earthquake struck
Morocco, killing about 600 people and injuring hundreds more. In 2006,
Emmy-winning comic star Don Knotts, best known as Deputy Barney Fife on
The Andy Griffith Show, died of lung cancer. He was 81. In 2009,
Taliban insurgents in Pakistan's militarily strategic Swat Valley
agreed to a cease-fire, leaving them in charge of the area near the
Afghan border. In 2012, bombers and gunmen in Iraq killed 55 people and
injured more than 200 in a series of attacks on civilian and government
targets in more than a dozen cities. In 2013, Raul Castro, 81,
beginning a second five-year term as president of Cuba, said, I would
like to make clear ... this will be my last term. In 2014, the U.S.
Defense Department proposed cutting the Army to its smallest size in
nearly three-quarters of a century. A thought for the day: Marian
Anderson, in forgiving the Daughters of the American Revolution for
withdrawing an invitation to perform because she was African American,
said, You lose a lot of time hating people. .
