The Almanac
Today is Saturday, Feb. 25, the 56th day of 2017 with 309 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: French painter
Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1841; Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso in
1873; U.S. statesman John Foster Dulles in 1888; actor Herbert Zeppo
Marx, the sane sibling of the early Marx Brothers movies, in 1901;
actor Jim Backus in 1913; British writer Anthony Burgess in 1917;
tennis Hall of Fame member Bobby Riggs in 1918; baseball Hall of Fame
member Monte Irvin in 1919; producer/writer Larry Gelbart in 1928; talk
show host Sally Jessy Raphael in 1935 (age 82); actor Tom Courtenay in
1937 (age 80); actor Diane Baker in 1938 (age 79); former Beatle George
Harrison in 1943; director Neil Jordan in 1950 (age 67); sportscaster
James Brown in 1951 (age 66); comedian Carrot Top, born Scott Thompson,
in 1965 (age 52); actor Tea Leoni in 1966 (age 51); actor Sean Astin in
1971 (age 46); actor Anson Mount in 1973 (age 44); actor Chelsea
Handler in 1975 (age 42). On this date in history: In 1791, the First
Bank of the U.S. at Philadelphia became the first national bank
chartered by Congress. In 1836, Samuel Colt patented a revolving gun,
the first of the six-shooters. In 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels, a
Republican from Natchez, Miss., was sworn into the U.S. Senate,
becoming the first African American to sit in Congress. In 1901, the
United States Steel Corp. was founded by J.P. Morgan. In 1951, the
inaugural Pan American Games began in Buenos Aires. In 1964, brash
underdog Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) stunned the boxing world with a
TKO of Sonny the Bear Liston, winning the world heavyweight
championship. In 1986, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos left his
Manila palace for Hawaii, ending 20 years in power. In 1990, Violeta
Chamorro, the U.S. -backed candidate for the presidency of Nicaragua,
scored an upset victory over President Daniel Ortega, leader of the
leftist Sandinista Liberation Front. In 1991, the Warsaw Pact nations
signed an agreement to dissolve the alliance after 36 years. In 1994,
32 Muslim worshippers were killed by a Jewish settler who opened fire
with an automatic weapon in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank
town of Hebron. The settler was overpowered and beaten to death. In
2005, authorities arrested Dennis Rader, a municipal employee and
church leader, for the so-called BTK (blind, torture, kill) serial
killings that terrorized Wichita, Kan. Rader was convicted and
sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms. In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych was
sworn in as president of Ukraine. He was ousted in 2014. In 2012,
Yemen's new president, Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was sworn in with a
promise to continue fighting al-Qaida, calling it a religious and
national duty. He was run out of the country by Houthi rebels in 2015.
In 2013, the Roman Catholic Church announced that Cardinal Keith
O'Brien, 74, the church's most senior cleric in Britain, resigned amid
allegations of committing inappropriate acts years earlier in his
relations with certain priests. In 2014, U.S. health officials reported
the obesity rate among 2- to 5-year-old children had dropped 43 percent
in the past decade. In 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry, during
testimony in front of Congress, accused Russia of lying to his face
about its involvement in Ukraine. In 2016, three people were killed and
14 injured in a mass shooting at a Kansas facility that manufactures
lawn care products. A thought for the day: Hating people because of
their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the
hating. It's just plain wrong. -- Muhammad Ali .
