The Almanac
Today is Friday, March 3, the 62nd day of 2017 with 303 to follow. The
moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Venus.
Evening stars are Mercury, Venus, Uranus and Mars. Those born on this
date are under the sign of Pisces. They include English poet Edmund
Waller in 1606; industrialist George Pullman, inventor of the railway
sleeping car, in 1831; telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell in
1847; Charles Ponzi, convicted of fraud for a pyramid scheme that bears
his name, in 1882; U.S. Army Gen. Matthew Ridgway in 1895; movie star
Jean Harlow in 1911; Star Trek actor James Scotty Doohan in 1920;
musician Arthel Lane Doc Watson in 1923; Lee Radziwill, sister of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in 1933 (age 84); fashion designer Perry
Ellis in 1940; author Ron Chernow in 1949 (age 68); actor Miranda
Richardson in 1958 (age 59); radio show host Ira Glass in 1959 (age
58); football star Herschel Walker, 1982 Heisman Trophy winner, in 1962
(age 55); Olympic gold medal heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1962
(age 55); actor Julie Bowen in 1970 (age 47); actor David Faustino in
1974 (age 43); actor Jessica Biel in 1982 (age 35). On this date in
history: In 1845, Florida was admitted to the United States as the 27th
state. In 1875, Carmen by Georges Bizet premiered in Paris. In 1879,
attorney Belva Ann Lockwood became the first woman to argue a case
before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1923, Time magazine published its
first issue. In 1931, an act of Congress designated The Star-Spangled
Banner the national anthem of the United States. In 1938, the last of
three of Stalin's public show trials, the Trial of the Twenty-One,
began, with the defendants being charged in a plot to murder Josef
Stalin as well as some of the highest officials of the Soviet regime.
In 1974, a Turkish jetliner crashed near Paris, killing 345 people. In
1982, the Argentine government threatened to break off diplomatic
relations with Britain if the Falkland Islands were not handed back by
the following year's 150th anniversary of the British presence on the
islands. In 1985, coal miners in Britain ended a yearlong strike, the
longest and costliest labor dispute in British history. In 1986, the
U.S. President's Commission on Organized Crime, ending a 32-month
investigation, called for drug testing of most working Americans,
including all federal employees. In 1991, home video captured a Los
Angeles police beating of motorist Rodney King that triggered a
national debate on police brutality. Acquittal of the LAPD officers in
1992 led to deadly riots during which King asked at a news conference,
Can we all get along? King died at the age of 47 in 2012. In 1993, Dr.
Albert Sabin, the medical pioneer who helped conquer polio, died at his
home of heart failure. He was 86. In 1997, former CIA official Harold
Nicholson pleaded guilty to spying for Russia. He was sentenced to 23
years and seven months in prison. In 2006, former U.S. Rep. Randy
Cunningham, R-Calif., was sentenced to eight years in prison for taking
$2.4 million in bribes from military contractors. Cunningham was
released from prison in 2013. In 2010, same-sex marriages became legal
in the District of Columbia. In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama told
Russia its seizure of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula would put them on the
wrong side of history and warned of possible economic sanctions. In
2015, the State Department confirmed that Hillary Clinton exclusively
used a personal email account to conduct official business while
serving as U.S. secretary of state. A thought for the day: Saying
nothing sometimes says the most. -- Emily Dickinson .
