The Almanac
Today is Saturday, March 4, the 63rd day of 2017 with 302 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 Portuguese Prince
Henry, the Navigator, in 1394; composer Antonio Vivaldi in 1678;
Polish-born American patriot Casimir Pulaski in 1747; legendary Notre
Dame football Coach Knute Rockne in 1888; bridge expert Charles Goren
in 1901; actor John Garfield in 1913; economist Alice Rivlin in 1931
(age 86); actor/singer Barbara McNair in 1934; British auto racing
champion Jimmy Clark in 1936; actor Paula Prentiss in 1938 (age 79);
Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 1950 (age 67); musician/actor/producer Emilio
Estefan in 1953 (age 64); actor Catherine O'Hara in 1954 (age 63);
actor Patricia Heaton in 1958 (age 59); actor Steven Weber in 1961 (age
56); Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini in 1965 (age 52); television
personality/activist Chaz Bono in 1969 (age 48). On this date in
history: In 1681, to satisfy a debt, England's King Charles II granted
a royal charter, deed and the governorship of Pennsylvania to William
Penn. In 1789, the U.S. Congress met for the first time, in New York
City. In 1791, Vermont was admitted to the United States as the 14th
state. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson became the first president to be
inaugurated in Washington. In 1837, the city of Chicago was
incorporated. In 1929, belief that the powerful forces of gangland had
stretched tentacles into the innermost councils of the police
department was being investigated by the state's attorney's office. In
1877, Swan Lake, a ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was first
performed at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. In 1909, the Taft
administration was ushered in with a baptism of snow and slush
accompanied by a 75 mph gale. Despite weather conditions, the
inauguration parade, or, rather a portion of it, was held. In 1913,
laughter and tears marked the passage of the 62nd United States
Congress. Humor and pathos, congratulations and condolences, were the
final scenes closing the old Congress as a defeated Uncle Joe Cannon
departed the Capitol. In 1917, Jeanette Rankin, a Montana Republican,
was sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives. She was the
first woman to serve in Congress. In 1933, Frances Perkins was sworn in
as U.S. labor secretary, becoming the first female member of the
Cabinet. In 1958, the U.S. atomic submarine Nautilus reached the North
Pole by passing beneath the Arctic ice cap. In 1987, U.S. President
Ronald Reagan acknowledged his administration swapped arms to Iran for
U.S. hostages and said, It was a mistake. In 1994, four men were found
guilty in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In 1999, a U.S.
Marine pilot whose plane had snapped a ski-lift cable in Italy, killing
20 people, was acquitted of charges of involuntary homicide and
manslaughter. In 2005, homemaking guru Martha Stewart returned home
after serving five months in a federal prison for conspiracy,
obstruction of an agency proceeding and making false statements to
federal investigators. In 2008, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
clinched the Republican nomination for president with primary wins in
Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. In 2012, Vladimir Putin was
again elected president of Russia. In 2015, a report released by the
Department of Justice found that the Ferguson Police Department
routinely performed suspicionless, legally unsupportable stops against
the African-American residents of the Missouri city. A thought for the
day: Thomas Jefferson said, When the people fear their government,
there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is
liberty. .
