The Almanac
Today is Thursday, March 9, the 68th day of 2017 with 297 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 explorer Amerigo
Vespucci in 1454; Leland Stanford, railroad builder and founder of
California's Stanford University, in 1824; English novelist/poet
Victoria Sackville-West in 1892; actor Will Geer in 1902; composer
Samuel Barber in 1910; detective novelist Mickey Spillane in 1918;
actor Joyce Van Patten in 1934 (age 81); Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin,
the first man in space, in 1934; actor Marty Ingels in 1936; country
singer Mickey Gilley in 1936 (age 81); actor Raul Julia in 1940; rock
'n' roll singer Mark Lindsay in 1942 (age 75); actor Trish Van Devere
in 1943 (age 74); former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1943;
rock musician Robin Trower in 1945 (age 72); actor Linda Fiorentino in
1958 (age 59); actor Juliette Binoche in 1964 (age 53); actor Emmanuel
Lewis in 1971 (age 46); Olympic gold medal skier Julia Mancuso in 1984
(age 33); rapper/actor Bow Wow (born Shad Gregory Moss) in 1987 (age
30). On this date in history: In 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled,
with one dissent, that the African slaves who seized control of the
Amistad slave ship had been illegally forced into slavery and thus were
free under U.S. law. In 1862, a battle between ironclad ships -- the
Union's Monitor and the Confederate's Merrimac (renamed the Virginia)
-- ended indecisively off Hampton Roads, Va. In 1864, Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant was appointed commander in chief of Union forces in the U.S.
Civil War. In 1916, several hundred Mexican guerrillas under the
command of Francisco Pancho Villa crossed the U.S. -Mexican border and
attacked the small border town of Columbus, N.M., killing 17 Americans.
In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt presented the first of his New
Deal policies, the Emergency Banking Act, to Congress, which promptly
passed the legislation. In 1945, more than 300 American B-29 bombers
attacked Tokyo with incendiary bombs, killing about 100,000 people and
destroying an estimated 250,000 buildings over 16 square miles. In
1959, Barbie, which became a perennially popular doll, made its debut
in stores. Celebrate Barbie at 25, 30, and 50. In 1965, at least 1,000
Negroes led by six Roman Catholic nuns tried to march to the Dallas
County courthouse but were halted by a force of city, council and state
officers. In 1992, a federal judge in New York announced a final $1.3
billion agreement to settle civil suits growing out of the 1989
collapse of Drexel Burham Lambert, once the most powerful firm on Wall
Street. In 2004, John Allen Muhammad was sentenced to death for his
part in one of 10 Washington-area sniper killings in 2002. Muhammad was
executed in 2009. In 2005, Dan Rather stepped down as anchor and
managing editor of CBS Evening News. His departure followed
acknowledgment of major flaws in a broadcast about U.S. President
George W. Bush's National Guard service. In 2009, U.S. President Barack
Obama lifted the U.S. limit on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell
research, calling it an important advancement in the cause of science
in the United States. In 2011, the archbishop of Philadelphia placed 21
Roman Catholic priests, accused of sexually abusing children, on
administrative leave and apologized to his fellow Catholics. Also in
2011, after 39 flights over 27 years of service, the space shuttle
Discovery made its final landing at Kennedy Space Center. In 2014,
William Clay Ford Sr., grandson of Ford Motor Co founder Henry Ford and
owner of the Detroit Lions NFL team, died at his suburban Detroit home
at the age of 88. A thought for the day: Leave the matter of religion
to the family ... the church and the private school, supported entirely
by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.
-- Ulysses S. Grant .
