The Almanac
Today is Wednesday, March 29, the 88th day of 2017 with 277 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 Aries. They include John Tyler, 10th
president of the United States, in 1790; baseball pitching legend Cy
Young in 1867; Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota Democrat whose 1968
presidential campaign focused on U.S. opposition to the Vietnam War, in
1916; actor/singer Pearl Bailey in 1918; Walmart founder Sam Walton in
1918; political commentator John McLaughlin in 1927; former British
Prime Minister John Major in 1943 (age 74); actor Eric Idle in 1943
(age 74); Greek composer Vangelis in 1943 (age 74); basketball Hall of
Fame member Walt Frazier in 1945 (age 72); Karen Ann Quinlan, the focus
of arguments over the right to die when she fell into an irreversible
coma, in 1954; football Hall of Fame member Earl Campbell in 1955 (age
62); actor Brendan Gleeson in 1955 (age 62); gymnast Kurt Thomas in
1956 (age 61); actor Christopher Lambert in 1957 (age 60); actor Amy
Sedaris in 1961 (age 56); model Elle Macpherson in 1963 (age 54); actor
Lucy Lawless in 1968 (age 49); former tennis star Jennifer Capriati in
1976 (age 41). On this date in history: In 1812, Lucy Payne Washington,
sister-in-law of U.S. President James Madison, married Supreme Court
Justice Thomas Dodd in the first wedding performed in the White House.
In 1886, Coca-Cola was created by Dr. John Pemberton, who produced it
in his backyard in Atlanta. In 1951, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were
convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for passing atomic weapons
information to the Soviet Union. They were executed in 1953. In 1961,
the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment
gave District of Columbia residents the right to vote in presidential
elections. In 1971, cult leader Charles Manson and three followers
(Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel) were
sentenced to death in the Tate-Labianca slayings in Los Angeles. The
sentences and a fifth death sentence, for Charles Tex Watson, were
later commuted to life in prison. In 1973, the last U.S. combat troops
left South Vietnam (some advisers and others remained), ending the
United States' direct military involvement in a war that didn't
officially end until 1975. In 1991, six-time Italian Prime Minister
Giulio Andreotti quit, opening the way for the country's 50th
government since World War II. In 1999, the Dow Jones industrial
average closed at more than 10,000 for the first time. In 2004,
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia
joined NATO. In 2006, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
Kadima Party narrowly won the national election, taking 28 seats,
forcing it into a coalition situation. In 2009, eight people died in a
shooting rampage at a Carthage, N.C., nursing home and six others were
killed in what police called murder-suicide shootings in Santa Clara,
Calif. In 2010, two female suicide bombers killed 39 people in attacks
on the Moscow subway system. In 2011, small levels of radiation from
Japan's earthquake-tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant were
detected in at least 15 U.S. states, but the Environmental Protection
Agency said they posed no threat to public health. In 2014, same-sex
marriage became legal in England and Wales. A thought for the day:
Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent
characteristic in men. -- Gen. George S. Patton Jr. .
