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The Almanac

By United Press International
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Today is Tuesday, April 13, the 104th day of 2004 with 262 to follow.

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Neptune, Uranus and Pluto. The evening stars are Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn.

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, in 1743; Frank Woolworth, founder of the five-and-dime stores, in 1852; Alfred Butts, inventor of the game "Scrabble," in 1899; Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in 1906; Harold Stassen, former Minnesota governor who sought the Republican presidential nomination seven times, in 1907; author Eudora Welty in 1909; actor/singer Howard Keel in 1917 (age 87); actors Lyle Waggoner in 1935 (age 69), Paul Sorvino in 1939 (age 65) and Tony Dow (Wally on "Leave It To Beaver") in 1945 (age 59); singers Al Green in 1946 (age 58) and Peabo Bryson in 1951 (age 53); "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" bandleader Max Weinberg also in 1951 (age 53); and actors Ron Perlman in 1950 (age 54) and Rick Schroeder in 1970 (age 34).

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On this date in history:

In 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first African-American to win an Oscar, honored for his work in "Lillies of the Field."

In 1965, Lawrence Bradford Jr., a 16-year-old from New York City, started work as the first black page ever to serve in either chamber of Congress.

In 1972, the first major league baseball strike ended, eight days after it began.

In 1984, Christopher Wilder, the FBI's "most wanted man," accidentally killed himself as police moved in to arrest him in New Hampshire. Wilder was a suspect in the deaths, rapes and disappearances of 11 young women in eight states.

In 1987, the Population Reference Bureau reported that the world's population had exceeded 5 billion.

In 1990, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave Lithuania a two-day ultimatum, threatening to cut off some supplies to the Baltic republic if it did not rescind laws passed since a March 11 declaration of independence.

In 1991, an advance team of U.N. observers arrived in Kuwait City to set up a peacekeeping force along the Kuwait-Iraqi border.

In 1992, construction workers breeched a retaining wall in the Chicago River, sending water flooding through a tunnel system connecting buildings in the downtown area.

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Also in 1992, Princess Anne, daughter of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, began divorce proceedings after a two-year separation from Capt. Mark Phillips.

In 1994, five Israelis were killed and another 30 wounded in a suicide bombing in a bus station in Hadera.

In 1997, Tiger Woods, 21, won the Masters Tournament. He was the youngest Masters champion and the first African-American to win any of the four major professional golf tournaments for men.

Also in 1997, Indian Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda resigned.

In 2003, President George W. Bush said Syria had chemical weapons and was accepting Iraqi leaders into the country. Syria denied having weapons of mass destruction and announced later it was closing its borders to fleeing Iraqis.

In 2003 sports, Canadian Mike Weir won the Masters golf tournament in a one-hole playoff with Len Mattiace. Tiger Woods, bidding for his third straight Masters crown, finished far back.


A thought for the day: "We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own." Ben Sweetmand said that.

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