The almanac

Today is Monday, March 15, the 75th day of 2010 with 291 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, in 1767; German immunologist Emil von Behring in 1854; Hollywood movie mogul Lew Wasserman in 1913; actor Joe E. Ross in 1915; trumpet virtuoso and bandleader Harry James in 1916; football Hall of Fame inductee Norm Van Brocklin in 1926; astronaut Alan Bean in 1932 (age 78); U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1933 (age 77); actor Judd Hirsch and televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, both in 1935 (age 75); rock musicians Phil Lesh in 1940 (age 70) and Ry Cooder in 1947 (age 63); singers Mike Love of the Beach Boys in 1941 (age 69) and Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone in 1943 (age 67); actor Park Overall in 1957 (age 53); model Fabio Lanzoni, in 1959 (age 51); singers Bret Michaels in 1953 (age 47) and will.i.am in 1975 (age 35); and actor Eva Longoria in 1975 (age 35).

On this date in history:

In 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was assassinated by Brutus and other Roman nobles in Rome.

In 1493, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the New World.

In 1776, South Carolina declared independence from Great Britain and set up its own government, the first American colony to do so.

In 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise between the North and the South, Maine was admitted into the Union as the 23rd state. It had been administered as a province of Massachusetts since 1647.

In 1906, Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated.

In 1916, U.S. Army General John "Black Jack" Pershing marched into Mexico to capture revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, who had staged several cross-border raids. The two-year expedition was unsuccessful.

In 1985, two decades of military rule in Brazil ended with the installation of a civilian government.

In 1990, the Israeli Knesset brought down Yitzhak Shamir's government on a no-confidence motion after the Likud Party leader refused to accept a U.S. peace proposal.

In 1991, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic declared Serbia's secession from the Yugoslav federation.

In 1997, the rebellion in Zaire continued as Kisangani, the African nation's third-largest city, fell to rebel forces.

In 2001, Chechen militants hijacked a Russian airliner en route from Istanbul, Turkey, to Moscow and diverted it to Medina, Saudi Arabia. After nearly 24 hours of fruitless negotiations, a Saudi security team stormed the plane and freed the hostages.

In 2003, a strange new illness with pneumonia-like symptoms called severe acute respiratory syndrome -- SARS -- spread from Asia to Europe to North America.

In 2004, astronomers reported finding an object with a diameter of 800 to 1,100 miles circling the sun far beyond the orbit of any known planet. It was dubbed a "planetoid."

In 2006, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein testified for the first time in his massacre trial, calling the judicial proceedings a comedy and urging his fellow Iraqis to stop fighting each other and focus on the United States.

Also in 2006, the United Nations approved a new human rights council aimed at banning countries that abuse human rights from membership.

In 2007, Palestinian leaders of Hamas and Fatah agreed to a coalition government but their platform didn't recognize Israel or renounce violence.

In 2008, a 19-story industrial crane collapsed on the East Side of New York's Manhattan, demolishing an apartment building and other structures. Four construction workers were killed and 13 others were hurt.

In 2009, U.S. government data said GM auto sales in February fell 53 percent below the previous year. Other data showed Ford sales were down 48 percent and Chrysler sales down 44 percent. Among the foreign cars, Toyota was off 40 percent from the previous year and Honda 38 percent.

A thought for the day: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an interviewer, "The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control."