The almanac

Today is Sunday, March 21, the 80th day of 2010 with 285 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include composer Johann Sebastian Bach in 1685; Mexican revolutionary and president Benito Juarez in 1806; Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1839; theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld in 1869; English theatrical director Peter Brook in 1925 (age 85); musician Eddie Money in 1949 (61); and actors James Coco in 1930, Al Freeman Jr. in 1934 (age 76), Timothy Dalton in 1946 (age 64), Gary Oldman in 1958 (age 52) and Matthew Broderick and Rosie O'Donnell, both in 1962 (age 48).

On this date in history:

In 1413, Henry V crowned king of England.

In 1617, Pocahontas died in England at about age 22. Three years earlier, she converted to Christianity, taken the name Rebecca and married Englishman John Rolfe.

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia became the first U.S. secretary of state.

In 1857, move the 100,000 killed in an earthquake in Tokyo.

In 1918, U.S. and German soldiers fought the World War I battle of the Somme.

In 1945, 7,000 Allied planes dropped more than 12,000 tons of explosives on Germany during a single World War II daytime bombing raid.

In 1952, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed organizes the first rock 'n' roll concert -- the Moondog Coronation Ball.

In 1960, police opened fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators in the black township of Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, killing 69 people and wounding 180.

In 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledged that Russia would cooperate with the United States in peaceful exploration of space. The joint American-Soviet Soyuz space mission was conducted in July 1975.

In 1963, the federal prison on San Francisco Bay's Alcatraz Island was closed.

In 1965, more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators, led by Martin Luther King Jr., began a four-day march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, Ala., to demand federal protection of voting rights.

In 1984, the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk collided with a nuclear-powered Soviet submarine in the Sea of Japan.

In 1993, Nicaraguan rebels ended their 13-day seizure of the Nicaraguan Embassy, freeing the last 11 hostages under a deal that gave them asylum in the Dominican Republic.

In 1999, balloonists Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones landed near Cairo, Egypt, after becoming the first to circle the globe by balloon.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II, referring to the sexual abuse scandal that had shaken the Roman Catholic clergy, said in a letter that "a dark shadow of suspicion" had fallen over all priests because of the behavior of those who had succumbed to "the most grievous forms" of evil.

In 2003, some 1,300 missiles struck Baghdad after dark in part of what the Pentagon dubbed its "shock-and-awe" offensive as journalists imbedded with the troops reported from the battleground. Meanwhile, U.S. troops seized major oil fields near Basra.

Also in 2003, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $2.2 trillion budget embracing President George W. Bush's tax-cutting plan.

In 2004, for the third consecutive year, Wal-Mart Stores was ranked No. 1 among the nation's largest companies on Fortune Magazine's 50th annual Fortune 500 list.

In 2005, a 17-year-old youth at the northern Minnesota Indian Reservation of Red Lake killed nine people, wounded 12 others and then killed himself.

Also in 2005, the number of undocumented residents in the United States totaled 11 million people, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a report.

In 2006, about 100 armed Iraqi insurgents stormed a jail north of Baghdad, killing 18 policemen and freeing 10 prisoners. Ten of the attackers were reported killed.

In 2007, some 400,000 public sector workers staged a general strike in Israel, shutting down airports, railways and seaports over unpaid wages.

In 2009, in another incident in a series of multiple homicides, Lovelle Mixon, an Oakland, Calif., man with a long criminal record, killed four police officers before he died in a police shootout. Two bystanders also were fatally shot.

A thought for the day: Thomas Jefferson advised, "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."