The almanac

• Tweet

Today is Sunday, April 29, the 120th day of 2012 with 246 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1863; bandleader and composer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington in 1899; Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1901; actor Celeste Holm in 1917 (age 95); pro football coach George Allen in 1918; English skiffle group leader Lonnie Donegan in 1931; poet Rod McKuen in 1933 (age 79); baseball Hall of Fame member Luis Aparicio in 1934 (age 78); conductor Zubin Mehta in 1936 (age 76); financier and Ponzi scheme operator Bernard Madoff in 1938 (age 74); musician Tommy James, long-distance runner and former U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., and golfer Johnny Miller, all in 1947 (age 65); auto racer Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 1951; comedians Nora Dunn in 1952 (age 60) and Jerry Seinfeld in 1954 (age 58); actors Kate Mulgrew in 1955 (age 57), Daniel Day-Lewis in 1957 (age 55), Michelle Pfeiffer and Eve Plumb, both in 1958 (age 54) and Uma Thurman in 1970 (age 42); and tennis players Andre Agassi in 1970 (age 42) and tennis doubles specialists (and twin brothers) Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in 1978 (age 34).

On this date in history:

In 1864, Ashmun Institute in Pennsylvania, the first college founded solely for African-American students, was officially chartered.

In 1885, women were admitted for the first time to examinations at England's Oxford University.

In 1913, Gideon Sundbach of Hoboken, N.J., was issued a patent for the zipper.

In 1945, U.S. troops liberated 32,000 prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany.

In 1985, four gunmen escaped with nearly $8 million in cash stolen from the Wells Fargo armored car company in New York.

In 1986, an arson fire destroyed more than 1 million books in the Los Angeles Central Library.

In 1988, the first condor conceived in captivity was born at San Diego Wild Animal Park.

In 1991, more than 100 people were killed when a magnitude-7 earthquake rocked Soviet Georgia, destroying hospitals, schools, factories and 17,000 homes.

In 1992, rioting erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley, Calif., acquitted four white police officers of nearly all charges in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. Fifty-three people died in three days of protest and violence.

Also in 1992, a Sarasota, Fla., judge denied custody rights to the biological parents of a 13-year-old girl, ruling she should remain with the man who raised her since the 1978 hospital mix-up of infants.

In 1994, an estimated 250,000 Rwandans fleeing the fighting crossed the border into neighboring Tanzania in one day.

In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney underwent more than three hours of questioning about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Also in 2004, the final Oldsmobile was manufactured. The brand had been in existence for 107 years.

In 2005, at least 27 people were killed and 100 wounded as insurgents targeted Iraqi forces with bombs in a horrific 3-hour melee in and near Baghdad.

In 2006, the U.S. National Counter-terrorism Center said international terror attacks numbered 11,111 attacks in 2005, nearly four times more than the previous year.

In 2009, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, winding up his fifth term as a Republican stalwart, announced he would seek re-election in 2010 as a Democrat, switching parties because he found himself "increasingly at odds" with the Republican Party.

Also in 2009, Congress passed U.S. President Barack Obama's $3.4 trillion budget resolution for fiscal 2010 on his 100th day in office. Obama got most of his spending priorities in the document but received no Republican support.

In 2010, for a second consecutive day in China, a knife-wielding man attacked schoolchildren, this time in eastern Jiangsu Province, injuring 28 kindergarteners, five of them critically. The day before, another man injured 16 children and a teacher with a knife at a primary school in south China's Guangdong Province.

Also in 2010, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus formally announced a policy change that allows women to serve on submarines.

In 2011, British Prince William, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, and college sweetheart Kate Middleton, the new duchess of Cambridge, exchanged wedding rings and vows in a regal ceremony at Westminster Abbey before an estimated worldwide audience of 2 billion people.

Also in 2011, although gross domestic product growth slowed in the first quarter, corporate earnings remained robust and stocks were strong. The Dow Jones industrial averages closed at 12,810.54, a monthly gain of 4.3 percent. The Nasdaq composite and the Standard and Poor's 500 kept pace.

-0-

Thought for the day: William Randolph Hearst reportedly said, "A politician will do anything to keep his job -- even become a patriot."