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The almanac

By United Press International
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Today is Saturday, March 8, the 67th day of 2014 with 298 to follow.

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

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in 1841; Scottish writer Kenneth Grahame, author of "The Wind in the Willows," in 1859; American printer and type designer Frederic William Goudy in 1865; German nuclear chemist Otto Hahn, discoverer of nuclear fission, in 1879; actor/dancer Cyd Charisse in 1922; actors Sam Jaffe in 1891, Louise Beavers in 1902, Claire Trevor in 1910, Alan Hale, Jr. in 1921, Susan Clark in 1940 (age 74) and Lynn Redgrave in 1943; member of the Monkees pop music group Micky Dolenz in 1945 (age 69); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Randy Meisner (Eagles) in 1946 (age 68); songwriter Carole Bayer Sager in 1947 (age 67); baseball Hall of Fame member Jim Rice in 1953 (age 61); television journalist Lester Holt in 1959 (age 55); actors Aidan Quinn in 1959 (age 55), Camryn Manheim in 1961 (age 53), Freddie Prinze Jr. in 1976 (age 38) and James Van Der Beek in 1977 (age 37).

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On this date in history:

In 1817, the New York Stock Exchange was established.

In 1913, the Internal Revenue Service began to levy and collect income taxes in the United States.

In 1917, strikes and riots in St. Petersburg marked the start of the Russian Bolshevik revolution.

In 1921, after Germany failed to make its first war reparation payment, French troops occupied Dusseldorf and other towns on the Ruhr River in Germany's industrial heartland.

In 1957, Egypt reopened the Suez Canal to international traffic after Israel withdrew from occupied Egyptian territory.

In 1965, nearly 4,000 U.S. Marines landed in South Vietnam.

In 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union an "evil empire" in a speech before the British House of Commons.

In 1990, Colombia's M-19 leftist guerrilla group surrendered its arms, ending 16 years of insurrection.

In 1992, Menachem Begin, the stern, hunted Israeli underground leader who won win the Nobel Peace Prize as prime minister for making peace with Egypt, died of heart failure. He was 78.

In 1999, baseball great Joe DiMaggio died at age 84.

In 2004, Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre was named interim president of Haiti.

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In 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush vetoed legislation that would have outlawed severe interrogation methods such as waterboarding used by the CIA. Bush said the proposal would eliminate "one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror."

In 2010, up to 500 people were killed in a nighttime "ethnic cleansing" raid on a village near Nigeria's turbulent city of Jos.

In 2013, former Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem and ex-Defense Minister Oscar Camilion were convicted of smuggling weapons to Croatia and Ecuador.


A thought for the day: "Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me." -- Fred Rogers

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