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UPI Almanac for Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014

Apollo 8 returns to Earth, assassinations in Pakistan and Lebanon ... on this date in history.

By United Press International
This photo -- over the moon's horizon -- was taken by the Apollo 8 crew in December 1968. It showed Earth for the first time as it appeared from deep space. Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were on the spacecraft, which orbited the moon 10 times and returned to Earth Dec. 27, 1968. NASA photo/UPI/File
1 of 10 | This photo -- over the moon's horizon -- was taken by the Apollo 8 crew in December 1968. It showed Earth for the first time as it appeared from deep space. Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were on the spacecraft, which orbited the moon 10 times and returned to Earth Dec. 27, 1968. NASA photo/UPI/File | License Photo

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Today is Saturday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2014 with four to follow.

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

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1571; English engineer George Cayley, father of the science of aerodynamics, in 1773; French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur in 1822; actors Sydney Greenstreet in 1879, Marlene Dietrich in 1901 and Cliff Arquette in 1905; musician/actor Oscar Levant in 1906; actor John Amos in 1939 (age 75); news correspondent Cokie Roberts in 1943 (age 71); French actor Gerard Depardieu in 1948 (age 66); and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon in 1951 (age 63).


On this date in history:

In 1932, Radio City Music Hall opened in New York.

In 1941, Japanese warplanes bombed Manila in the Philippines even though it had been declared an "open city."

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In 1947, the first "Howdy Doody" show, under the title "Puppet Playhouse," was telecast on NBC.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts -- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders -- returned to Earth after orbiting the moon 10 times in a flight that helped open the way for moon-landing missions.

In 1991, a Scandinavian Airlines jet with 129 people aboard crashed and broke apart after taking off from Stockholm. No one died in the incident.

In 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, first woman to hold that post in an Islamic state, was assassinated in a suicide attack as she left a political rally in Rawalpindi. Police said she was shot twice by a gunman who then set off a bomb in her motorcade, killing another 20 people.

In 2008, 225 people died when Israeli jets bombed Gaza in retaliation for Hamas-fired rockets, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. At least 300 people were wounded.

In 2012, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the U.S. Central Command during the Persian Gulf War, died in Tampa, Fla. He was 78.

In 2013, a car bomb in Beirut killed seven people, including Mohammad Chatah, Lebanon's former ambassador to the United States. Dozens of others were injured in the attack, which officials said targeted Chatah's convoy in the central section of the city. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Chatah had been "a voice of reason, responsibility and moderation."

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A thought for the day: "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, human rights invented America." -- President Jimmy Carter

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