UPI Almanac for Friday, April 3, 2015

Today is Friday, April 3, the 93rd day of 2015 with 272 to follow.

This is Good Friday

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include historian/story writer Washington Irving in 1783; author/naturalist John Burroughs in 1837; actor Leslie Howard in 1893; publisher Henry Luce in 1898; comedian George Jessel in 1898; dancer Sally Rand in 1904; actor Iron Eyes Cody in 1904; newspaper columnist Herb Caen in 1916; actor Doris Day in 1924 (age 91); actor Marlon Brando in 1924; astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom in 1926; anthropologist Jane Goodall in 1934 (age 81); actor Marsha Mason in 1942 (age 73); entertainer Wayne Newton in 1942 (age 73); singer Tony Orlando in 1944 (age 71); musician Richard Thompson in 1949 (age 66); actor Alec Baldwin in 1958 (age 57); actor David Hyde Pierce in 1959 (age 56); actor/comedian Eddie Murphy in 1961 (age 54); singer Sebastian Bach in 1968 (age 47); Olympic skier Picabo Street in 1971 (age 44); actor Jennie Garth in 1972 (age 43); actor Amanda Bynes in 1986 (age 29);.

On this date in history:

In 1860, the Pony Express postal service began, with riders leaving St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento at the same time.

In 1865, as the Civil War drew to a close, Richmond, Va., and nearby Petersburg surrendered to Union forces.

In 1882, outlaw Jesse James was shot to death by Robert Ford, a former gang member who hoped to collect the reward on James' head.

In 1936, Richard Bruno Hauptmann was executed for killing the 20-month-old son of Charles A. Lindbergh.

In 1944, in a case out of Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that barring African-Americans from voting violated the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, aimed to help European countries recover from World War II.

In 1989, Richard M. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago, the post his father, Richard J. Daley, had occupied for 21 years (1955-76). (The new Mayor Daley was re-elected five times.) In 1991, the U.N. Security Council passed a cease-fire resolution to end the Persian Gulf War.

In 1995, owners and players of Major League Baseball approved an agreement ending a 232-day strike that forced the cancellation of hundreds of games and the 1994 World Series.

In 1996, the FBI raided a Montana cabin and arrested Theodore Kaczynski, a former college professor, accusing him of being the "Unabomber" whose mail bombs had killed three people and injured 23 since the 1970s. (Kaczynski was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush told Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina that victory was at hand in Iraq. On that day, coalition troops crossed the Tigris River and moved to within 25 miles of Baghdad.

In 2009, 13 people, including the gunman, a Vietnamese immigrant, were killed in shootings at an immigration services center in Binghamton, N.Y.

In 2012, Yahoo! announced it was laying off 2,000 employees -- 14 percent of its staff -- as part of a reorganization plan.

In 2013, a Pew Research Poll found 84 percent of U.S. Catholics had a favorable impression of new Pope Francis.

In 2014, longtime late-night TV host David Letterman announced he would retire in 2015.

A thought for the day: "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" -- Pope Francis