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UPI Almanac for Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Mutiny on the Bounty, the Kon-Tiki sails, the first space tourist ... on this date in history.

By United Press International
The Bounty, a 180-foot full-rigged ship built in 1960 for MGM's motion picture "Mutiny on the Bounty," waits its turn to sail into Victoria Harbor June 26, 2008, at the Tall Ships Festival in Victoria, British Columbia. File Photo by Heinz Ruckemann/UPI
1 of 9 | The Bounty, a 180-foot full-rigged ship built in 1960 for MGM's motion picture "Mutiny on the Bounty," waits its turn to sail into Victoria Harbor June 26, 2008, at the Tall Ships Festival in Victoria, British Columbia. File Photo by Heinz Ruckemann/UPI | License Photo

Today is Tuesday, April 28, the 118th day of 2015 with 247 to follow.

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

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include James Monroe, fifth president of the United States, in 1758; Dutch legal scholar/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tobias Michael Carel Asser in 1838; actor Lionel Barrymore in 1878; German industrialist Oskar Schindler, credited with saving almost 1,200 Jews during the World War II Holocaust, in 1908; novelist Harper Lee ("To Kill a Mockingbird") in 1926 (age 89); former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in 1930 (age 85); actor Carolyn Jones in 1930; Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1937; actor Madge Sinclair in 1938; actor Ann-Margret in 1941 (age 74); actor Marcia Strassman in 1948; author Terry Pratchett in 1948 (age 67); actor Bruno Kirby in 1949; former "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno in 1950 (age 65); U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in 1960 (age 55); Hall of Fame baseball player Barry Larkin in 1964 (age 51); golfer John Daly in 1966 (age 49); actor Penelope Cruz in 1974 (age 41); actor Jessica Alba in 1981 (age 34).

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On this date in history:

In 1788, Maryland ratified the U.S. Constitution, becoming the seventh state of the Union.

In 1789, the most famous of all naval mutinies took place aboard the HMS Bounty en route from Tahiti to Jamaica.

In 1930, the first night game in organized baseball history was played in Independence, Kan.

In 1945, fascist leader Benito Mussolini, his mistress and several of his friends were executed by Italian partisans.

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl and five crew members began a trip from Peru to Polynesia on the Kon-Tiki, a raft raft made of balsa logs and other natural materials. (The voyage covered 4,300 miles over 101 days.)

In 1975, North Vietnamese forces advanced to the outskirts of Saigon in the Vietnam War. (Two days later, South Vietnam surrendered.).

In 1988, an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 lost an 18-foot section of its roof at 24,000 feet between Hilo, Hawai, and Honolulu, killing a flight attendant. The pilot landed on Maui with the remaining 94 passengers and crew members, 61 of them injured.

In 1994, former CIA officer Aldrich Ames pleaded guilty to spying for the Soviet Union. (He was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 1996, a rampage by a gunman in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia, killed 35 people.

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In 2001, California businessman Dennis Tito became the first tourist in space. He reportedly paid Russia's space agency $20 million to give him a ride to the International Space Station.

In 2005, a Shiite-led Cabinet was approved by Iraq's National Assembly for its first freely elected government.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law requiring state or federal photo identification to vote.

In 2009, three Albanian immigrant brothers were sentenced in Camden, N.J., to life in prison for their part in a plot to attack soldiers at Fort Dix.

In 2012, Malaysian police fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands of protesters who defied government warnings and entered Kuala Lumpur's historic Merdeka (Independence) Square, demanding electoral reform.

In 2013, renowned concert cellist Janos Starker, who gave his first public performance at age 6 as a child prodigy in Hungary, died in Bloomington, Ind. He was 88.

In 2014, Toyota Motor Corp. announced a sweeping U.S. reorganization to include a new headquarters facility in Plano, Texas.


A thought for the day: H. Jackson Brown Jr. said, "Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking."

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