UPI Almanac for Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Today is Wednesday, July 20, the 202nd day of 2016 with 164 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include Macedonian leader Alexander the Great in 356 B.C.; Austrian monk/pioneering botanist Gregor Johann Mendel in 1822; New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 reached the summit of Mount Everest, in 1919; Elliot Richardson, attorney general under U.S. President Richard Nixon, in 1920; actor Sally Ann Howes in 1930 (age 86); author Cormac McCarthy in 1933 (age 83); U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the longest serving woman in U.S. Congress history, in 1936 (age 80); actor Diana Rigg in 1938 (age 78) actor Natalie Wood in 1938; singer Kim Carnes in 1945 (age 71); guitarist Carlos Santana in 1947 (age 69); actor Donna Dixon in 1957 (age 59); actor Sandra Oh in 1971 (age 45); actor Omar Epps in 1973 (age 43).

On this date in history:

In 1859, American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the first time. About 1,500 spectators each paid 50 cents to see Brooklyn play New York.

In 1881, five years after U.S. Army Gen. George A. Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrendered to the Army, which promised amnesty for him and his followers.

In 1940, Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart," topped by "I'll Never Smile Again" by the Tommy Dorsey orchestra with Frank Sinatra.

In 1945, the U.S. flag was raised over Berlin as the first American troops moved in to take part in the post-World War II occupation.

In 1951, while entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.

In 1968, the first Special Olympics Games were contested at Soldier Field in Chicago.

In 1969, U.S. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the moon -- Armstrong first and Aldrin about 20 minutes later.

In 1976, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, became the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.

In 1985, treasure hunter Mel Fisher located a Spanish galleon sunk by a 1622 hurricane off Key West, Fla. It contained $400 million worth of treasure.

In 1989, U.S. President George H.W. Bush called for the United States to organize a long-range space program to support an orbiting space station, a moon base and a manned mission to Mars.

In 1993, White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster was found shot to death in a park in northern Virginia. His death was ruled a suicide.

In 2005, the U.S. Justice Department activated its online National Sex Offender Public Registry, linking the registries of 22 states.

In 2011, International Tribunal officials announced the arrest of Goran Hadzic, the last Serbian leader wanted for war crimes.

In 2012, a gunman set off tear gas grenades and opened fire at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a theater in Aurora, Colo., killing 12 people and wounding 58. The accused killer, James E. Holmes, later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2015, he was convicted on multiple counts of murder.

In 2013, Helen Thomas, UPI White House reporter through the administrations of 10 presidents, died at age 92. President Bill Clinton called Thomas "a symbol of everything American journalism can and should be -- the embodiment of fearless integrity, fierce commitment to accuracy, the insistence of holding government accountable." Thomas left the news agency in 2000 and became a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.

In 2015, Cuba and the United States restored full diplomatic relations, with the reopening of reciprocal embassies in Havana and Washington.

A thought for the day: "Beauty is only skin deep but ugly goes clean to the bone." -- Dorothy Parker