Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Monday, April 8, the 98th day of 2002 with 267 to follow. The moon is waning, moving toward its new phase. Advertisement There are no morning stars. The evening stars are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, in 1726; pioneer neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing in 1869; actress Mary Pickford in 1893; Olympic figure skater Sonja Henie in 1912; former first lady Betty Ford in 1918 (age 84); comedian Shecky Greene in 1926 (age 76); actor and former ambassador to Mexico John Gavin in 1928 (age 74); U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1938 (age 64); choreographer Michael Bennett of "A Chorus Line" fame in 1943; actor/singer John Schneider in 1954 (age 48); musician Julian Lennon in 1963 (age 39); actresses Robin Wright in 1966 (age 36) and Patricia Arquette in 1968 (age 34); and actor Taran Noah Smith ("Home Improvement") in 1984 (age 18). Advertisement On this date in history: In 1917, Austria-Hungary, an ally of Germany, severed diplomatic relations with the United States. In 1949, 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus of San Marino, Calif., fell into an abandoned well. Her body was found two days later. In 1952, President Truman ordered government seizure of the steel industry to avoid a general strike. In 1960, the U.S. Senate passed the landmark Civil Rights Bill. In 1965, Lawrence Bradford, 16, became the first black page appointed to the U.S. Senate. In 1974, Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, breaking the record set by Babe Ruth. In 1990, Ryan White, who put the face of a child on AIDS, died at age 18. In 1991, European nations began allowing Polish citizens to enter without visas. In 1992, former tennis great Arthur Ashe confirmed he had AIDS. He said he'd contracted the disease from a blood transfusion. In 1993, Marian Anderson, the first black singer to appear at New York's Metropolitan Opera, died at age 91. In 1994, Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, 27, was found dead in his Seattle home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Advertisement In 1995, in his book "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," former secretary of defense Robert McNamera wrote that he and other American leaders had been "wrong, terribly wrong" about the war. In 1997, Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles, a Republican, was re-elected. A thought for the day: there's a Chinese proverb that says, "If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
