The almanac

Today is Monday, April 9, the 100th day of 2012 with 266 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include French poet Charles Baudelaire in 1821; actor/singer Paul Robeson and football Hall of Fame member Curly Lambeau, both in 1898; birth control pill inventor Gregory Pincus and actor Ward Bond, both in 1903; former U.S. Sen. James William Fulbright, D-Ark., in 1905; Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner in 1926 (age 86); singer/songwriter Tom Lehrer in 1928 (age 84); rock 'n' roll pioneer Carl Perkins in 1932; actor Jean-Paul Belmondo in 1933 (age 79); comedian Avery Schreiber in 1935; journalist Peter Gammons in 1945 (age 67); golf Hall of Fame member Seve Ballesteros in 1957; model Paulina Porizkova in 1965 (age 47); actors Michael Learned in 1939 (age 73), Dennis Quaid in 1954 (age 58), Cynthia Nixon in 1966 (age 46), Keshia Knight Pulliam in 1979 (age 33), Kristen Stewart in 1990 (age 22) and Elle Fanning in 1998 (age 14); and political commentator Joe Scarborough in 1963 (age 49).

On this date in history:

In 1413, Henry V was crowned king of England.

In 1816, the first all-black U.S. religious denomination, the AME church, was organized in Philadelphia.

In 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia, bringing the Civil War to a close.

In 1866, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill of 1866, which granted blacks the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship and formed the basis for the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1939, on Easter Sunday, African-American contralto Marian Anderson gave a free open-air concert before more than 75,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington after the Daughters of the American Revolution denied her use of Constitution Hall because of her race.

In 1940, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.

In 1947, a tornado roared through at least 12 towns in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, killing 169 people. The twister traveled 221 miles across the three states.

In 1959, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration introduced America's first astronauts to the public. The seven men, all military test pilots, were carefully selected from a group of 32 candidates to take part in Project Mercury.

In 1963, by an act of the U.S. Congress, British statesman Winston Churchill became an honorary U.S. citizen.

In 1965, the Astrodome opened in Houston for the first indoor major league baseball game.

In 1976, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on the size of nuclear tests for peaceful use.

In 1989, troops clashed with nationalist demonstrators in the capital of the Soviet republic of Georgia.

In 1991, the Soviet republic of Georgia declared independence.

In 1992, a federal jury in Miami convicted deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega on cocaine trafficking charges.

In 1996, former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced to 19 months in prison.

In 1997, a government of unity was launched in Angola, three years after the end of the country's 19-year civil war, with the seating of 70 members of the rebel UNITA party in Parliament.

In 1998, tornadoes and storms took 39 lives in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.

In 1999, the president of Niger was assassinated, reportedly by members of his own guard. A military junta led by the commander of the presidential guards took over.

In 2000, Peru's President Alberto Fujimori failed to win a first-round election victory, forcing a run-off in May that he won. However, a vote-fraud scandal forced him to step down later in the year.

In 2003, the mood in Iraq became exuberant as Iraqis, with help from Americans, toppled a 20-foot statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square.

In 2005, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, married Camilla Parker Bowles, his long-time companion, at Windsor Castle. She took the title duchess of Cornwall.

Also in 2005, authorities in Lusaka, Zambia, said more than 40 schoolchildren, on their way home at the end of the term, were killed near Lusaka when the truck in which they were riding overturned.

In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country could produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.

In 2008, the World Bank reported that worldwide food prices had risen 83 percent over the three-year period preceding February 2008.

In 2009, the Obama administration asked Congress for $83.4 billion in additional funds for the balance of the 2009 fiscal year of which $75.8 billion was intended for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2010, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 11 days shy of 90, announced he would retire after 35 years on the court where he was widely regarded as leader of the court's liberal bloc.

In 2011, "Arab Spring" hostilities escalated in Libya, Yemen and Syria and flared anew in Egypt. Meanwhile, an African Union cease-fire proposal for Libya was accepted by Moammar Qaddafi but rejected by the rebels because it didn't call for Gaddafi's ouster.

Also in 2011, a bombing that killed 11 people and severely injured 26 others marred the first of three elections in Nigeria.

A thought for the day: Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, "Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind."