The almanac

Today is Wednesday, March 20, the 79th day of 2013 with 286 to follow.

This is the first day of spring.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include Roman poet Ovid in 43 B.C.; adventurer and writer Edward Judson, originator of the dime novel, writing as Ned Buntline, in 1823; Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1828; psychologist B.F. Skinner in 1904; actor/bandleader Ozzie Nelson and former New York Mayor Abe Beame, both in 1906; British actors Michael Redgrave in 1908 and Vera Lynn in 1917; television host Jack Barry in 1918; diplomat Pamela Harriman in 1920; actor, producer, director Carl Reiner in 1922 (age 91); Fred Rogers (TV's "Mister Rogers") in 1928; actor Hal Linden in 1931 (age 82); singer/songwriter Jerry Reed in 1937; former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1939 (age 74); basketball Hall of Fame member Pat Riley in 1945 (age 68); hockey Hall of Fame member Bobby Orr in 1948 (age 65); actor William Hurt in 1950 (age 63); filmmaker Spike Lee and actor Theresa Russell, both in 1957 (age 56); actors Holly Hunter in 1958 (age 55) and David Thewlis in 1963 (age 50); and model and actor Kathy Ireland in 1963 (age 40).

On this date in history:

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published.

In 1854, in what is considered the founding meeting of the Republican Party, former members of the Whig Party met in Ripon, Wis., to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories.

In 1963, a volcano on the East Indies island of Bali began erupting. The death toll exceeded 1,500.

In 1976, San Francisco newspaper heiress and kidnapping victim Patty Hearst was convicted of bank robbery.

In 1977, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son, Sanjay, lost parliamentary races in India's general elections.

In 1986, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 1,800 for the first time.

In 1987, the federal government approved the sale of AZT, a treatment but not a cure for AIDS.

In 1991, Baghdad was warned to abide by the cease-fire after U.S. fighter jets shot down an Iraqi jet fighter in the first major air action since the end of the Persian Gulf War.

In 1995, 12 people were killed and more than 5,000 made ill in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. Members of a religious sect were blamed.

In 1996, the world learned of "mad cow" disease from a British government report questioning the safety of British beef.

In 1997, the Liggett Group, fifth-largest U.S. tobacco company, agreed to admit that smoking was addictive and caused health problems and that the tobacco industry had sought for years to sell its products to children as young as 14.

In 2001, five days after explosions destroyed one of its support beams, the largest oilrig in the world collapsed and sank off the coast of Brazil.

In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Peru was preceded by a car bomb explosion outside the U.S. Embassy in Lima that killed nine and injured 30.

Also in 2002, the office of the special prosecutor Robert Ray announced there wasn't enough evidence that either former U.S. President Bill Clinton or his wife Hillary Clinton had committed crimes in connection with the failed Whitewater real estate venture in Arkansas.

In 2003, Brian Patrick Regan, a retired Air Force master sergeant, was sentenced to life in prison for offering to sell intelligence secrets to Saddam Hussein and the Chinese government.

In 2004, after narrowly escaping assassination the day before, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian was re-elected with about 50 percent of the vote.

In 2005, more than 30 Shiite Muslim worshippers were killed and many more injured when a bomb exploded at a shrine in the village of Fatehpur, Pakistan.

Also on this date in 2005, which was Palm Sunday, ailing Pope John Paul II appeared at his window in the Vatican but didn't speak.

In 2006, reports from Iraq said that over a two-week period, nearly 200 bodies were found in Baghdad, apparent victims of execution or torture.

In 2007, an early morning nursing home fire in southern Russia killed at least 62 people and injured 30 others.

Also in 2007, former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was hanged in Baghdad for his part in the 1982 deaths of 148 Shiites.

In 2009, an explosion killed more than 30 people at a Shiite funeral procession in Pakistan, touching off a wave of violence. Another 50-75 were injured in what officials believed was a suicide bombing attack.

In 2010, accusations of sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests were reported on the increase in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Brazil.

In 2011, Japanese officials said all reactors crippled at the Fukushima nuclear plant by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were cooling as the facility beset by explosions and fires and threatened with a meltdown moved slowly toward normalcy.

In 2012, the Cairo Criminal Court found 11 police officers guilty of killing anti-government protesters in January 2011 and sentenced them to one year in jail. Three others were acquitted.

Also in 2012, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a California pilot who sued after the federal government publicly revealed he had HIV. The high court decided claims of mental and emotional distress aren't covered under the Privacy Act.

A thought for the day: "Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of 10 people couldn't start a conversation." Kin Hubbard said that.