Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Thursday, Aug. 29, the 241st day of 2013 with 124 to follow. The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. Evening stars are Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Venus. Advertisement Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include English philosopher John Locke in 1632; author and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in 1809; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in 1813; automotive inventor Charles Kettering in 1876; actors Barry Sullivan in 1912 and Ingrid Bergman in 1915; jazz saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker in 1920; British filmmaker Richard Attenborough in 1923 (age 90); jazz and pop singer Dinah Washington in 1924; filmmaker William Friedkin ("The Exorcist") in 1935 (age 78); U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Republican nominee for president in 2008, in 1936 (age 77); actor Elliott Gould in 1938 (age 75); TV personality Robin Leach ("Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous") in 1941 (age 72); entertainer Michael Jackson in 1958; and actor Rebecca De Mornay in 1959 (age 54). Advertisement On this date in history: In 1533, Atahualpa, last of the Inca rulers, was strangled under orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. The Inca Empire died with him. In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb at a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. In 1965, U.S. astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad landed safely to end the eight-day orbital flight of Gemini 5. In 1973, U.S. District Judge John Sirica ordered U.S. President Richard Nixon to turn over secret Watergate tapes. Nixon refused and appealed the order. In 1994, Israel and the PLO signed an agreement to shift West Bank administrative functions to the Palestinian National Authority. In 2004, the Summer Olympics came to a close in Athens, Greece. The United States won the most medals, 103, 35 of them gold, led by swimmer Michael Phelps who took home six gold and two bronze medals. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore on the Gulf Coast. It inflicted severe damage in New Orleans and along the coastlines of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Katrina was the costliest storm in history, with reports of more than 1,800 people killed and $125 billion in damage. Advertisement In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the median household income in the United States was $48,201 in 2006, an increase of about $800 from the previous year. In 2009, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who died Aug. 25 after a 15-month battle with brain cancer, was buried at Washington's Arlington National Cemetery near his brothers John and Robert. In 2011, the Nepalese Parliament, where no political party had a majority, elected a Maoist, Babuarm Bhattarai, as prime minister after the parties failed to form a consensus government. In 2012, India's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people and wounded more than 200. Kasab was hanged in November. A thought for the day: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., wrote, "A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life experience."
