Advertisement

The almanac

By United Press International
Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter

Today is Sunday, Jan. 12, the 12th day of 2014 with 353 to follow.

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

Advertisement


Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include French fairy tale writer Charles Perrault, author of the Mother Goose stories, in 1628; British statesman Edmund Burke in 1729; painter John Singer Sargent in 1856; novelist Jack London in 1876; World War II Nazi leader Hermann Goering in 1893; western singer/actor Tex Ritter in 1905; mentalist The Amazing Kreskin (born George Joseph Kresge) in 1935 (age 79); champion heavyweight boxer Joe Frazier in 1944; radio personalities Rush Limbaugh in 1951 (age 63) and Howard Stern in 1954 (age 60); news personality Christiane Amanpour in 1958 (age 56); actors Kirstie Alley in 1951 (age 63) and Oliver Platt in 1960 (age 54); Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in 1964 (age 50); musician and film director Rob Zombie in 1965 (age 49); and Heather Mills, activist, and former wife of Paul McCartney, in 1968 (age 46).

Advertisement


On this date in history:

In 1921, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected the first commissioner of Major League Baseball.

In 1932, Ophelia Wyatt Caraway, D-Ark., became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

In 1943, the U.S. wartime Office of Price Administration said standard frankfurters would be replaced during World War II by "Victory Sausages" consisting of a mixture of meat and soy meal.

In 1971, a U.S. grand jury indicted the Rev. Philip Berrigan and five other people, including a nun and two priests, on charges of plotting to kidnap presidential adviser Henry Kissinger.

In 1986, U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., traveled into space aboard the shuttle Columbia.

In 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton asked Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the Whitewater land deal affair that involved him and the first lady.

In 2003, Maurice Gibb, 53, of the Bee Gees, died of complications from an intestinal blockage.

In 2006, about 350 people were crushed to death by a stampeding crowd at the entrance to Jamarat Bridge in Mina, Saudi Arabia, during a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Advertisement

In 2010, a magnitude-7 earthquake dealt Haiti and its capital Port-au-Prince a catastrophic blow, killing tens of thousands of people.

In 2013, a bus struck a pole on the side of a road in Nepal and plunged 700 feet down a slope. Authorities said the accident killed at least 30 people and injured many others.


A thought for the day: "Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel." -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Latest Headlines