The almanac

Today is Sunday, March 16, the 75th day of 2014 with 290 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include James Madison, fourth president of the United States, in 1751; German physicist Georg Ohm, a pioneer in the study of electricity, in 1789; comedian Henny Youngman in 1906; German doctor Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, in 1911; former U.S. first lady Pat Nixon in 1912; actors Mercedes McCambridge in 1916 and Leo McKern in 1920; entertainer Jerry Lewis in 1926 (age 88); former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., in 1927; filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci in 1940 (age 74); game-show host Chuck Woolery in 1941 (age 73); musician Jerry Jeff Walker in 1942 (age 72); actor Erik Estrada in 1949 (age 65); actor Kate Nelligan in 1951 (age 63); Rock and Roll Hall of fame member Nancy Wilson (Heart) in 1954 (age 60); football Hall of Fame member Ozzie Newsome in 1956 (age 58); rapper Flavor Flav (born William Drayton Jr.) in 1959 (age 55); singer/songwriter Patty Griffin and film director Gore Verbinski, both in 1964 (age 50); and musician Wolfgang Van Halen in 1991 (age 23).

On this date in history:

In 1802, the U.S. Congress authorized the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

In 1827, Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States, was published in New York.

In 1926, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fuel rocket.

In 1966, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott docked their Gemini 8 space vehicle with an Agena craft, a first in orbital history.

In 1968, about 300 Vietnamese villagers died at the hands of U.S. troops in what came to be known as the My Lai massacre.

In 1994, the International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea barred its inspectors from checking one of the nation's seven nuclear sites.

In 1998, the Vatican apologized for not doing more to prevent the killing of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

In 2009, Japan reported its gross domestic product fell at a 12.7 percent annual rate in the last quarter of 2008, plunging the country into what experts said was its worst financial crisis since World War II.

In 2012, Belgium observed a national day of mourning for 28 people, 22 of them children, killed in a bus crash in Switzerland.

In 2013, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., told conservatives the Republican Party establishment lacks new ideas and is "mired in stupidity."

A thought for the day: Albert Einstein wrote, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."