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The almanac

By United Press International
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Today is Tuesday, March 25, the 84th day of 2014 with 281 to follow.

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

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include conductor Arturo Toscanini and Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum, both in 1867; composer Bela Bartok in 1881; actor Ed Begley Sr. in 1901; film director/producer/writer David Lean ("The Bridge On The River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago") in 1908; Jack Ruby, who killed presumed Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, in 1911; sports commentator Howard Cosell in 1918; French actor Simone Signoret in 1921; writer Flannery O'Connor in 1925; astronaut James Lovell in 1928 (age 86); feminist writer Gloria Steinem in 1934 (age 80); singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton in 1938; singer Anita Bryant in 1940 (age 74); soul singer Aretha Franklin in 1942 (age 72); actor/director Paul Michael Glaser in 1943 (age 71); pop star Elton John in 1947 (age 67); actors Bonnie Bedelia in 1948 (age 66) and Sarah Jessica Parker in 1965 (age 49); Olympic silver medalist figure skater Debi Thomas in 1967 (age 47); three-time Olympic gold medalist in basketball Sheryl Swoopes in 1971 (age 43); and race car driver Danica Patrick in 1982 (age 32).

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On this date in history:

In 1807, the English Parliament abolished the slave trade.

In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirt Waist factory in New York City killed 147 people.

In 1947, a mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., killed 111 men, most of them asphyxiated by gas.

In 1954, the Radio Corporation of America began commercial production of color television sets.

In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands and West Germany signed a treaty in Rome establishing the European Economic Community, also known as the common market.

In 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a deranged nephew at his palace in Riyadh.

In 1990, an arson fire swept an overcrowded social club in the Bronx borough of New York City, killing 87 people.

In 1994, U.S. forces completed a withdrawal from Mogadishu, Somalia, except for a small number of soldiers left behind to provide support for U.N. peacekeepers.

In 1998, the first known physician-assisted suicide to be legal under Oregon state law was reported by the group Compassion In Dying.

In 2002, an earthquake devastated rural areas of Afghanistan, killing at least 600 people.

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In 2006, an estimated 500,000 people protested in Los Angeles against proposed U.S. legislation that would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally.

In 2010, an explosion sank a South Korean warship on patrol in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 sailors. North Korea denied accusations it had torpedoed the ship.

In 2013, Michel Djotodia, leader of the rebel Seleka alliance, declared himself president of the embattled Central African Republic. (He resigned in early 2014.)


A thought for the day: Mahatma Gandhi said, "It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings."

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