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UPI Almanac for Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015

Upstart stuns boxing world, Marcos flees the Philippines, presidents take office in Ukraine and Yemen ... on this date in history.

By United Press International
Cassius Clay (R) battles Sonny Liston in a Miami Beach, Fla., world heavyweight championship fight that shook the boxing world Feb. 25, 1964. Brash underdog Clay (who became Muhammad Ali) won the title. File Photo/UPI
1 of 11 | Cassius Clay (R) battles Sonny Liston in a Miami Beach, Fla., world heavyweight championship fight that shook the boxing world Feb. 25, 1964. Brash underdog Clay (who became Muhammad Ali) won the title. File Photo/UPI | License Photo

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 25, the 56th day of 2015 with 309 to follow.

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

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Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include: French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1841; Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso in 1873; U.S. statesman John Foster Dulles in 1888; actor Herbert "Zeppo" Marx, the "sane" sibling of the early Marx Brothers movies, in 1901; actor Jim Backus in 1913; British writer Anthony Burgess in 1917; tennis Hall of Fame member Bobby Riggs in 1918; baseball Hall of Fame member Monte Irvin in 1919 (age 96); producer/writer Larry Gelbart in 1928; talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael in 1935 (age 80); actor Tom Courtenay in 1937 (age 78); actor Diane Baker in 1938 (age 77); former Beatle George Harrison in 1943; director Neil Jordan in 1950 (age 65); sportscaster James Brown in 1951 (age 64); comedian Carrot Top, born Scott Thompson, in 1965 (age 50); actor Tea Leoni in 1966 (age 49); actor Sean Astin in 1971 (age 44); actor Anson Mount in 1973 (age 42); actor Chelsea Handler in 1975 (age 40).

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On this date in history:

In 1791, the First Bank of the U.S. at Philadelphia became the first national bank chartered by Congress.

In 1836, Samuel Colt patented a "revolving gun," the first of the six-shooters.

In 1870, Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Miss., was sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African-American to sit in Congress.

In 1901, the United States Steel Corp. was founded by J.P. Morgan.

In 1951, the inaugural Pan American Games began in Buenos Aires.

In 1964, brash underdog Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) stunned the boxing world with a TKO of Sonny "the Bear" Liston, winning the world heavyweight championship.

In 1967, U.S. warships began shelling Vietnam.

In 1986, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos left his Manila palace for Hawaii, ending 20 years in power.

In 1990, Violeta Chamorro, the U.S.-backed candidate for the presidency of Nicaragua, scored an upset victory over President Daniel Ortega, leader of the leftist Sandinista Liberation Front.

In 1991, the Warsaw Pact nations signed an agreement to dissolve the alliance after 36 years.

In 1994, 32 Muslim worshippers were killed by a Jewish settler who opened fire with an automatic weapon in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank town of Hebron. The settler was overpowered and beaten to death.

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In 1996, a bus bombing in Jerusalem killed 25 people.

In 2005, authorities arrested Dennis Rader, a municipal employee and church leader, for the so-called BTK (blind, torture, kill) serial killings that terrorized Wichita, Kan. (Rader was convicted and sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms.)

In 2006, Emmy-winning comic star Don Knotts, best known as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," died of lung cancer. He was 81.

In 2007, Iran said it fired its first rocket into space.

In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych was sworn in as president of Ukraine. (He was ousted in 2014.)

In 2012, Yemen's new president, Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was sworn in with a promise to continue fighting al-Qaida, calling it "a religious and national duty." (Hadi resigned in 2015 after Houthi rebels seized control in the capital of Sanaa.)

In 2013, the Roman Catholic Church announced that Cardinal Keith O'Brien, 74, the church's most senior cleric in Britain, resigned amid allegations of committing "inappropriate acts" years earlier in his relations with certain priests.

In 2014, U.S. health officials reported the obesity rate among 2- to 5-year-old children had dropped 43 percent in the past decade

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A thought for the day: "Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong." -- Muhammad Ali

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