UPI Almanac for Friday, March 13, 2015

Today is Friday, March 13, the 72nd day of 2015 with 293 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include English chemist Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, in 1733; astronomer Percival Lowell in 1855; baseball Hall of Fame member John "Home Run" Baker in 1886; publisher Walter Annenberg in 1908; bandleader Sammy Kaye in 1910; L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology, in 1911; former CIA Director William Casey in 1913; cartoonist Al Jaffee in 1921 (age 94); Helen "Callaghan" Candaele Saint Aubin, known as the "Ted Williams of women's baseball," in 1929; singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka in 1939 (age 76); actor William H. Macy in 1950 (age 65); political commentator Charles Krauthammer in 1950 (age 65); actor Dana Delany in 1956 (age 59); musician Adam Clayton, U2 bass player, in 1960 (age 55); actor Emile Hirsch in 1985 (age 30).

On this date in history:

In 1781, the planet Uranus was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel.

In 1868, the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate began impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat and successor to Abraham Lincoln, climaxing a political feud following the Civil War. (He was acquitted by one vote.)

In 1881, Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, was killed in a St. Petersburg street by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary "People's Will" group.

In 1887, Chester Greenwood of Maine received a patent for earmuffs.

In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, banks throughout the United States began to reopen after a weeklong bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a successful effort to stop runs on bank assets.

In 1974, the oil-producing Arab countries agreed to lift a five-month embargo on petroleum sales to the United States. The embargo, during which gasoline prices soared 300 percent, was in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel during the October 1973 Middle East War.

In 1990, the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies formally ended the Communist Party's monopoly rule, establishing a presidential system and giving Mikhail Gorbachev broad new powers.

In 1996, a gun collector opened fire at a school in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 16 kindergarten children, their teacher and himself.

In 2000, the Tribune Co. and the Times Mirror Co., media giants featuring two of the nation's oldest and largest newspapers (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times) announced they would merge.

In 2008, gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

In 2011, the Dalai Lama, 75-year-old spiritual leader of Tibet, announced his resignation from his second job as his people's official political leader, a post he had held since he was 18.

In 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, a Jesuit, became pope of the Catholic Church. He chose the name of Francis.

In 2014, Reubin Askew, a progressive two-term governor of Florida in the 1970s who made a brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1983, died in Tallahassee at the age of 85.

A thought for the day: Donald Trump said, "Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make."