UPI Almanac for Friday, June 17, 2016

Today is Friday, June 17, the 169th day of 2016 with 197 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include British clergyman John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in 1703; John Robert Gregg, inventor of the Gregg shorthand system, in 1867; Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky in 1882; Dutch artist M.C. Escher in 1898; actor Ralph Bellamy in 1904; author John Hersey in 1914; football Hall of Fame member Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch in 1923; Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei in 1942 (age 74); former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1943 (age 73); singer Barry Manilow in 1943 (age 73); musician/songwriter George Clinton in 1947 (age 69); comedian Joe Piscopo in 1951 (age 65); actor Mark Linn-Baker in 1954 (age 62); actor Thomas Haden Church in 1960 (age 56); actor Greg Kinnear in 1963 (age 53); Olympic gold medal speed skater Dan Jansen in 1965 (age 51); actor Jason Patric in 1966 (age 50); actor Will Forte in 1970 (age 456); tennis star Venus Williams in 1980 (age 36).

On this date in history:

In 1967, China announced it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.

In 1972, the Watergate scandal began with the arrest of five burglars inside Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.

In 1982, Argentina's President Leopoldo Galtieri resigned in response to Britain's victory in the Falkland Islands war.

In 1986, Kate Smith, one of America's most popular singers in the 1920s, '30s and '40s, died at the age of 79.

In 1996, ValuJet Airlines shut down about a month after a crash in the Florida Everglades led to questions about the carrier's safety and maintenance records.

In 2011, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon and co-founder of al-Qaida, moved up to assume leadership of the terrorist network six weeks after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona's requirement of proof of citizenship before voter registration violated federal law.

In 2014, U.S. officials said Ahmed Abu Khatallah, arrested in eastern Libya as a suspect in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans, would be transported to the United States to face charges. The U.S. Justice Department later said Khatallah was indicted on numerous charges and held in a detention facility in Alexandria, Va., awaiting trial.

A thought for the day: "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." -- Martin Luther King Jr.