On This Day in History - November 12th - Almanac

Today is Saturday, Nov. 12, the 317th day of 2016 with 49 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include French physicist Jacques Charles in 1746; women's suffrage activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1815; Baha'u'llah (born Mirza Husayn Ali), founder-prophet of the Baha'i faith, in 1817; publishers DeWitt Wallace, co-founder of Readers Digest, in 1889; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in 1908; singer Jo Stafford in 1917; actor Kim Hunter in 1922; Princess Grace of Monaco (former American movie star Grace Kelly), in 1929; cult leader Charles Manson in 1934 (age 82); actor and playwright Wallace Shawn in 1943 (age 73); sportscaster Al Michaels in 1944 (age 72); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members Booker T. Jones in 1944 (age 72) and Neil Young in 1945 (age 71); Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in 1948 (age 68); actor Megan Mullally in 1958 (age 58); Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci in 1961 (age 55); writer Naomi Wolf in 1962 (age 54); former baseball slugger Sammy Sosa in 1968 (age 48); and actors Ryan Gosling in 1980 (age 36) and Anne Hathaway in 1982 (age 34).

On this date in history:

In 1892, the first professional football game was played in Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Athletic Association defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 4-0. Touchdowns at the time were worth 4 points.

In 1893, the Durand Line which marks the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was agreed to by Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat in British India, and the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan.

In 1927, Joseph Stalin consolidated power in the Soviet Union following the expulsion of Leon Trotsky from the Soviet Communist Party.

In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt pressed the Presidential Gold Key to officially open the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

In 1941, the German army's drive to take Moscow was halted on the city's outskirts in World War II.

In 1948, a war crimes tribunal in Japan sentenced former premier Hideki Tojo and six other World War II Japanese leaders to death by hanging. Tojo survived a suicide attempt three years earlier days after Japan had surrendered.

In 1954, after processing more than 12 million immigrants, the immigration station at Ellis Island closed its doors for the last time.

In 1980, the Voyager 1 spacecraft passed Saturn and sent back stunning pictures.

In 1982, former KGB chief Yuri Andropov succeeded the late Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

In 1990, Akihito was installed as the 125th emperor of Japan.

In 1997, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were convicted of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. They were sentenced to life in prison. Four others had been convicted in 1994 and also received life sentences.

In 2001, an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport in New York, killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

In 2003, actor Art Carney, who won fame and Emmy Awards as sewer worker Ed Norton on the Honeymooners TV show in the 1950s and an Oscar in 1974 for Harry and Tonto, died at age 85.

In 2011, Silvio Berlusconi, longest serving Italian prime minister since Benito Mussolini, announced his resignation after the lower house of Parliament passed economic policies demanded by the European Union.

A thought for the day: "True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." -- Kurt Vonnegut