UPI Almanac for Wednesday, Jan, 25, 2017

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 25, the 25th day of 2017 with 340 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1759; soap maker and philanthropist William Colgate in 1783; Confederate Gen. George Pickett in 1825; author W. Somerset Maugham in 1874; author Virginia Woolf in 1882; Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell in 1918; news commentator Edwin Newman in 1919; football Hall of Fame member Lou Groza in 1924; actor Dean Jones in 1931; former Philippine President Corazon Aquino in 1933; singer Etta James in 1938; football Hall of Fame member Carl Eller in 1942 (age 75); actor Leigh Taylor-Young in 1945 (age 72); track star Steve Prefontaine in 1951; actor Dinah Manoff in 1958 (age 59); singer Alicia Keys in 1981 (age 36).

On this date in history:

In 1533, Henry VIII of England secretly married Anne Boleyn, his second wife.

In 1554, the city of Sao Paulo was established in Brazil.

In 1858, Mendelssohn's "The Wedding March" was played at the marriage of Friedrich of Prussia and England's Princess Victoria, the daughter of Queen Victoria. It became a standard theme for weddings.

In 1890, Nellie Bly, a young New York reporter, completed a trip around the world that lasted 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.

In 1909, President-elect William Howard Taft sailed for Panama to plot a course forward following the completion of the canal.

In 1915, transcontinental phone service was inaugurated by Alexander Graham Bell in a hookup between New York and San Francisco.

In 1924, the first Winter Olympic Games opened in Chamonix, France.

In 1947, gangster Al "Scarface" Capone died at age 48 after suffering from syphilis.

In 1959, the first scheduled transcontinental flight took place, a non-stop American Airlines trip from California to New York.

In 1961, newly inaugurated U.S. President John Kennedy had the first televised presidential news conference.

In 1971, Charles Manson and three women were found guilty of killing actress Sharon Tate and six other people in Los Angeles.

In 1993, a man with a rifle opened fire near the main CIA gate in Langley, Va., killing two agency employees and wounding three others.

In 2004, Opportunity, the second of two NASA robot explorers, landed on Mars, joining its twin to explore the planet.

In 2006, the militant Islamic group Hamas, calling for destruction of Israel, scored a stunning victory in the Palestinian parliamentary election.

In 2010, the man known as "Chemical Ali" -- Ali Hassan al-Majid, cousin and aide to Saddam Hussein -- was executed in Iraq for his role in a poison-gas attack in which 5,000 Kurds were killed.

In 2011, thousands of Egyptian citizens, expressing their dissatisfaction with the government, clashed with riot police in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities throughout the country. This rebellion, locally referred to as the January 25 Revolution, would lead to the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak less than three weeks later.

A thought for the day: "It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance and suspicion are the faults of weakness." -- Eric Hoffer