UPI Almanac for Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Today is Wednesday, March 8, the 67th day of 2017 with 298 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in 1841; Scottish writer Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows, in 1859; American printer/type designer Frederic William Goudy in 1865; German nuclear chemist Otto Hahn, discoverer of nuclear fission, in 1879; actor Sam Jaffe in 1891; actor Louise Beavers in 1902; actor Claire Trevor in 1910; actor Alan Hale Jr. in 1921; dancer/actor Cyd Charisse in 1922; actor Susan Clark in 1940 (age 77); actor Lynn Redgrave in 1943; Micky Dolenz of the Monkees pop music group in 1945 (age 72); musician Randy Meisner (Eagles) in 1946 (age 71); songwriter Carole Bayer Sager in 1947 (age 70); baseball Hall of Fame member Jim Rice in 1953 (age 64); actor Aidan Quinn in 1959 (age 58); television journalist Lester Holt in 1959 (age 58); actor Camryn Manheim in 1961 (age 56); actor Freddie Prinze Jr. in 1976 (age 41); actor James Van Der Beek in 1977 (age 40).

On this date in history:

In 1817, the New York Stock Exchange was established.

In 1913, the Internal Revenue Service began to levy and collect income taxes in the United States.

In 1917, strikes and riots in St. Petersburg marked the start of the Russian Bolshevik revolution.

In 1921, after Germany failed to make its first war reparation payment, French troops occupied Dusseldorf and other towns on the Ruhr River in Germany's industrial heartland.

In 1957, Egypt reopened the Suez Canal to international traffic after Israel withdrew from occupied Egyptian territory.

In 1965, nearly 4,000 U.S. Marines landed in South Vietnam.

In 1974, the streaking epidemic that had been gripped parts of the United States appeared to run its logical course.

In 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in a speech before the British House of Commons.

In 1990, Colombia's M-19 leftist guerrilla group surrendered its arms, ending 16 years of insurrection.

In 1999, baseball great Joe DiMaggio died at age 84.

In 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush vetoed legislation that would have outlawed severe interrogation methods such as waterboarding used by the CIA. Bush said the proposal would eliminate "one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror."

In 2010, up to 500 people were killed in a nighttime "ethnic cleansing" raid on a village near Nigeria's turbulent city of Jos.

In 2013, former Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem and ex-Defense Minister Oscar Camilion were convicted of smuggling weapons to Croatia and Ecuador.

In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 carrying 239 people vanished over the Indian Ocean en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. A massive search found no sign of the plane and a government statement months later said all aboard -- 227 passengers and 12 crew members -- "are presumed to have lost their lives."

A thought for the day: "Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me." -- Fred Rogers