UPI Almanac for Thursday, March 16, 2017

Today is Thursday, March 16, the 75th day of 2017 with 290 to follow.

The moon is waning. 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 James Madison, fourth president of the United States, in 1751; German physicist Georg Ohm, a pioneer in the study of electricity, in 1789; comedian Henny Youngman in 1906; German doctor Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death," in 1911; former U.S. first lady Pat Nixon in 1912; actor Mercedes McCambridge in 1916; actor Leo McKern in 1920; entertainer Jerry Lewis in 1926 (age 91); former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., in 1927; filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci in 1940 (age 77); game-show host Chuck Woolery in 1941 (age 76); singer/songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker in 1942 (age 75); actor Erik Estrada in 1949 (age 68); actor Kate Nelligan in 1951 (age 66); musician Nancy Wilson (Heart) in 1954 (age 63); football Hall of Fame member Ozzie Newsome in 1956 (age 61); rapper Flavor Flav (born William Drayton Jr.) in 1959 (age 58); singer/songwriter Patty Griffin in 1964 (age 53); film director Gore Verbinski in 1964 (age 53); actor Alexandra Daddario in 1986 (age 31); musician Wolfgang Van Halen in 1991 (age 26).

On this date in history:

In 1802, the U.S. Congress authorized the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

In 1827, Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States, was published in New York.

In 1926, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fuel rocket.

In 1935, Adolf Hitler denounced the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty and immediately ordered general military conscription in Germany.

In 1945, the Island of Iwo Jima was declared secure by U.S. forces in one of the major World War II conflicts in the Pacific.

In 1956, the Rev. A. Edward Banks became the 25th minister to be arrested for allegedly violating the seldom-used Alabama state anti-boycott law. The boycott of Montgomery, Ala., buses began after Rosa Parks was fined $10 for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person.

In 1966, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott docked their Gemini 8 space vehicle with an Agena craft, a first in orbital history.

In 1968, about 300 Vietnamese villagers died at the hands of U.S. troops in what came to be known as the My Lai massacre.

In 1984, CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, was kidnapped by members of Hezbollah. His captors claimed that they had executed Buckley on October 4, 1985, though it's believed he died of a heart attack sometime in June 1985, following nearly 15 months of torture.

In 1985, Terry Anderson, Beirut bureau chief for the Associated Press, was kidnapped by members of Hezbollah. He would remain in captivity for more than six years, before securing his release on December 4, 1991.

In 1994, the International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea barred its inspectors from checking one of the nation's seven nuclear sites.

In 2009, Japan reported its gross domestic product fell at a 12.7 percent annual rate in the last quarter of 2008, plunging the country into what experts said was its worst financial crisis since World War II.

In 2014, results of a referendum showed that people in Crimea voted overwhelmingly for the autonomous Black Sea peninsula to break from Ukraine and join Russia.

In 2016, two female suicide bombers launched attacks at a mosque near Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 22 people and injuring at least 18.

A thought for the day: Albert Einstein wrote, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."