UPI Almanac for Monday, April 17, 2017

Today is Monday, April 17, the 107th day of 2017 with 258 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include American industrialist and financier J.P. Morgan in 1837; baseball Hall of Fame member Cap Anson in 1852; Danish author Karen Blixen (Out of Africa), who wrote under the name Isak Dinesen, in 1885; novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder in 1897; actor William Holden in 1918; television journalist Harry Reasoner in 1923; music promoter Don Kirshner in 1934; musician Jan Hammer in 1948 (age 69); actor Olivia Hussey in 1951 (age 66); actor Sean Bean in 1959 (age 58); actor Henry Ian Cusick in 1967 (age 50); singer Liz Phair in 1967 (age 50); singer/model Victoria Beckham in 1974 (age 43); actor Rooney Mara in 1985 (age 32).

On this date in history:

In 1421, the sea broke the dikes at Dort, Holland, drowning an estimated 100,000 people.

In 1521, The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Martin Luther after he refused to admit to charges of heresy.

In 1524, Italian navigator Giovanni Verrazano discovered New York Harbor.

In 1790, U.S. statesman, printer, scientist and writer Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84.

In 1912, the sister ship of the doomed RMS Titanic, the Olympic, radioed in that survivors of the ocean liner sinking were rescued and safely on board the RMS Carpathia.

In 1961, a force of anti-Castro rebels began the Bay of Pigs Invasion in an attempt to overthrow Cuba's new communist government.

In 1964, Jerrie Mock of Columbus, Ohio, became the first woman to complete a solo flight around the world.

In 1970, with the world anxiously watching on television, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that sustained a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returned to Earth.

In 1989, the Polish labor union Solidarity was granted legal status after nearly a decade of struggle and suppression -- clearing the way for the downfall of the country's Communist Party.

In 2001, Mississippi voters, by a 2-1 ratio, decided to keep their state flag, which includes the Confederate battle cross in the upper left corner.

In 2003, billionaire philanthropist John Paul Getty Jr. died in London at the age of 70.

In 2004, the Israeli army confirmed it had killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Hamas co-founder and its leader in Gaza, in a missile strike. Two others also died with Rantisi, who had opposed any compromise with Israel.

In 2006, a bus carrying Mexican tourists plunged nearly 800 feet off a cliff in eastern Mexico, between Vera Cruz and Mexico City, killing at least 63 people.

In 2012, U.S. investor Warren Buffett, one of the world's wealthiest people, said he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

In 2013, an explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant killed 15 people, injured dozens and caused massive property damage in the community.

In 2014, Chelsea Clinton announced in New York that she and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, "are very excited that we have our first child arriving later this year." Daughter Charlotte was born Sept. 26, 2014.

A thought for the day: Rudyard Kipling wrote, "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."