UPI Almanac for Thursday, June 15, 2017

Today is Thursday, June 15, the 166th day of 2017 with 199 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include Prince Edward of England, son of Edward III and known as the "Black Prince," in 1330; Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1843; composer/orchestra leader David Rose in 1910; artist Saul Steinberg in 1914; pianist Erroll Garner in 1921; U.S. Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz., in 1922; New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1932; country singer Waylon Jennings in 1937; baseball Hall of Fame member Billy Williams in 1938 (age 79); singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson in 1941; Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal in 1950 (age 67); actor Jim Varney in 1949; actor Jim Belushi in 1954 (age 63); actor Julie Hagerty in 1955 (age 62); baseball Hall of Fame member Wade Boggs in 1958 (age 59); actor Helen Hunt in 1963 (age 54); actor Courteney Cox in 1964 (age 53); actor Neil Patrick Harris in 1973 (age 45).

On this date in history:

In 1215, under pressure from rebellious barons, England's King John signed the Magna Carta, a crucial first step toward creating Britain's constitutional monarchy.

In 1752, Benjamin Franklin, in a dangerous experiment, demonstrated the relationship between lightning and electricity by flying a kite during a storm in Philadelphia. An iron key suspended from the kite string attracted a lightning bolt.

In 1785, two Frenchmen attempting to cross the English Channel in a hot-air balloon were killed when their balloon caught fire and crashed. It was the first fatal aviation accident.

In 1846, the U.S.-Canadian border was established.

In 1877, Henry Ossian Flipper, born a slave in Thomasville, Ga., became the first African-American cadet to graduate from West Point.

In 1904, the excursion steamboat "General Slocum" caught fire on the East River in New York, killing 1,121 people.

In 1944, U.S. forces invaded the Japanese-occupied Mariana Islands in World War II. By day's end, a beachhead had been established on the island of Saipan.

In 1987, Richard Norton of Philadelphia and Calin Rosetti of West Germany completed the first polar circumnavigation of Earth in a single-engine propeller aircraft, landing in Paris after a 38,000-mile flight.

In 2007, a Mississippi jury convicted a reputed Ku Klux Klansman, James Ford Seale, in the abductions and killings of two black teenagers 43 years earlier. Seale was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2011.

In 2011, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., shot in the head in a Jan. 8 assassination attempt at a Tucson political meeting, was released from a Houston rehabilitation hospital.

In 2012, the U.S. government announced an executive order by President Barack Obama would allow hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to legally seek work permits and obtain documents such as driver's licenses. Obama called it "a temporary stopgap measure" that lifted "the shadow of deportation from these young people."

In 2014, longtime radio host Casey Kasem ("American Top 40," "Casey's Top 40") died at a hospital in Gig Harbor, Wash. He was 82. In sports, Germany's Martin Kaymer won the U.S. Open golf championship in Pinehurst, N.C., by eight strokes and the San Antonio Spurs won their fifth NBA championship, routing the Miami Heat 104-87,

A thought for the day: "We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things." -- Mario Cuomo