UPI Almanac for Saturday, June 17, 2017

Today is Saturday, June 17, the 168th day of 2017 with 197 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 British clergyman John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in 1703; John Robert Gregg, inventor of the Gregg shorthand system, in 1867; Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky in 1882; Dutch artist M.C. Escher in 1898; actor Ralph Bellamy in 1904; author John Hersey in 1914; football Hall of Fame member Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch in 1923; Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei in 1942 (age 75); former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1943 (age 74); singer Barry Manilow in 1943 (age 74); musician/songwriter George Clinton in 1947 (age 70); comedian Joe Piscopo in 1951 (age 66); actor Mark Linn-Baker in 1954 (age 63); actor Thomas Haden Church in 1960 (age 57); actor Greg Kinnear in 1963 (age 54); Olympic gold medal speed skater Dan Jansen in 1965 (age 52); actor Jason Patric in 1966 (age 51); actor Will Forte in 1970 (age 47); tennis star Venus Williams in 1980 (age 37).

On this date in history:

In 1967, China announced it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.

In 1972, the Watergate scandal began with the arrest of five burglars inside Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.

In 1982, Argentina's President Leopoldo Galtieri resigned in response to Britain's victory in the Falkland Islands war.

In 1986, Kate Smith, one of America's most popular singers in the 1920s, '30s and '40s, died at the age of 79.

In 1996, ValuJet Airlines shut down about a month after a crash in the Florida Everglades led to questions about the carrier's safety and maintenance records.

In 2011, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon and co-founder of al-Qaida, moved up to assume leadership of the terrorist network six weeks after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona's requirement of proof of citizenship before voter registration violated federal law.

In 2014, U.S. officials said Ahmed Abu Khatallah, arrested in eastern Libya as a suspect in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans, would be transported to the United States to face charges. The U.S. Justice Department later said Khatallah was indicted on numerous charges and held in a detention facility in Alexandria, Va., awaiting trial.

In 2015, Dylann Roof killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in a mass shooting.

A thought for the day: "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." -- Martin Luther King Jr.