Today is Friday, Feb. 9, the 40th day of 2018 with 325 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury and Saturn. Evening stars are Neptune, Uranus and Venus.
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Troops from the U.S. Army's 164th Infantry rest at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, in November 1942. On February 9, 1943, in a major World War II strategic victory, the Allies retook Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands from the Japanese. File Photo courtesy the U.S. Navy.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States, in 1773; former Secretary of State Dean Rusk in 1909; actor Carmen Miranda in 1909; country singer Ernest Tubb in 1914; baseball entrepreneur Bill Veeck in 1914; actor Kathryn Grayson in 1922; Irish playwright Brendan Behan in 1923; television journalist Roger Mudd in 1928 (age 90); South African author J. M. Coetzee, Nobel laureate, in 1940 (age 78); singer/songwriter Carole King in 1942 (age 76); Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in 1943 (age 75); actor Joe Pesci in 1943 (age 75); author Alice Walker in 1944 (age 74); actor Mia Farrow in 1945 (age 73); actor Judith Light in 1949 (age 69); actor Ciaran Hinds in 1953 (age 65); actor Charles Shaughnessy in 1955 (age 63); country singer Travis Tritt in 1963 (age 55); actor Charlie Day in 1976 (age 42); actor Tom Hiddleston in 1981 (age 37); American Taliban John Walker Lindh in 1981 (age 37); actor Michael B. Jordan in 1987 (age 31); actor Rose Leslie in 1987 (age 31).
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On this date in history:
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In 1825, after no presidential candidate won the necessary majority, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams the sixth president of the United States.
In 1900, the solid silver trophy known as the Davis Cup was first put up for competition when American collegian Dwight Filley Davis challenged British tennis players to compete against his Harvard team.
In 1943, in a major World War II strategic victory, the Allies retook Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands from the Japanese.
In 1950, U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., charged the U.S. State Department was infested with communists, touching off the infamous "McCarthy era."
In 1964, the Beatles appeared on television's The Ed Sullivan Show. An estimated 73 million people watched.
In 1971, Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player voted into baseball's Hall of Fame.
In 1984, Soviet President Yuri Andropov, in power 15 months, died at age 69.
In 1991, Lithuanians overwhelmingly voted to secede from the Soviet Union.
In 2001, the submarine USS Greeneville collided with the Ehime Maru, a Japanese fishery training boat, off the coast of Oahu in Hawaii during a surfacing drill. Nine people on the fishing vessel were killed. The victims included four high school students.
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In 2008, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis delivered a $2 billion European-made science lab to the International Space Station, doubling its zero-gravity research capacity.
In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a memorandum setting up a federal task force to tackle childhood obesity.
In 2013, Afzal Guru, who authorities said was the mastermind behind a 2001 attack on India's Parliament, killing, seven people, was executed in New Delhi.
In 2014, Swiss voters approved a "stop mass immigration" proposal limiting the number of foreigners allowed to live and work in the country.
In 2016, a collision between two commuter trains in Bad Aibling, Germany, killed 10 people and injured dozens others.
A thought for the day: "Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, 'His color is not mine,' or 'His beliefs are strange and different,' in that moment he betrays America ... ." -- President Lyndon B. Johnson
