UPI Almanac for Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Today is Wednesday, April 25, the 115th day of 2018 with 250 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Oliver Cromwell, lord protector of England, in 1599; U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in 1906; pioneer broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1908; singer Ella Fitzgerald in 1917; former Harlem Globetrotters basketball player George "Meadowlark" Lemon III in 1932; actor Al Pacino in 1940 (age 78); actor Talia Shire in 1946 (age 72); actor Hank Azaria in 1964 (age 54); sports broadcaster Joe Buck in 1969 (age 49); actor Renee Zellweger in 1969 (age 49); actor Jason Lee in 1970 (age 48); champion skier Anja Paerson in 1981 (age 37).

On this date in history:

In 1507, German geographer and mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller published a book in which he named the newly discovered continent of the New World "America" after the man he mistakenly thought had discovered it, Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.

In 1792, "La Marseillaise," composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, became the French national anthem.

In 1859, ground was broken for the Suez Canal at Port Said, Egypt.

In 1901, New York became the first state to require license plates on automobiles.

In 1915, the Battle of Gallipoli began when Allied troops launched an invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula, landing at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles. The conflict lasted eight months, two weeks and one day, and ended in an Ottoman victory.

In 1945, delegates of 46 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize a permanent United Nations.

In 1967, the first law legalizing abortion in the United States was signed into law by Colorado Gov. John Arthur Love.

In 1982, Israel turned over the final third of the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt under the Camp David peace agreement.

In 1989, a judge released James Richardson after he served 21 years for the deaths of his seven children. The judge cited prosecutorial misconduct and a confession made by a neighbor.

In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was released into space by astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery.

In 1991, the United States announced its first financial aid to Hanoi since the 1960s: $1 million to make artificial limbs for Vietnamese people disabled during the war.

In 1993, an estimated 300,000 people took part in a gay rights march on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

In 2000, Vermont approved a measure legalizing "civil unions" among same-sex couples, becoming the first U.S. state to give same-sex couples the same legal status as traditional married couples.

In 2005, the crash of a commuter train near Osaka, Japan, killed more than 70 people and injured about 300 others.

In 2009, Bea Arthur, who went from high-profile supporting roles on Broadway to stardom in groundbreaking TV sitcoms Maude and The Golden Girls, died in Los Angeles. She was 86.

In 2011, nearly 800 classified U.S. military documents released by WikiLeaks revealed details about the alleged terrorist activities of al-Qaida operatives held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

In 2012, Gov. Daniel P. Malloy, saying the "system of justice is very imperfect," signed a bill making the death penalty illegal in Connecticut.

In 2013, the George W. Bush Presidential Library was dedicated on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas.

In 2015, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake strikes Kathmandu, Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

In 2015, protests -- some violent -- broke out in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year old black man, while in police custody.

A thought for the day: "History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside." -- John F. Kennedy