On This Day in History - November 12th - Almanac

Today is Monday, Nov. 12, the 316th day of 2018 with 49 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include women's suffrage activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1815; Baha'u'llah, born Mirza Husayn Ali, founder-prophet of the Baha'i faith, in 1817; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in 1908; Princess Grace of Monaco, former American movie star Grace Kelly, in 1929; cult leader Charles Manson in 1934; actor/playwright Wallace Shawn in 1943 (age 75); sportscaster Al Michaels in 1944 (age 74); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Booker T. Jones in 1944 (age 74); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Neil Young in 1945 (age 73); Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in 1948 (age 70); actor Megan Mullally in 1958 (age 60); Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci in 1961 (age 57); writer Naomi Wolf in 1962 (age 56); former baseball slugger Sammy Sosa in 1968 (age 50); Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding in 1970 (age 48); actor Tamala Jones in 1974 (age 44); actor Ashley Williams in 1978 (age 40); actor Cote de Pablo in 1979 (age 39); actor Ryan Gosling in 1980 (age 38); actor Anne Hathaway in 1982 (age 36); rapper Omarion, born Omari Ishmael Grandberry, in 1984 (age 34).

On this date in history:

In 1892, the first professional football game was played in Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Athletic Association defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 4-0. Touchdowns at the time were worth 4 points.

In 1893, the Durand Line which marks the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was agreed to by Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat in British India, and the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan.

In 1927, Joseph Stalin consolidated power in the Soviet Union following the expulsion of Leon Trotsky from the Soviet Communist Party.

In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt pressed the Presidential Gold Key to officially open the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

In 1941, the German army's drive to take Moscow was halted on the city's outskirts in World War II.

In 1948, a war crimes tribunal in Japan sentenced former premier Hideki Tojo and six other World War II Japanese leaders to death by hanging. Tojo survived a suicide attempt three years earlier days after Japan had surrendered.

In 1954, after processing more than 12 million immigrants, the immigration station at Ellis Island closed its doors for the last time.

In 1980, the Voyager 1 spacecraft passed Saturn and sent back stunning pictures.

In 1982, former KGB chief Yuri Andropov succeeded the late Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

In 1990, Akihito was installed as the 125th emperor of Japan.

In 1997, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were convicted of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. They were sentenced to life in prison. Four others had been convicted in 1994 and also received life sentences.

In 2001, an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport in New York, killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

In 2011, Silvio Berlusconi, longest serving Italian prime minister since Benito Mussolini, announced his resignation after the lower house of Parliament passed economic policies demanded by the European Union.

In 2017, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake near the Iran-Iraq border left more than 600 people dead.

A thought for the day: "True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." -- Kurt Vonnegut