UPI Almanac for Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2019 with 356 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include women's suffrage/peace movement leader Carrie Chapman Catt in 1859; French novelist Simone de Beauvoir in 1908; Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States, in 1913; author Judith Krantz in 1928 (age 91); football Hall of Fame member Bart Starr in 1934 (age 85); actor Bob Denver in 1935; sportscaster Dick Enberg in 1935; actor Susannah York in 1939; singer Joan Baez in 1941 (age 78); musician Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) in 1944 (age 75); country singer Crystal Gayle in 1951 (age 68); actor J.K. Simmons in 1955 (age 64); actor Imelda Staunton in 1956 (age 63); Guatemalan activist/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu in 1959 (age 60); actor Joely Richardson in 1965 (age 54); bandleader Dave Matthews in 1967 (age 52); rapper Sean Paul in 1973 (age 46); pop singer A.J. McLean (Backstreet Boys) in 1978 (age 41); golfer Sergio Garcia in 1980 (age 39); Kate Middleton, wife of Britain's Prince William, in 1982 (age 37); actor Nina Dobrev in 1989 (age 30); actor Nicola Peltz in 1995 (age 24); actor Kerris Dorsey in 1998 (age 21).

On this day in history:

In 1768, Philip Astley, regarded as the "father of the modern circus," staged the first event in an open field at what is now the Waterloo area of London.

In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth U.S. state.

In 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union, becoming a founding member of the Confederate States of America.

In 1916, the Ottoman Empire claimed victory in the Battle of Gallipoli following the evacuation of Allied forces from the peninsula.

In 1945, in World War II, U.S. troops landed on the Philippine island of Luzon, beginning a battle that would rage on for eight months.

In 1947, Elizabeth Short, more commonly known as the Black Dahlia, disappears. Her body was found six days later. To this day, the investigation into her death remains unsolved.

In 1951, the U.N. headquarters opened in New York.

In 1972, the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth was gutted by fire while docked in Hong Kong.

In 1982, Angelo Buono Jr., one of the so-called Hillside Stranglers, was sentenced to life in prison. He and his cousin Kenneth Bianchi raped, tortured and killed 10 women in Los Angeles from 1977-78.

In 1996, rebels in the Russian republic of Chechnya overran the town of Kizlyar and took 2,000 hostages at a hospital and in nearby homes.

In 2005, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip elected Mahmoud Abbas their new president. He succeeded the late Yasser Arafat.

In 2007, the world changed when Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.

In 2007, Venezuelan stock prices fell almost 19 percent -- the biggest drop on record -- and its currency lost almost one-third of its value after President Hugo Chavez pledged to nationalize the country's utilities.

In 2011, an Iran Air Boeing 727 with 105 people aboard crashed shortly before it was scheduled to land in northwestern Iran. Authorities said there were 50 survivors.

In 2014, as part of an agreement to end a political deadlock, Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh resigned to let a caretaker government oversee the next elections. Mehdi Jomaa, the minister of industry, became acting PM.

In 2018, at least 20 people died as a result of heavy rains that triggered flooding and mudslides in fire-ravaged parts of Southern California.

A thought for the day: "Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while." -- Kin Hubbard