UPI Almanac for Friday, May 31, 2019

Today is Friday, May 31, the 151st day of 2019 with 214 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongol Empire, in 1162; poet Walt Whitman in 1819; surgeon William Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, in 1819; Pope Pius XI in 1857; radio humorist Fred Allen in 1894; actor Don Ameche in 1908; artist Ellsworth Kelly in 1923; Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1923; actor/director Clint Eastwood in 1930 (age 89); folk singer Peter Yarrow in 1938 (age 81); country singer Johnny Paycheck in 1938; British human rights activist Terry Waite in 1939 (age 80); actor Sharon Gless in 1943 (age 76); football Hall of Fame member Joe Namath in 1943 (age 76); British rock musician John Bonham in 1948; actor Tom Berenger in 1949 (age 70); actor Gregory Harrison in 1950 (age 69); comedian/actor/writer Chris Elliot in 1960 (age 59); actor Lea Thompson in 1961 (age 58); actor/model Brooke Shields in 1965 (age 54); actor Archie Panjabi in 1972 (age 47); actor Colin Farrell in 1976 (age 43); actor Eric Christian Olsen in 1977 (age 42); actor Yael Grobglas in 1984 (age 35); rapper Waka Flocka Flame, born Juaquin James Malphurs, in 1986 (age 33); rapper Azealia Banks in 1991 (age 28).

On this date in history:

In 1790, President George Washington signed a bill creating the first U.S. copyright law.

In 1859, construction concluded and bells rang out for the first time from London's Big Ben clock tower.

In 1889, a flood in Johnstown, Pa., left more than 2,200 people dead.

In 1902, Britain and South Africa signed a peace treaty ending the Boer War.

In 1916, the Battle of Verdun passed the 100-day mark. It would continue for another 200 days, amassing a casualty list of an estimated 800,000 soldiers dead, injured or missing.

In 1940, a thick fog hanging over the English Channel prevented the German Luftwaffe from flying missions against evacuating Allied troops from Dunkirk.

In 1985, seven federally insured banks in Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Oregon were closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It was a single-day record for closings since the FDIC was founded in 1934.

In 1996, Israeli voters elected opposition Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.

In 2003, Eric Robert Rudolph, the long-sought fugitive in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing and attacks on abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, was arrested while rummaging through a dumpster in North Carolina. Rudolph, whose bombings killed two people and injured many others, was sentenced to four life terms in prison.

In 2005, Mark Felt admitted that, while No. 2 man in the FBI, he was "Deep Throat," the shadowy contact whose help to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the 1972 Watergate break-in led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's resignation.

In 2012, John Edwards of North Carolina, former U.S. senator and presidential candidate, was acquitted on a charge of taking illegal campaign contributions, and a judge declared a mistrial on five other charges against him.

In 2013, actress Jean Stapleton, known to millions of viewers as Edith Bunker in the hit 1970s sitcom All in the Family, died at age 90 in New York City.

In 2014, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, captured in Afghanistan nearly five years earlier, was released by the Taliban in exchange for five detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. In March 2015, the Army announced that Bergdahl had been charged with desertion.

In 2018, Danish lawmakers voted to ban face veils worn by Muslim women, including niqabs and burqas.

A thought for the day: Leo Tolstoy said, "It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness."