UPI Almanac for Thursday, July 11, 2019

Today is Thursday, July 11, the 192nd day of 2019 with 173 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include Scottish King Robert the Bruce in 1274; John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, in 1767; author E.B. White in 1899; actor Yul Brynner in 1920; critic Harold Bloom in 1930; Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani in 1934 (age 85); soul singer Bonnie Pointer in 1950 (age 69); former heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks in 1953 (age 66); actor Mindy Sterling in 1953 (age 66); actor Sela Ward in 1956 (age 63); musician Richie Sambora in 1959 (age 60); singer Suzanne Vega in 1959 (age 60); actor Lisa Rinna in 1963 (age 56); actor Cassi Davis in 1964 (age 55); author Nilanjana "Jhumpa" Lahiri in 1967 (age 52); TV host John Henson in 1967 (age 52); TV naturalist Jeff Corwin in 1967 (age 52); actor Justin Chambers in 1970 (age 49); rapper Lil' Kim, born Kimberly Jones, in 1975 (age 44); singer Alessia Cara in 1996 (age 23).

On this date in history:

In 1804, U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr killed longtime political foe Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, in a duel at Weehawken, N.J.

In 1847, songwriter Stephen Foster's first major hit, "Oh! Susanna," was performed for the first time, in a Pittsburgh saloon. It soon became a standard for minstrel shows.

In 1859, Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" was published.

In 1914, legendary hitter Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball. The Great Bambino would go on to become one of the greatest baseball players of all time and was included in the inaugural class of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1952, U.S. Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, with Richard Nixon as his running mate. They were elected that November.

In 1955, the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado was dedicated, with 300 cadets in its first class.

In 1960, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was published.

In 1979, Skylab, the United States' first space station, fell to Earth after six years in orbit, scattering tons of debris across the Australian desert.

In 1995, the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Vietnam.

In 1995, Bosnian Serbs claim the town of Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, starting a genocide that would result in the deaths of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys.

In 2006, more than 200 people were killed and another 700 injured in coordinated rush-hour terrorist attacks on the transit system in Mumbai.

In 2011, an overloaded Russian cruise ship with a malfunctioning engine capsized in the Volga River during a thunderstorm and quickly sank, killing 122 people. There were 79 survivors.

In 2015, Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from a maximum-security Mexican prison on through a 5,000-foot tunnel. It was his second escape from prison, and he would later be caught in January 2016.

A thought for the day: French novelist Marcel Proust said, "As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost ... ."