UPI Almanac for Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019

Today is Sunday, Sept. 1, the 244th day of 2019 with 121 to follow.

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

Those born on this day are under the sign of Virgo. They include German composer Engelbert Humperdinck in 1854; Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1875; undefeated heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano in 1923; actor George Maharis in 1928 (age 91); country music singer Boxcar Willie in 1931; country music singer Conway Twitty in 1933; former Texas Gov. Ann Richards in 1933; symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa in 1935 (age 84); lawyer/commentator Alan Dershowitz in 1938 (age 81); comedian/actor Lily Tomlin in 1939 (age 80); conductor Leonard Slatkin in 1944 (age 75); musician Barry Gibb in 1946 (age 73); TV talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw in 1950 (age 69); singer Gloria Estefan in 1957 (age 62); TV host Padma Lakshmi in 1970 (age 49); stylist Rachel Zoe in 1971 (age 48); musician Bill Kaulitz in 1989 (age 30); musician Tom Kaulitz in 1989 (age 30); actor Zendaya Coleman in 1996 (age 23).

On this date in history:

In 1715, France's King Louis XIV died after ruling the country for 72 years, the longest reign for a French monarch.

In 1807, Aaron Burr, vice president of the United States under Thomas Jefferson, was acquitted of treason charges growing out of an alleged plot to set up an independent empire in the country's south and west.

In 1914, the last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

In 1923, an earthquake struck Yokohama, Japan. The so-called Great Kantō earthquake killed an estimated 143,000 people.

In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Great Britain and France served an ultimatum on Adolf Hitler but it was ignored. This date is considered to be the start of World War II.

In 1964, Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese player to appear in a Major League Baseball game in the San Francisco Giants' 4-1 loss to the New York Mets. He finished out the 1964 season and played another full season in 1965 with the Giants before returning to Japan to play for the Nankai Hawks.

In 1972, American Bobby Fischer defeated Russian Boris Spassky for the world chess championship.

In 1983, a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 -- Flight 007 -- strayed into Soviet airspace and was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter. All 269 people on the airliner died.

In 1985, scientists found the wreck of the British luxury liner Titanic, sunk by an iceberg in 1912, in the Atlantic Ocean south of Newfoundland.

In 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush established diplomatic relations with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In 1998, a law passed in 1991 went into effect requiring all vehicles sold in the United States to have airbags on both sides of the front seat.

In 2004, a group of Chechen separatists took more than 1,000 people hostage at a school in Beslan, Russia, ultimately killing nearly 340 people, including children.

In 2008, Hurricane Gustav slammed into Louisiana southwest of New Orleans as a Category 2 storm, forcing the evacuation of about 2 million people. New Orleans' levee system, strengthened since 2005's Hurricane Katrina devastated the area, held against a 12-foot storm surge.

In 2015, Pope Francis said priests can forgive women who have had an abortion if they seek forgiveness during the upcoming extraordinary jubilee.

In 2018, a memorial service for Sen. John McCain was held at the Washington National Cathedral after his death from brain cancer. He was buried a day later at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery.

A thought for the day: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- physicist Albert Einstein