UPI Almanac for Thursday, April 23, 2020

Today is Thursday, April 23, the 114th day of 2020 with 252 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include English playwright William Shakespeare in 1564; English painter J.M.W "William" Turner in 1775; James Buchanan, 15th president of the United States, in 1791; Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck in 1858; Canadian Prime Minister/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lester Pearson in 1897; actor/diplomat Shirley Temple Black in 1928; distance runner/author Jim Fixx in 1932; singer Roy Orbison in 1936; actor Lee Majors in 1939 (age 81); actor David Birney in 1939 (age 81); actor Sandra Dee in 1942; actor Herve Villechaize in 1943; actor Joyce DeWitt in 1949 (age 71); documentarian Michael Moore in 1954 (age 66); actor Jan Hooks in 1957; actor Valerie Bertinelli in 1960 (age 60); actor George Lopez in 1961 (age 59); actor Melina Kanakaredes in 1967 (age 53); Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1968; comedian John Oliver in 1977 (age 43); actor Kal Penn in 1977 (age 43); actor/wrestler John Cena in 1977 (age 43); actor Jaime King in 1979 (age 41); actor Dev Patel in 1990 (age 30); model Gigi Hadid in 1995 (age 25); U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning snowboarder Chloe Kim in 2000 (age 20).

On this date in history:

In 1635, the first public school in America, the Boston Latin School, was opened.

In 1898, the first movie theater opened at the Koster and Bials Music Hall in New York City.

In 1914, Chicago's Wrigley Field, then known as Weeghman Park, hosts its first baseball game when the Chicago Chi-Feds beat the Kansas City Packers 9-1.

In 1940, a fire at the Rhythm Club in Natchez, Miss., claimed the lives of 209 people, all African Americans, in what is now ranked as the fourth-deadliest building fire in U.S. history.

In 1965, more than 200 U.S. planes struck North Vietnam in one of the heaviest raids of the Vietnam War.

In 1985, former U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin died at age 88. The North Carolina Democrat directed the Senate Watergate investigation that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation.

In 1993, United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez died at age 66.

In 2007, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who faced down army tanks during the fall of the Soviet Union, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 76.

In 2008, the U.S. Defense Department announced that Army Gen. David Petraeus, top American military official in Iraq, was chosen to head the Central Command, overseeing military affairs in the Middle East and Central Asia, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2015, the Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch as attorney general more than five months after President Barack Obama nominated her. She was the first African-American woman to hold the title.

In 2019, more than 50 jade miners died in northern Myanmar after they were buried by a landslide.

A thought for the day: "Well-behaved women seldom make history." -- American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich