On This Day in History - September 29th - Almanac

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 29th, the 273rd day of 2020 with 93 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include Spanish poet/novelist Miguel de Cervantes in 1547; Italian artist Caravaggio in 1571; author Elizabeth Gaskell in 1810; pioneer nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi in 1901; actor Greer Garson in 1904; singing movie cowboy Gene Autry in 1907; film director Michelangelo Antonioni in 1912; British writer Colin Dexter in 1930; actor Anita Ekberg in 1931; rock 'n' roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis in 1935 (age 85); former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 1936 (age 84); actor Madeline Kahn in 1942; actor Ian McShane in 1942 (age 78); astronaut Bill Nelson in 1942 (age 78); Polish leader/Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa in 1943 (age 77); composer Mike Post in 1944 (age 76); TV personality Bryant Gumbel in 1948 (age 72); rock guitarist Mark Farner in 1948 (age 72); Olympic gold medal-winning runner Sebastian Coe in 1956 (age 64); comedian Andrew Dice Clay in 1957 (age 63); actor Chrissy Metz in 1980 (age 40); actor Zachary Levi in 1980 (age 40); musician Dallas Green in 1980 (age 40); actor Kelly McCreary in 1981 (age 39); NBA star Kevin Durant in 1988 (age 32); singer Halsey, born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, in 1994 (age 26).

On this date in history:

In 1789, the U.S. War Department organized the country's first standing army -- 700 soldiers who would serve for three years.

In 1923, Britain began to govern Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.

In 1936, in the U.S. presidential race between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon, the Democratic and Republican parties used radio for the first time. FDR won re-election in a record vote in November.

In 1941, the Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children began on the outskirts of Kiev in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

In 1965, Communist North Vietnam announced that U.S. pilots taken prisoner would be tried as war criminals.

In 1988, Stacy Marie Allison, a construction worker from Portland, Ore., became the first American woman and the world's seventh to scale Mount Everest.

In 1992, Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced he was returning to the Los Angeles Lakers less than a year after he retired because he had the AIDS virus. A month later, Johnson announced his retirement for a second time.

In 2005, John Roberts Jr. easily won confirmation by the U.S. Senate and was sworn in as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He succeeded the late William Rehnquist.

In 2011, a special court in India convicted 269 police officers and others for their roles in a 1992 raid on a small village that resulted in multiple rapes and beatings.

In 2017, the U.S. State Department pulled all non-emergency staff from its embassy in Havana, Cuba, in connection to mysterious health issues experienced by workers there.

In 2019, the center-right Austrian People's Party won Austria's election, position former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to reclaim the position.

A thought for the day: Women "get more glory than men for comparable feats. But also, women get more notoriety when they crash." -- American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart