UPI Almanac for Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Today is Tuesday, July 20, the 201st day of 2021 with 164 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include Macedonian leader Alexander the Great in 356 B.C.; Italian poet Petrarch in 1304; Pope Innocent IX in 1519; Austrian monk/pioneering botanist Gregor Johann Mendel in 1822; New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 reached the summit of Mount Everest, in 1919; actor Sally Ann Howes in 1930 (age 91); South Korean artist Nam June Paik in 1932; author Cormac McCarthy in 1933 (age 88); former Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the longest serving woman in U.S. Congress history, in 1936 (age 85); actor Diana Rigg in 1938; actor Natalie Wood in 1938; American artist Judy Chicago in 1939 (age 82); singer Kim Carnes in 1945 (age 76); guitarist Carlos Santana in 1947 (age 74); actor Donna Dixon in 1957 (age 64); rock singer Chris Cornell in 1964; actor Josh Holloway in 1969 (age 52); actor Sandra Oh in 1971 (age 50); actor Omar Epps in 1973 (age 48); actor Judy Greer in 1975 (age 46); hockey player Pavel Datsyuk in 1978 (age 43); model Gisele Bundchen in 1980 (age 41); actor John Francis Daley in 1985 (age 36); actor Osric Chau in 1986 (age 35); dancer/actor Julianne Hough in 1988 (age 33); actor Alycia Debnam-Carey in 1993 (age 28); U.S. Olympic figure skater Maia Shibutani in 1994 (age 27).

On this date in history:

In 1859, American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the first time. About 1,500 spectators each paid 50 cents to see Brooklyn play New York.

In 1881, five years after U.S. Army Lt. Col. George A. Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrendered to the Army, which promised amnesty for him and his followers.

In 1940, Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart," topped by "I'll Never Smile Again" by the Tommy Dorsey orchestra with Frank Sinatra.

In 1945, the U.S. flag was raised over Berlin as the first U.S. troops moved in to take part in the post-World War II occupation.

In 1951, while entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.

In 1968, the first Special Olympics Games were contested at Soldier Field in Chicago.

In 1969, U.S. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon -- Armstrong first and Aldrin about 20 minutes later.

In 1976, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, became the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.

In 1985, treasure hunter Mel Fisher located a Spanish galleon sunk by a 1622 hurricane off Key West, Fla. It contained $400 million worth of treasure.

In 1989, U.S. President George H.W. Bush called for the United States to organize a long-range space program to support an orbiting space station, a moon base and a manned mission to Mars.

In 1993, White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster was found shot to death in a park in northern Virginia. His death was ruled a suicide.

In 2005, the U.S. Justice Department activated its online National Sex Offender Public Registry, linking the registries of 22 states.

In 2012, a gunman set off tear gas grenades and opened fire at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at a theater in Aurora, Colo., killing 12 people and wounding 58. The accused killer, James E. Holmes, later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2015, he was convicted on multiple counts of murder.

In 2013, Helen Thomas, UPI White House reporter through the administrations of 10 presidents, died at age 92. President Bill Clinton called Thomas "a symbol of everything American journalism can and should be -- the embodiment of fearless integrity, fierce commitment to accuracy, the insistence of holding government accountable." Thomas left the news agency in 2000 and became a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.

In 2015, Cuba and the United States restored full diplomatic relations, with the reopening of reciprocal embassies in Havana and Washington.

In 2018, Walt Disney Studios fired James Gunn as director of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 for offensive jokes he made online decades ago. The studio hired him back in March 2018 after he apologized.

A thought for the day: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone." -- American author Ella Wheeler Wilcox