UPI Almanac for Monday, July 26, 2021

Today is Monday, July 26, the 207th day of 2021, with 158 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Leo. They include Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in 1856; Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, founder of analytic psychology, in 1875; British novelist Aldous Huxley in 1894; actor Vivian Vance in 1909; baseball Hall of Fame member Hoyt Wilhelm in 1922; children's author Jan Berenstain in 1923; filmmaker Stanley Kubrick in 1928; Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson in 1928; singer Mick Jagger in 1943 (age 78); actor Helen Mirren in 1945 (age 76); drummer Roger Taylor in 1949 (72); Olympic gold medal skater Dorothy Hamill in 1956 (age 65); actor Kevin Spacey in 1959 (age 62); actor Sandra Bullock in 1964 (age 57); actor Jeremy Piven in 1965 (age 56); actor Jason Statham in 1967 (age 54); TV host Chris Harrison in 1971 (age 50); actor Kate Beckinsale in 1973 (age 48); New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 1980 (age 41); actor Monica Raymund in 1986 (age 35); actor Francia Raisa in 1988 (age 33); actor Bianca Santos in 1990 (age 31); singer/actor Taylor Momsen in 1993 (age 28).

On this date in history:

In 1775, Congress establishes the U.S. postal system.

In 1847, Liberia became a republic and Africa's first sovereign, black-ruled democratic nation.

In 1908, the FBI was born as the Bureau of Investigation, or BOI, when a group of newly hired investigators reported to the Justice Department. The special unit officially became the FBI in 1935.

In 1931, swarms of grasshoppers decimated millions of acres of crops throughout the southwestern United States.

In 1941, Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines.

In 1945, voters ousted Winston Churchill as prime minister of Britain after five years in the position. His Conservative Party would be voted back into power in 1951, and he would regain his position.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman ordered desegregation of the U.S. military.

In 1956, Egypt created a crisis by nationalizing the British- and French-owned Suez Canal.

In 1984, serial killer Ed Gein, the inspiration for the movie Psycho, dies of cancer.

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, prohibiting discrimination against the disabled in employment, public accommodations, in telecommunications, and on public or private buses or trains.

In 1992, under pressure, Iraq agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to look for documentation on weapons of mass destruction.

In 2005, the Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral in the first shuttle launch since the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

In 2010, the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, said the site decided to post more than 75,000 secret U.S. Afghan war documents on the Internet to give a more complete picture of the conflict. The White House said the deed had "a potential to be very harmful."

In 2018, Facebook had the worst single day of trading in history, losing some $110 billion.

In 2020, the body of civil rights icon and Rep. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., nine days after he died of cancer.

A thought for the day: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." -- Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw