UPI Almanac for Saturday, March 16, 2024

Today is Saturday, March 16, the 76th day of 2024 with 290 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Mars and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include James Madison, fourth president of the United States, in 1751; German physicist Georg Ohm, a pioneer in the study of electricity, in 1789; French painter Rosa Bonheur in 1822; German doctor Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death," in 1911; former U.S. first lady Pat Nixon in 1912; actor Mercedes McCambridge in 1916; entertainer Jerry Lewis in 1926; former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., in 1927; filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci in 1940; game-show host Chuck Woolery in 1941 (age 83); singer/songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker in 1942; actor Erik Estrada in 1949 (age 75); actor Victor Garber in 1949 (age 75); actor Kate Nelligan in 1950 (age 74); actor Isabelle Huppert in 1953 (age 71); rocker Nancy Wilson in 1954 (age 70); football Hall of Fame member Ozzie Newsome in 1956 (age 68); actor Clifton Powell in 1956 (age 68); rapper Flavor Flav, born William Drayton Jr., in 1959 (age 65); NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in 1959 (age 65); actor Jerome Flynn in 1963 (age 61); singer/songwriter Patty Griffin in 1964 (age 60); film director Gore Verbinski in 1964 (age 60); actor Lauren Graham in 1967 (age 57); actor Judah Friedlander in 1969 (age 55); actor Alan Tudyk in 1971 (age 53); actor Tim Kang in 1973 (age 51); actor/model Brooke Burns in 1978 (age 46); actor Alexandra Daddario in 1986 (age 38); singer Jhene Aiko in 1988 (age 36); musician Wolfgang Van Halen in 1991 (age 33); actor Ajiona Alexus in 1996 (age 28).

On this date in history:

In 1802, the U.S. Congress authorized the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

In 1827, Freedom's Journal, the first Black-owned and -operated newspaper in the United States, was published in New York.

In 1926, Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fuel rocket.

In 1935, Adolf Hitler denounced the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty and immediately ordered general military conscription in Germany.

In 1945, the Island of Iwo Jima was declared secure by U.S. forces in one of the major World War II conflicts in the Pacific.

In 1956, the Rev. A. Edward Banks became the 25th minister to be arrested for allegedly violating the seldom-used Alabama state anti-boycott law. The boycott of Montgomery, Ala., buses began after Rosa Parks was fined $10 for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person.

In 1966, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott docked their Gemini 8 space vehicle with an Agena craft, a first in orbital history.

In 1968, about 300 Vietnamese villagers died at the hands of U.S. troops in what came to be known as the My Lai massacre.

In 1984, CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, was kidnapped by members of Hezbollah. His captors claimed they executed Buckley on Oct. 4, 1985, though it's believed he died of a heart attack sometime in June 1985, following nearly 15 months of torture.

In 1985, Terry Anderson, Beirut bureau chief for the Associated Press, was kidnapped by members of Hezbollah. He would remain in captivity for more than six years, before securing his release on Dec. 4, 1991.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan ordered 3,200 U.S. troops sent to Honduras in what the White House described as "a measured response" to a Nicaraguan invasion directed against U.S.-backed Contra rebels.

In 1994, the International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea barred its inspectors from checking one of the nation's seven nuclear sites.

In 2009, Japan reported its gross domestic product fell at a 12.7 percent annual rate in the last quarter of 2008, plunging the country into what experts said was its worst financial crisis since World War II.

In 2014, results of a referendum showed that people in Crimea voted overwhelmingly for the autonomous Black Sea peninsula to break from Ukraine and join Russia.

In 2021, a series of shootings at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area left eight people dead. Six of the slain victims were Asian women, prompting questions of whether the shootings were a hate crime amid rising anti-Asian sentiment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China. The accused gunman told police he was motivated by a conflict between sexual addiction and his Christianity, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

In 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden announced another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare appeal for assistance before a joint session of Congress.

A thought for the day: "If I had my life to live again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." -- American actor Tallulah Bankhead