UPI Almanac for Thursday, Dec. 27, 2018

Today is Thursday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2018 with four to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1571; French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur in 1822; actor Sydney Greenstreet in 1879; actor Marlene Dietrich in 1901; actor John Amos in 1939 (age 79); news correspondent Cokie Roberts in 1943 (age 75); French actor Gerard Depardieu in 1948 (age 70); former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon in 1951 (age 67); wrestler Chyna, born Joan Marie Laurer, in 1969; news correspondent Savannah Guthrie in 1971 (age 47); actor Emilie De Ravin in 1981 (age 37); singer Hayley Williams in 1988 (age 30); actor Chloe Bridges in 1991 (age 27); country singer Shay Mooney in 1991 (age 27); actor Olivia Cooke in 1993 (age 25); actor Timothee Chalamet in 1995 (age 23).

On this date in history:

In 1932, Radio City Music Hall opened in New York.

In 1941, Japanese warplanes bombed Manila in the Philippines even though it had been declared an "open city."

In 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts -- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders -- returned to Earth after orbiting the moon 10 times in a flight that helped open the way for moon-landing missions.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II met privately in a jail cell with Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who shot and attempted to assassinate the pontiff in 1981. The pope pardoned the 25-year-old.

In 1985, gunmen opened fire at El Al ticket counters at airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 20 people and injuring more than 100.

In 1991, a Scandinavian Airlines jet with 129 people aboard crashed and broke apart after taking off from Stockholm. No one died in the incident.

In 1992, Port Authority police arrested singer Harry Connick Jr. for attempting to board a plane at JFK International Airport. The court dropped the charges after the singer agreed to make a public service announcement about the dangers of breaking gun laws.

In 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, first woman to hold that post in an Islamic state, was assassinated in a suicide attack as she left a political rally in Rawalpindi. Police said she was shot twice by a gunman who then set off a bomb in her motorcade, killing another 20 people.

In 2008, 225 people died when Israeli jets bombed Gaza in retaliation for Hamas-fired rockets, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. At least 300 people were injured.

In 2012, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the U.S. Central Command during the Persian Gulf War, died in Tampa, Fla. He was 78.

In 2013, a car bomb in Beirut killed seven people, including Mohammad Chatah, Lebanon's former ambassador to the United States. Dozens of others were injured in the attack, which officials said targeted Chatah's convoy in the central section of the city.

In 2015, Iraqi security forces retook control of Ramadi from Islamic State militants.

A thought for the day: "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, human rights invented America." -- President Jimmy Carter