Today In History
Today is Thursday, Dec. 28, the 362nd day of 2017. There are three days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
› 1612: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed the planet Neptune, but mistook it for a star. (Neptune wasn’t officially discovered until 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle.)
ON THIS DATE
› 1832: John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.
› 1846: Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.
› 1856: The 28th president of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, was born in Staunton, Virginia.
› 1895: The Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, held the first public showing of their movies in Paris.
› 1945: Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
› 1961: The Tennessee Williams play “Night of the Iguana” opened on Broadway.
› 1973: The book “Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s expose of the Soviet prison system, was first published in Paris.
› 1981: Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Comic book creator Stan Lee is 95. Former United Auto Workers union president Owen Bieber is 88. Actress Nichelle Nichols is 85. Actress Dame Maggie Smith is 83. Former Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is
71. Rock singer-musician Edgar Winter is 71. Funk musician Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste (The Meters) is 69. Actor Denzel Washington is 63. Country singer Joe Diffie is 59. Country musician Mike McGuire (Shenandoah) is 59. Actor Chad McQueen is 57. Country singer-musician Marty Roe (Diamond Rio) is 57. Actor Malcolm Gets is
54. Actor Joe Manganiello is 41. Actress Vanessa Ferlito is 40. Rhythm and blues singer John Legend is 39. Rapper-musician-producer Terrace Martin is 39. Actor Andre Holland is 38. Actress Sienna Miller is
36. Actress Beau Garrett (TV: “The Good Doctor”) is 35. Pop singer Kasey Sheridan (Dream) is 31. Actor Thomas Dekker is 30. Pop singer David Archuleta is 27. Actress Mary-Charles Jones (TV: “Kevin Can Wait”) is 16. Actor Miles Brown is 13.