Today is Friday, March 24, the 83rd day of 2023 with 282 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include financier Native American rights activist/suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage in 1826; Andrew Mellon in 1855; magician/escape artist Harry Houdini in 1874; silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in 1887; Baseball Hall of Fame member George Sisler in 1893; pioneer Disney film animator Ubbe "Ub" Iwerks in 1901; Republican U.S. presidential candidate Thomas Dewey in 1902; notorious bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1909; African American and women's rights activist Dorothy Height in 1912; poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1919; actor Steve McQueen in 1930; TV personality Mary Berry, born Mary Hunnings, in 1935 (age 88); dress designer Bob Mackie in 1939 (age 84); musician Nick Lowe in 1949 (age 74); fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger in 1951 (age 72); comedian Louie Anderson in 1953; actor Robert Carradine in 1954 (age 69); actor Donna Pescow in 1954 (age 69); actor/model Kelly LeBrock in 1960 (age 63); television personality Star Jones in 1962 (age 61); WWE wrestler The Undertaker, born Mark William Calaway, in 1965 (age 58); actor Lara Flynn Boyle in 1970 (age 53); comedian Tig Notaro in 1971 (age 52); actor Megyn Price in 1971 (age 52); actor Jim Parsons in 1973 (age 50); actor Alyson Hannigan in 1974 (age 49); former football star Peyton Manning in 1976 (age 47); actor Jessica Chastain in 1977 (age 46); actor Lake Bell in 1979 (age 44); TV personality/dancer Val Chmerkovskiy in 1986 (age 37); actor Finn Jones in 1988 (age 35).On this date in history:

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In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died after 44 years of rule. She was succeeded by King James VI of Scotland, uniting England and Scotland under a single British monarch.

In 1934, the United States granted independence to the Philippine Islands, effective July 4, 1946.

In 1975, the beaver became the official symbol of Canada.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Gulf of Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil in the largest oil tanker spill in U.S. history.

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In 1998, four girls and a teacher at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., were killed by bullets fired from a nearby wooded area. The shooters were two boys, ages 11 and 13, who were convicted as juveniles and served prison time.

In 1999, NATO airstrikes hit military targets across the Yugoslav union of Serbia-Montenegro after ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against Kosovar Albanians.

In 2004, the European Commission fined software giant Microsoft $613 million for EU antitrust violations.

In 2012, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, 71, underwent heart transplant surgery at a hospital in Falls Church, Va.


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In 2014, a court in Minya, Egypt, sentenced 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death on charges including murder and attempted murder. Most of the suspects were tried in absentia.

In 2015, a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people, including German high school students, crashed in the French Alps in southern France. Everyone on board died.

In 2018, student activists pushed for an end to gun violence in the March for Our Lives protests across the country less than two months after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead.

In 2020, Japanese and International Olympic Committee officials agreed to postpone the Tokyo Summer Olympics amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Games were rescheduled to take place in the summer of 2021.

A thought for the day: "There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting." -- Irish playwright John Millington Synge