ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 66th day of 2017 and the 77th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received the patent for the telephone.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the Rhineland, defying the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1965, state troopers forcefully broke up 600 civil rights protesters on "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama.

In 1985, the song "We Are the World" was released worldwide, with sales to benefit African famine relief.

In 2009, the Kepler space observatory, designed by NASA to discover Earthlike planets, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: John Herschel (1792-1871), mathematician/astronomer; Luther Burbank (1849-1926), botanist; Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), composer; Willard Scott (1934- ), TV personality; Bryan Cranston (1956- ), actor; Ivan Lendl (1960- ), tennis player; Wanda Sykes (1964- ), actress/comedian; Rachel Weisz (1970- ), actress; Peter Sarsgaard (1971- ), actor; Jenna Fischer (1974- ), actress; Laura Prepon (1980- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics used data from the Kepler space observatory to estimate that at least 17 billion Earth-sized exoplanets exist in the Milky Way galaxy.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1987, 20-year-old Mike Tyson defeated James "Bonecrusher" Smith to unify the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council titles, becoming the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion in history.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one." -- John Herschel, "A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 72,197 -- number of Americans who were 100 years or older in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (March 5) and full moon (March 12).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 65th day of 2017 and the 76th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1836, the Alamo mission and fortress compound in Texas fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that slaves were property in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

In 1951, the espionage trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg began in New York Southern District federal court.

In 1981, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as "CBS Evening News" anchor, a post he had held for 19 years.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Michelangelo (1475-1564), painter/sculptor/architect; Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655), soldier/writer; Lou Costello (1906-1959), actor/comedian; Will Eisner (1917-2005), cartoonist; Ed McMahon (1923-2009), TV personality; Alan Greenspan (1926- ), economist; Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), author; Rob Reiner (1947- ), actor/director; D.L. Hughley (1963- ), actor/comedian; Connie Britton (1967- ), actress; Shaquille O'Neal (1972- ), basketball player.

TODAY'S FACT: The U.S. Census Bureau reported that the median age for an American man in 2014 getting married for the first time was 29.3 years old. The median age for women was 27.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1964, world heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay announced that his spiritual mentor, Elijah Muhammad, had given him the new name Muhammad Ali.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "But I believe without any doubt at all that our greatest good fortune was that even in the most extreme difficulties we might lose our patience but never our sense of humor." -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Living to Tell the Tale"

TODAY'S NUMBER: $0.30 -- price for 1 pound of Oreo cookies in a novelty can when the cookie was introduced by the National Biscuit Co. (today known as Nabisco) on this day in 1912.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (March 5) and full moon (March 12).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 64th day of 2017 and the 75th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1770, British troops fired into a crowd of Americans, killing five, in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

In 1946, Winston Churchill used the phrase "iron curtain" during a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, an event often regarded as marking the beginning of the Cold War.

In 1970, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect following ratification by 43 nations.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Howard Pyle (1853-1911), author/illustrator; Rex Harrison (1908-1990), actor; James Tobin (1918-2002), economist; Daniel Kahneman (1934- ), economist; Dean Stockwell (1936- ), actor; Penn Jillette (1955- ), comedian/magician; Andy Gibb (1958-1988), singer; Joel Osteen (1963- ), televangelist; Michael Irvin (1966- ), football player; Lisa Robin Kelly (1970-2013), actress; Kevin Connolly (1974- ), actor; Eva Mendes (1974- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: John Adams, who would later be the second U.S. president, served as the attorney for the British soldiers who took part in the Boston Massacre and successfully defended them on murder charges.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1993, Canadian Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson received a lifetime ban from competition after testing positive a second time for performance-enhancing drugs.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance." -- Daniel Kahneman

TODAY'S NUMBER: 189 -- signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as of February 2017. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in January 2003; among U.N. member states, India, Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan have never signed the treaty.

TODAY'S MOON: First quarter moon (March 5).