ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 118th day of 2017 and the 40th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1789, a mutiny broke out on the British trade ship Bounty.

In 1945, Italian partisans executed dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress by firing squad.

In 1952, the United States ended its occupation of Japan.

In 1965, U.S. troops began an occupation of the Dominican Republic in an effort to thwart the establishment of a communist regime.

In 1994, CIA officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleaded guilty to spying for the Soviet Union and Russia.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: James Monroe (1758-1831), fifth U.S. president; Lionel Barrymore (1878-1954), actor; Oskar Schindler (1908-1974), businessman; Harper Lee (1926-2016), author; Ann-Margret (1941- ), singer/actress; Bruno Kirby (1949-2006), actor; Jay Leno (1950- ), comedian/TV personality; L'Wren Scott (1964-2014), model/fashion designer; John Daly (1966- ), golfer; Bridget Moynahan (1971- ), actress; Jorge Garcia (1973- ), actor; Penelope Cruz (1974- ), actress; Jessica Alba (1981- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: Aldrich Ames made $4.6 million selling CIA secrets to the KGB from 1985 to 1993.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1967, Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." – Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 55 -- years between the release of Harper Lee's first novel, the literary classic "To Kill a Mockingbird," published in 1960, and her second published novel, "Go Set a Watchman," released in 2015. "Go Set a Watchman" was Lee's first attempt at a novel, and it features older versions of many of the characters in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (April 26) and first quarter moon (May 2).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 117th day of 2017 and the 39th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1521, explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in the Philippines.

In 1865, the steamboat Sultana exploded in the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, killing some 1,700 passengers.

In 2006, construction began on the Freedom Tower (later renamed One World Trade Center) at the World Trade Center site in New York City.

In 2014, John XXIII and John Paul II became the first popes to be canonized as saints since 1954.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Samuel Morse (1791-1872), Morse code co-inventor; Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), soldier/18th U.S. president; Rogers Hornsby (1896-1963), baseball player; Enos Slaughter (1916-2002), baseball player; Jack Klugman (1922-2012), actor; Coretta Scott King (1927-2006), activist; Casey Kasem (1932-2014), radio/TV personality; Sandy Dennis (1937-1992), actress; August Wilson (1945-2005), playwright; Herm Edwards (1954- ), football coach/sportscaster; Patrick Stump (1984- ), singer-songwriter.

TODAY'S FACT: In 1667, blind and impoverished poet John Milton sold the copyright to his masterpiece, "Paradise Lost," for 10 pounds (roughly $2,260 in 2017 U.S. currency).

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1956, 31-year-old boxer Rocky Marciano retired with a perfect 49-0 record, the only heavyweight champion to do so.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign -- the people -- should possess intelligence." -- Ulysses S. Grant

TODAY'S NUMBER: 1,776 -- architectural height (in feet) of One World Trade Center.

TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (April 26) and first quarter moon (May 2).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 116th day of 2017 and the 38th day of spring.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, was killed by Union troops in Virginia.

In 1937, German planes bombed the city of Guernica in Spain.

In 1986, a reactor ruptured at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union, spreading radioactive material over much of Europe.

In 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation's first bill allowing gay couples to form civil unions.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), artist; Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), landscape architect; Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), philosopher; Charles Richter (1900-1985), seismologist; Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), author; I.M. Pei (1917- ), architect; Carol Burnett (1933- ), actress/comedian; Giancarlo Esposito (1958- ), actor; Jet Li (1963- ), actor; Kevin James (1965- ), actor/comedian; Tom Welling (1977- ), actor; Channing Tatum (1980- ), actor.

TODAY'S FACT: The United States has 100 operational nuclear reactors, more than any other nation.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1941, the organ, now a staple at Major League Baseball stadiums, made its debut at Wrigley Field, during a game in which the Chicago Cubs lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "One can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction." -- Bernard Malamud, "Dublin's Lives"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 64,000 -- square miles contaminated by radioactive material from the Chernobyl disaster, an area approximately the size of Wisconsin.

TODAY'S MOON: New moon (April 26).