ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC
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Today is the 163rd day of 2024 and the 85th day of spring.
TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1770, Captain James Cook "discovered" the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia by accidentally running aground on a shoal.
In 1776, the Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five -- John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston -- to begin drafting the Declaration of Independence.
In 1963, Alabama Gov. George Wallace, confronted by National Guard troops, allowed the University of Alabama to be desegregated.
TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Richard Strauss (1864-1949), composer/conductor; Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997), explorer/inventor/writer; Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), football coach; William Styron (1925-2006), author; Gene Wilder (1933-2016), actor; Joe Montana (1956- ), football player; Hugh Laurie (1959- ), actor; Peter Dinklage (1969- ), actor; Joshua Jackson (1978- ), actor; Diana Taurasi (1982- ), basketball player; Shia LaBeouf (1986- ), actor.
TODAY'S FACT: On this day in 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution stating that Italian American inventor Antonio Meucci, who demonstrated his "telettrofono" device in New York in 1860, should be acknowledged for his work in the invention of the telephone.
TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1919, Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win horse racing's Triple Crown.
TODAY'S QUOTE: "The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads." -- William Styron
TODAY'S NUMBER: 133,000 -- square mileage of the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef system, made up of 2,500 individual reefs and more than 900 islands.
TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (June 6) and first quarter moon (June 13).