The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include English poet Robert Browning in 1812; German composer Johannes Brahms in 1833; Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1840; Western actor Gabby Hayes in 1885; poet Archibald MacLeish and Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, both in 1892; actor Gary Cooper in 1901; Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid instant camera, in 1909; actor Darren McGavin in 1922; singer Teresa Brewer in 1931 (age 77); Pro Football Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas in 1933; and filmmaker Amy Heckerling in 1954 (age 54).

On this date in history:

In 1763, Ottawa Indian chief Pontiac led a major uprising against the British at Detroit.

In 1789, the first presidential inaugural ball, celebrating the inauguration of George Washington, was held in New York City.

In 1824, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time in Vienna, Austria.

In 1915, a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, killing nearly 1,200 people, including 124 Americans.

In 1945, U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany from Gen. Alfred Jodl.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, had confessed he was on a spying mission for the CIA.

In 1987, U.S. Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., died of AIDS at age 56, the first member of Congress identified as a victim of the disease.

In 1995, Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris and former French premier, was elected president of France on his third try.

In 1997, a Bosnian Serb, Dusan Tadic, was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal in the first case of its kind to go to trial since just after World War II.

In 1998, Daimler-Benz and the Chrysler Corp, announced plans to merge.

In 1999, a U.S. stealth bomber mistakenly bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three people.

In 2000, Vladimir Putin was sworn in as Russia's second president in the first democratic transfer of executive power in the nation's 1,000-year history.

In 2004, Army Pfc. Lynndie England, the 21-year-old woman seen smiling next to naked Iraqi prisoners in widely circulated Abu Ghraib prison photographs, was charged by the military with assaulting Iraqi detainees and conspiring to mistreat them.

Also in 2004, crude oil prices hit a 13-year high of $40 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In 2005, Giacomo, a 50-to-1 shot, won the Kentucky Derby over Closing Argument, which went off at 71-1.

In 2006, Iraqi police found 43 bodies of apparent assassination victims in Baghdad while car bombs killed 14 others.

In 2007, officials reported no survivors in the crash of a Kenyan Airlines plane that went down in a Cameroon mangrove swamp with 114 aboard.

A thought for the day: Vladimir Lenin said, "A lie told often enough becomes truth."