The Almanac

Today is Wednesday, April 10, the 100th day of 2002 with 265 to follow.

The moon is waning, moving toward its new phase.

There are no morning stars.

The evening stars are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include U.S. Adm. Matthew Perry, who concluded the first treaty between Japan and the United States, in 1794; soldier, diplomat and novelist Lewis Wallace, author of "Ben Hur," in 1827; William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, in 1829; journalist and publisher Joseph Pulitzer in 1847; Frances Perkins, the first woman Cabinet member, in 1882; poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran in 1883; journalist and diplomat Clare Booth Luce in 1903; actors Harry Morgan in 1915 (age 87), Chuck Connors in 1921, Max von Sydow in 1929 (age 73) and Omar Sharif in 1932 (age 70); sports commentator John Madden in 1936 (age 66); actors Steven Seagal in 1951 (age 51) and Peter MacNicol in 1954 (age 48); singer/songwriter/producer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds in 1957 (age 45); singer Mandy Moore in 1984 (age 18); and actor Haley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense") in 1988 (age 14).

On this date in history:

In 1790, merchant Robert Gray docked at Boston Harbor, becoming the first American to circumnavigate the globe. He'd sailed from Boston in September 1787.

In 1849, William Hunt of New York patented the first safety pin.

In 1864, Austrian Archduke Maximilian became emperor of Mexico.

In 1942, Japanese soldiers herded together American and Filipino prisoners of war on Bataan in the Philippines and forced them to march to another camp. During the six-day "Death March," more than 5,200 Americans and many more Filipinos died.

In 1945, the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald was liberated by the U.S. Army 80th Division.

In 1963, the U.S. nuclear submarine "Thresher" sank in the Atlantic Ocean 220 miles east of Boston. All 129 men on board were lost.

In 1971, the U.S. table tennis team arrived in China, the first American group to penetrate the so-called "Bamboo Curtain" since the 1950s.

In 1987, the state of Utah began pumping water from the Great Salt Lake to reduce damaging record water levels.

In 1990, a Belgian man, his French girlfriend and their daughter, who was born in captivity, were released in the Middle East. They'd been seized along with four other Belgians by the Fatah Revolutionary Council aboard a pleasure boat in the eastern Mediterranean in November 1987.

In 1991, an Italian ferry headed to Sardinia collided with an oil tanker near Leghorn, Italy, killing 151 passengers and crew. The tanker crew survived.

In 1992, Charles Keating Jr., considered a symbol of the nation's savings and loan debacle, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for securities fraud.

Also in 1992, in formal Gulf War report, the Pentagon said allied bombers destroyed more Iraqi electrical generating facilities than necessary, causing undue postwar hardship on civilians.

In 1993, jurors began deliberations in the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged with violating Rodney King's civil rights. Two of the officers would be convicted.

In 1994, two U.S aircraft bombed a Serbian command post in Bosnia. It was the first-ever NATO air attack against ground forces.

In 1995, Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan, announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination.

In 1996, President Clinton vetoed a ban on "partial birth" abortions. Congress was unable to override the veto.

In 1997, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled the Line-Item Veto Act of 1996 was unconstitutional.

In 1998, Britain and Ireland reached an agreement aimed at ending the long and bloody dispute over the future of Northern Ireland.

Also in 1998, the anti-impotence drug Viagra went on the market and became one of the best-selling new medications of all time.

In 2000, the NASDAQ plunged 258 points in its second-biggest drop ever, starting the dramatic fall-off in the value of technology stocks.

A thought for the day: Pablo Casals said, "Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart."