The Almanac

Today is Saturday, June 29, the 180th day of 2002 with 185 to follow.

The moon is waning, moving toward its last quarter.

The morning stars are Mercury, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The evening stars are Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include William Mayo, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in 1861; astronomer George Ellery Hale, founder of the Yerkes and Mount Palomar observatories, in 1868; actor/singer Nelson Eddy in 1901; Broadway songwriter Frank Loesser in 1910; actor Slim Pickens in 1919; "black power" advocate Stokely Carmichael in 1941 (age 61); actor Gary Busey in 1944 (age 58); actor-turned-congressman Fred Grandy in 1948 (age 54); and actress Sharon Lawrence ("NYPD Blue") in 1962 (age 40).

On this date in history:

In 1853, the U.S. Senate ratified the $10 million Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, adding more than 29,000 square miles to the territories of Arizona and New Mexico and completing the modern geographical boundaries of the contiguous 48 states.

In 1933, Fatty Arbuckle, the silent film comedian and one of Hollywood's most beloved personalities until a manslaughter charge ruined his career, died while preparing a comeback. He was 46.

In 1941, Isabella Peron took office as president of Argentina.

In 1946, two years before Israel became a nation, British authorities arrested more than 2,700 Jewish Zionists in an effort to stop terrorism in Palestine.

In 1970, the last American troops were withdrawn from Cambodia into South Vietnam.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment, as then administered by individual states, was unconstitutional.

In 1991, the European Community announced $1.4 billion in aid for the Soviet Union.

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court left intact the important aspects of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion, but upheld most of Pennsylvania's new restrictions on a woman's right to abortion.

Also in 1992, doctors in Pittsburgh reported the world's first transplant of a baboon liver into a human patient. The recipient, a 35-year-old man, survived three months.

And in 1992, the president of Algeria was assassinated during a speech.

In 1994, the Japanese Diet, or parliament, elected Tomiichi Murayama as prime minister.

Also in 1994, in a taped interview aired on British TV, Prince Charles admitted he'd been unfaithful to his estranged wife, Princess Diana.

In 1995, editors of the New York Times and Washington Post said they were considering publishing the UNAbomber's manifesto in hopes of ending the bombings.

Also in 1995, the U.S. shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir.

In 1999, a Turkish court convicted Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan of treason and sentenced him to death.

A thought for the day: Walt Whitman wrote, "Whoever degrades another degrades me."