The Almanac

Today is Thursday, Oct. 10, the 283rd day of 2002 with 82 to follow.

The moon is waxing.

The morning stars are Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

The evening stars are Venus, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include English chemist-physicist Henry Cavendish, discoverer of hydrogen, in 1731; composer Giuseppi Verdi in 1813; actress Helen Hayes in 1900; playwright Harold Pinter in 1930 (age 72); entertainer Ben Vereen in 1946 (age 56); actress Jessica Harper in 1949 (age 53); rocker David Lee Roth in 1955 (age 47); tennis star Martina Navratilova in 1956 (age 46); country singer Tanya Tucker in 1958 (age 44); and football player Brett Favre in 1969 (age 33).

On this date in history:

In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was formally opened at Fort Severn, Annapolis, Md., with 50 midshipmen in the first class.

In 1886, Griswold Lorillard of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., fashioned the first tuxedo for men.

In 1963, a dam burst in northern Italy, drowning an estimated 3,000 people.

In 1973, less than a year before Richard M. Nixon's resignation as president, Spiro Agnew became the first U.S. vice president to resign in disgrace. The same day, he pleaded no contest to a charge of federal income tax evasion in exchange for the dropping of charges of political corruption.

In 1991, the United States cut all aid to Haiti, including $90 million funneled through the Agency for International Development.

In 1993, Greek voters returned former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and his Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement to power.

In 1994, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, commander-in-chief of the Haitian armed forces, resigned to make way for the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In 1995, Israel freed some 900 Palestinian prisoners and pulled its troops out of four towns as the second phase of the peace plan was implemented on the West Bank.

In 1997, the major tobacco companies agreed to a settlement in the class-action suit brought against them by 60,000 present and former flight attendants, who claimed second-hand smoke in airplanes had caused them to get cancer and other diseases.

Also in 1997, it was announced that the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its coordinator, Jody Williams of Putney, Vt.

In 2001, representatives of 56 Islamic nations, in an emergency meeting on Qatar, condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

A thought for the day: Queen Elizabeth I said, "I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything."