The Almanac

Today is Friday, Nov. 15, the 319th day of 2002 with 46 to follow.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include British statesman William Pitt ("the elder") in 1708; British astronomer Sir William Herschel, discoverer of the planet Uranus, in 1738; Nobel Prize-winning physiologist August Krogh of Denmark in 1874; artist Georgia O'Keeffe in 1887; jurist Felix Frankfurter in 1882; diplomat W. Averell Harriman and World War II German Gen. Erwin Rommel, both in 1891; Gen. Curtis LeMay in 1906; TV personality and retired Judge Joseph Wapner in 1919 (age 83); actor Edward Asner in 1929 (age 73); pop singer Petula Clark in 1932 (age 70); actors Yaphet Kotto in 1937 (age 65) and Sam Waterston in 1940 (age 62); conductor Daniel Barenboim in 1942 (age 60); actress Beverly D'Angelo in 1954 (age 48); and "Tonight Show" band leader Kevin Eubanks in 1957 (age 45).

On this date in history:

In 1864, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman began his Civil War march from Atlanta to the sea.

In 1920, the first assembly of the League of Nations was called to order in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1943, Heinrich Himmler ordered Gypsies and part-Gypsies to be placed in Nazi concentration camps.

In 1969, 250,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War.

In 1984, five-week-old Baby Fae died after her body rejected the baboon heart she had lived with for 20 days at California's Loma Linda University Medical Center.

In 1987, 27 people were killed when a Continental Airlines DC-9 jet crashed in a snowstorm during takeoff from Denver.

In 1989, tornadoes struck six Southern states, killing 17 people, injuring 463 and causing at least $100 million in damage in Huntsville, Ala., alone

In 1990, the "Keating Five" -- Sens. Alan Cranston, D-Calif.; Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.; John Glenn, D-Ohio; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Donald Riegle, D-Mich. -- maintained their innocence at the opening of Senate hearings into charges of influence peddling on behalf of S&L kingpin Charles Keating.

In 1991, the Justice Department revealed criminal indictments of BCCI and three businessmen associated with it.

In 1992, Newsweek quoted Elizabeth Tamposi saying a State Department colleague acting on behest of the White House asked her to dig up information on then-Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton.

In 1997, HBO's "Oz" was named best dramatic series at the 19th CableAce Awards in Los Angeles.

In 2001, dispatches from the war on terrorism being waged in Afghanistan revealed that U.S. Special Forces were taking part in combat operations against the Taliban and had had close scrapes with enemy fire.

A thought for the day: Nobel Prize-winning poet George Seferis said, "We have many monsters to destroy."