The Almanac

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 10, the 344th day of 2002 with 21 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Francis Gallaudet, founder of the first free school for the deaf, in 1787; poet Emily Dickinson in 1830; librarian Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey decimal book classification system, in 1851; TV newscaster Chet Huntley in 1911; actress Dorothy Lamour in 1914; actor Harold Gould in 1923 (age 79); actress Susan Dey in 1952 (age 50); and actor Kenneth Branaugh in 1960 (age 42).

On this date in history:

In 1869, the Territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote.

In 1898, Spain signed a treaty officially ending the Spanish-American War. It gave Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States.

In 1901, the Nobel prizes were first awarded in Oslo, Norway, and Stockholm, Sweden.

In 1927, the Grand Ole Opry made its first radio broadcast from Nashville.

In 1936, Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. His brother succeeded to the throne as King George VI.

In 1941, Japanese troops landed on northern Luzon in the Philippines in the early days of World War II.

In 1984, the National Science Foundation reported the discovery of the first planet outside our solar system, orbiting a star 21 million light years from Earth.

In 1990, the communists won a major victory in the first postwar multi-party elections in the Yugoslavian republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

In 1991, TV commentator Patrick Buchanan announced a bid to challenge President Bush for the Republican presidential nomination.

Also in 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law that allowed a criminal's profits for selling his story to be seized and given to his victims.

In 1992, Sen. Packwood, R-Ore., apologized to the women who had accused him of sexual harassment and promised he would not do it again.

In 1997, the Swiss high court ruled that $100 million of the money that had been salted away in banks by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos would be returned to the Philippine government.

A thought for the day: Marcel Proust said, "Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe ..."