The Almanac

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 5, the 309th day of 2003 with 56 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs in 1855; historians Ida Tarbell in 1857 and Will Durant in 1885; inventor and industrialist Raymond Loewy, the "father of streamlining," in 1893; band leader Jan Garber in 1897; cowboy singer/actor Roy Rogers in 1912; musicians Ike Turner in 1931 (age 72) and Art Garfunkel in 1941 (age 62); actresses Vivien Leigh in 1913, Elke Sommer in 1941 (age 62) and Tatum O'Neal in 1963 (age 40); dramatist/actor Sam Shepard in 1943 (age 60); and pop singer/songwriter Bryan Adams in 1959 (age 44).

On this date in history:

In 1605, Guy Fawkes and fellow conspirators failed in their plot to blow up the English Parliament. They were beheaded.

In 1733, German-born publisher John Peter Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal in opposition to the British colonial administration.

In 1854, combined British-French forces scored a decisive victory over the Russians in the Crimea.

In 1930, the first commercial television broadcast was aired.

In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected to an unprecedented third term.

In 1990, an Egyptian-born gunman, apparently acting alone, assassinated Meir Kahane, the U.S. native who founded the militant Jewish Defense League and was thrown out of Israel's parliament for his racist anti-Arab views.

Also in 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an order requiring the U.S. Army to permit homosexuals to re-enlist.

In 1991, the body of British media mogul Robert Maxwell was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands.

Also in 1991, Kiichi Miyazawa was formally appointed premier of Japan, succeeding Toshiki Kaifu.

In 1992, former U.S. world chess champion Bobby Fischer triumphed in his $5 million rematch against Russian arch-rival Boris Spassky. The match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, was staged in defiance of U.N. sanctions against the Yugoslav federation.

In 1996, President Clinton was re-elected.

- In 2002, Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate and retained their hold on the House, giving President George W. Bush a historic victory in mid-term elections that traditionally go against the incumbent president.

Also in 2002, the embattled chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, resigned on election night, amid a political row sparked by an appointment to a new accounting oversight board.

And, In 2002, the Galileo space probe, blasted by harsh radiation, shut down as it made its closest approach ever to Jupiter, leaving scientists wondering what data, if any, the probe would be able to transmit to tell them about Jupiter's inner moon Amalthea and the planet's magnetosphere.

A thought for the day: inventor and industrialist Raymond Loewy said, "Between two products equal in price, function and quality, the better looking will out sell the other."