The Almanac

Today is Thursday, Nov. 13, the 317th day of 2003 with 48 to follow.

The moon is waning. 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 St. Augustine of Hippo, a theologian, in 354; King Edward III of England in 1312; Scottish physicist James Maxwell in 1831; Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1850; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1856; actor Richard Mulligan in 1932; TV producer/director Garry Marshall in 1934 (age 69); singer Neil Young in 1945 (age 58); and actors Dack Rambo in 1941 (age 62), Joe Mantegna in 1947 (age 56), Whoopi Goldberg in 1949 (age 54), Chris Noth in 1957 (age 46) and Tracy Scoggins in 1959 (age 44).

On this date in history:

In 1927, the Holland Tunnel was opened under the Hudson River, linking New York City and New Jersey.

In 1933, the first recorded "sit-down" strike in the United States was staged by workers at the Hormel Packing Company in Austin, Minn.

In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case from Montgomery, Ala., that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional.

In 1967, Carl Stokes became the first black American mayor when he was elected in Cleveland.

In 1974, Yasser Arafat told the U.N. General Assembly that the goal of the Palestine Liberation Organization was to establish an independent state of Palestine.

In 1982, the Vietnam War memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

In 1985, a volcano erupted in Colombia, killing 25,000 people. It was the third-deadliest volcano disaster in history.

In 1992, a group of Peruvian military officers tried unsuccessfully to assassinate President Fujimori and overthrow the government.

In 1993, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Farooq Leghari was chosen president.

In 1995, six people, including five Americans, were killed when two bomb blasts rocked a military training and communications center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In 1997, Iraq expelled the American members of the UN team that had been sent to verify Iraq's compliance with UN directives.

Also in 1997, the stage adaptation of the 1994 Disney movie "The Lion King" opened with much fanfare at the restored New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway.

In 2001, President George W. Bush and Russian leader Putin agreed to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons by about two-thirds.

In 2002, Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that while the U.S. economic recovery had softened, policy-makers at the nation's central bank don't expect a double-dip recession. Greenspan did warn, however, uncertainty remains about the speed and strength of the recovery.

A thought for the day: Gen. Douglas McArthur said, "In war there is no substitute for victory."