The Almanac

Today is Saturday, Nov. 29, the 333rd day of 2003 with 32 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Austrian physicist Christian Doppler in 1803; author Louisa May Alcott in 1832; Chinese Empress Dowager Tz'u Hsi in 1835; English electrical engineer John Fleming, who devised the radio tube-diode, in 1849; film choreographer Busby Berkeley in 1895; Irish novelist C.S. Lewis in 1898; actress Diane Ladd and French President Jacques Chirac, both in 1932 (age 71); musician/composer Chuck Mangione in 1940 (age 63); comedians Garry Shandling in 1949 (age 54) and Howie Mandel in 1955 (age 48); filmmaker Joel Coen in 1954 (age 49); and actors Cathy Moriarty in 1960 (age 43), Kim Delaney in 1961 (age 42) and Andrew McCarthy in 1962 (age 41).

On this date in history:

In 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrated his invention, a hand-cranked phonograph that recorded sound on grooved metal cylinders. Edison shouted verses of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into the machine, which played back his voice.

In 1890, the first Army-Navy football game was played. The Navy Middies won, 24-0.

In 1929, Lt. Cmdr. Richard Byrd and three crewmen became the first people to fly over the South Pole.

In 1947, despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations voted for the partition of Palestine and the creation of the independent Jewish state of Israel.

In 1963, President Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

In1986, movie icon Cary Grant died of a stroke at the age of 82.

In 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told a landmark Supreme Soviet session that the country's system of government needed radical change.

In 1989, Romanian Olympic gymnastic hero Nadia Comaneci fled to Hungary. She eventually came to the United States.

Also in 1989, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi resigned after his Congress ) Party lost its majority in national parliamentary elections.

In 1990, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing "all necessary means," including military force, against Iraq if it does not withdraw from Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991. It was the first such resolution since U.N. sponsorship of the Korean War in 1950.

In 1991, a dust storm in Coalinga, Calif., triggered a massive pileup by more than 250 vehicles on Interstate 5, killing 15 people and injuring more than 100.

In 1992, blacks killed four whites and wounded 17 more in an unusual attack at a South African golf club. The attack was thought to be the first by blacks against white civilians since the 1990 legalization of anti-apartheid groups.

In 1994, voters in Norway rejected a proposal to join the European Union.

In 1996, astronomers announced that an asteroid would pass within 3.3 million miles of Earth -- a "near miss" in galactic terms.

In 1997, some 28,000 couples gathered in Washington, D.C.'s RFK Stadium for a "wedding" performed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church.

In 2001, George Harrison, lead guitarist and spiritual anchor of the Beatles, died of cancer. He was 58.

In 2002, United Airlines shares lost nearly one-third of their value as the nation's second-largest airline teetered on the brink of bankruptcy..

A thought for the day: Helmuth von Moltke wrote, "A war, even the most victorious, is a national misfortune."