The Almanac

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Today is Wednesday, July 28, the 210th day of 2004 with 156 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Leo. They include Beatrix Potter, author and illustrator of the Peter Rabbit stories for children, in 1866; surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp in 1887; comedian Joe E. Brown in 1892; singer/actor Rudy Vallee in 1901; composer Richard Rodgers ("Oklahoma," "South Pacific," "The Sound of Music") in 1902; conductor Carmen Dragon in 1914; former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1929; Peter Duchin (pianist, bandleader; son of musician Eddy Duchin. In 1937 (age 67); Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in 1938 (age 66); former Sen. and NBA star Bill Bradley in 1943 (age 61); "Garfield" creator Jim Davis in 1945 (age 59); actresses Linda Kelsey in 1946 (age 58) and Sally Struthers in 1948 (age 56); former baseball pitcher Vida Blue in 1949 (age 55); and actress Lori Loughlin in 1964 (age 40).

On this date in history:

In 1868, the ratified 14th Amendment was adopted into the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing citizenship and all its privileges to African-Americans.

In 1932, during the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover ordered the Army under Gen. Douglas MacArthur to evict by force the Bonus Marchers from the nation's capital.

In 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia, leading to World War I.

In 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations.

Also in 1945, an Army B-25 bomber lost in the fog crashed into the side of the Empire State Building in New York City, killing 13 people.

In 1976, an earthquake struck China's Tangshan Province, killing an estimated 1 million people.

In 1984, President Reagan opened the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. A Soviet-led bloc of 15 nations, as well as Iran, Libya, Albania and Bolivia, boycotted the games.

In 1990, the collision of a freighter and two barges spilled 500,000 gallons of oil in the Houston Ship Channel near Galveston, Texas.

In 1992, Warner Bros. removed the controversial song "Cop Killer" from Ice-T's "Body Count" album by request of the rapper.

In 1995, the Senate, caught up in the reform fervor in Washington, voted unanimously to bar senators and their staffers from accepting vacation trips and other expensive gifts from anyone other than close friends and family.

In 1998, in return for immunity, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky agreed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a possible relationship between her and President Clinton.

Also in 1998, Bell Atlantic and GTE announced plans to merge.

In 2000, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was sworn in for a third term amid violent protests by his opponents, who said the election was fraudulent.

In 2002 sports, Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France, an international 2,036-mile cycling race, for the fourth consecutive year.

In 2003, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the two largest U.S. banks, agreed to pay nearly $300 million in fines and penalties to settle charges they had aided Enron in deceiving investors.

A thought for the day: Nikolai Nekrasov wrote, "You do not have to be a poet, but you are obliged to be a citizen."