The Almanac

Today is Thursday, Nov. 10, the 314th day of 2005 with 51 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism, in 1483; William Hogarth, English artist and engraver, in 1697; Irish author Oliver Goldsmith in 1730; actors Claude Rains in 1889, Richard Burton in 1925 and Roy Scheider in 1935 (age 70); singer Jane Froman in 1907; Billy May, bandleader/trumpet/arranger, in 1916; American Indian rights activist Russell Means in 1940 (age 65); lyricist Tim Rice in 1944 (age 61); country singer Donna Fargo in 1949 (age 56); actresses Ann Reinking in 1950 (age 55) and Mackenzie Phillips in 1959 (age 46); filmmaker Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day") in 1955 (age 50); and comedian Sinbad in 1956 (age 49).

On this date in history:

In 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps was formed by order of the Continental Congress.

In 1871, journalist Henry Stanley found missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone in a small African village. His famous comment: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

In 1917, 41 women from 15 states were arrested outside the White House for suffragette demonstrations. American women won the right to vote three years later.

In 1951, area codes were introduced in the United States, Canada and parts of the Caribbean, allowing direct dialing of long-distance telephone calls. Prior to this, all such calls were operator-assisted.

In 1969, the long-running children's show "Sesame Street" premiered on PBS.

In 1975, the ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald broke in two and sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crewmembers. It was the worst Great Lakes ship disaster of the decade.

In 1982, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75 after 18 years in power.

In 1983, Microsoft released its Windows computer operating system.

In 1989, Bulgaria's hard-line president Todor Zhivkov resigned as democratic reform continued to sweep the Eastern Bloc. Zhivkov was longest reigning active ruler in Eastern Europe and second longest in the world.

In 1991, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker visited Japan, South Korea and China. His trip to Beijing marked the first high-level official contact between the United States and China since the Tiananmen Square massacre.

In 1992, Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose was sentenced to two years probation on charges stemming from a 1991 concert riot in suburban St. Louis.

In 1994, Washington announced it would no longer police the arms embargo on the Muslim-led government of Bosnia.

Also in 1994, the only privately owned manuscript of Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci was sold at auction at Christie's in New York for $30.8 million, the highest amount ever paid for a manuscript.

In 1996, a bomb at a Moscow cemetery killed 11 people and injured one dozen others.

In 1997, a judge in Cambridge, Mass., changed the second-degree murder conviction of British nanny Louise Woodward in the death of her 8-month-old charge to involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her to prison time already served.

In 2001, Taliban officials confirmed that the Northern Alliance had captured the Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, while President George W. Bush told the U.N. General Assembly that the time had come for countries to take swift and decisive action against global terrorism.

In 2002, the House voted to allow President Bush to take unilateral military action against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq without conditions beyond Congress being informed almost immediately.

In 2003, Lee Malvo, one of two suspects in the rash of sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington area, pleaded not guilty as his trial opened in Chesapeake, Va. The trial overlapped that of the other suspect, John Muhammad, in Virginia Beach.

In 2004, President George W. Bush announced he had selected White House General Counsel Alberto Gonzales to succeed the resigned John Ashcroft as U.S. attorney general.

Also in 2004, Shell Hydrogen opened the first hydrogen outlet at a retail gasoline station in Washington to service fuel cell vehicles from General Motors.

And, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a bill prohibiting pensions to families of suicide bombers.

A thought for the day: Irish author Oliver Goldsmith said, "A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity."