The Almanac

Today is Saturday Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2006, with 358 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include Frenchman Jacques Montgolfier, who, with his brother, invented the hot air balloon, in 1745; Millard Fillmore, 13th president of the United States, in 1800; Bernadette Soubirous, who became St. Bernadette and whose visions led to the foundation of the shrine at Lourdes, France, in 1844; film executive Adolph Zukor in 1873; cartoonist Charles Addams in 1912; actor Vincent Gardenia in 1922; author William Blatty ("The Exorcist") in 1928 (age 78); singers Paul Revere in 1938 (age 68) and Kenny Loggins in 1948 (age 58); Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner in 1946 (age 60); actress Erin Grey in 1952 (age 54); "Today" co-host Katie Couric in 1957 (age 49); and actor Nicholas Cage in 1964 (age 42).

On this date in history:

In 1610, Galileo, using his primitive telescope, discovered the four major moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

In 1789, the first nationwide U.S. presidential election was conducted. The electors chosen by the voters unanimously picked George Washington as president and John Adams as vice president.

In 1927, commercial trans-Atlantic telephone service between New York and London was inaugurated.

In 1931, as the Great Depression was getting under way, a report to President Hoover estimated that 4 million to 5 million Americans were out of work.

In 1979, the Cambodian government of Pol Pot was overthrown.

In 1989, Japan's Emperor Hirohito died.

In 1990, Jeffrey Lundgren, a self-proclaimed prophet and leader of a breakaway religious sect wanted for the slayings of five Ohio followers, was arrested in California at a motel near the Mexican border.

In 1991, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney announced he was canceling the Navy's A-12 Stealth attack plane project.

And in 1991, loyalist troops attacked Haiti's presidential palace, rescuing President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot and capturing the coup plotters.

In 1993, the EPA released a long-awaited report that classified environmental tobacco smoke as a carcinogen.

In 1997, Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was re-elected Speaker of the House and then reprimanded for violating House rules and misleading the House Ethics Committee in its probe of possible political use of tax-exempt donations.

In 1998, at a time when her association with President Bill Clinton was not yet public, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky reportedly denied in an affidavit filed in the Paula Jones case that she had had an affair with him.

Also in 1998, a federal jury in Denver was unable to agree on a penalty for Terry Nichols, convicted in December 1997 in connection with the April 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. That meant he would not face the death penalty.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial opened in the Senate. He would be acquitted.

In 2003, President George W. Bush proposed a tax-cut package of $670 billion over 10 years, a major feature being the elimination of the tax on stock dividends.

In 2004, President George W. Bush unveiled an immigration reform program that would allow millions of undocumented workers the opportunity to obtain temporary guest worker status.

In 2005, Mississippi authorities arrested an 80-year-old man for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers.

A thought for the day: an anonymous author wrote, "Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg."