The Almanac

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Today is Thursday, Jan. 19, the 19th day of 2006 with 346 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include Scottish engineer James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, in 1736; Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1807; American short story writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe in 1809; English metallurgist Henry Bessemer in 1813; French post-Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne in 1839; Ebony magazine founder John H. Johnson in 1918; former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar in 1920 (age 86); actress Jean Stapleton in 1923 (age 83); actor Fritz Weaver in 1926 (age 80); television newscaster Robert MacNeil in 1931 (age 75); singer Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers in 1939 (age 67); actress Shelley Fabares in 1942 (age 64): singers Janis Joplin in 1943 and Dolly Parton in 1946 (age 60); and singer/actors Michael Crawford in 1942 (age 64) and Desi Arnez Jr. in 1953 (age 53).

On this date in history:

In 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union.

In 1938, the Spanish Nationalist air force bombed Barcelona and Valencia, killing 700 civilians and wounding hundreds more.

In 1975, China published a new constitution that adopted the precepts and policies of Mao Zedong.

In 1977, President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D'Aquino, who had been convicted of treason for her World War II Japanese propaganda broadcasts as Tokyo Rose.

Also in 1993, as a TV crew filmed a graveside interview in North Lauderdale, Fla, the father of a teen-age suicide victim suddenly shot and killed his ex-wife, whom he blamed for their daughter's death. The man was arrested the next day in Texas.

In 1994, ice skater Tonya Harding's former husband, Jeff Gillooly, was arrested and charged with conspiracy in the attack two weeks earlier on Harding rival Nancy Kerrigan.

In 1995, Russian forces captured the presidential palace in the rebel republic of Chechnya.

In 1997, two bombs exploded at a Tulsa, Okla., abortion clinic that had been bombed two weeks earlier.

In 1999, NATO warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that he must honor the 1998 cease-fire negotiated with the rebels in Kosovo or face air strikes.

In 2001, President Bill Clinton announced he had made a deal with the independent prosecutor that would prevent him from being indicted after he left office.

In 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Bush administration might allow Saddam Hussein to seek safe haven in another country as a way to avoid war.

In 2004, U.S. military authorities denied Afghan claims that a U.S. helicopter attack killed 11 civilians, including four children, saying instead that five Taliban fighters were the only fatalities.

In 2005, the Southeast Asian tsunami death toll was raised to 220,000, including more than 166,000 killed in Indonesia.

Also in 2005, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-2 to approve the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of State.

And, five suicide car bomb attacks killed 26 people in and around Baghdad, targeting local and foreign security forces.

A thought for the day: In "As You Like It," William Shakespeare wrote:

"All the world's a stage,

"And all the men and women merely players.

"They have their exits and their entrances,

"And one man in his time plays many parts,

"His acts being seven ages."