The Almanac

Today is Sunday, Dec. 10, the 344th day of 2006 with 21 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, founder of the first free school for the deaf, in 1787; poet Emily Dickinson in 1830; librarian Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey decimal book classification system, in 1851; TV newscaster Chet Huntley in 1911; actress Dorothy Lamour in 1914; actor Harold Gould in 1923 (age 83); actress Susan Dey in 1952 (age 54); and actor Kenneth Branagh in 1960 (age 46).

On this date in history:

In 1869, the Territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote.

In 1898, Spain signed a treaty officially ending the Spanish-American War. It gave Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States.

In 1901, the Nobel prizes were first awarded in Oslo, Norway, and Stockholm, Sweden.

In 1927, the Grand Ole Opry made its first radio broadcast from Nashville.

In 1936, Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. His brother succeeded to the throne as King George VI.

In 1941, Japanese troops landed on northern Luzon in the Philippines in the early days of World War II.

In 1950, U.S. diplomat Ralph Joseph Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace mediation during the first Arab-Israeli war. He was the first African-American to win the prestigious award.

In 1984, the National Science Foundation reported the discovery of the first planet outside our solar system, orbiting a star 21 million light-years from Earth.

In 1990, the communists won a major victory in the first postwar multi-party elections in the Yugoslavian republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law that allowed a criminal's profits for selling his story to be seized and given to his victims.

In 1997, the Swiss high court ruled that $100 million of the money that had been salted away in banks by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos would be returned to the Philippine government.

In 2002, the Roman Catholic diocese of Manchester, N.H., admitted responsibility for failing to protect children from abusive priests.

In 2003, The European Union planned to examine the legality of a United States decision to exclude several nations from multi-billion-dollar reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

Also in 2003, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council announced the formal establishment of a war crimes tribunal.

And, Mick Jagger became Sir Mick after the Rolling Stones' front man was knighted by Prince Charles.

In 2004, 33 miners were reported dead after China's latest mine blast, this one in the northern province of Shanxi.

Also in 2004, the U.S. government said it would go ahead with plans to build a nuclear plant in New Mexico despite health and safety issues raised by state regulators.

And, an Italian court cleared Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of corruption charges.

In 2005, former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, credited with helping bring down U.S. President Lyndon Johnson by challenging him on the Vietnam War, died in his sleep at 89.

Also in 2005, more than 100 people were believed dead after a passenger plane crashed in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt.

And, Richard Pryor, who pushed the envelope on racial themes and vulgarity with standup and movie comedy, died of cardiac arrest. He was 65.

A thought for the day: Marcel Proust said, "Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe."