The almanac

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Today is Wednesday, Oct. 10, the 283rd day of 2006 with 82 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include English chemist-physicist Henry Cavendish, discoverer of hydrogen, in 1731; composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1813; actress Helen Hayes in 1900; playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter in 1930 (age 77); entertainer Ben Vereen in 1946 (age 61); actress Jessica Harper in 1949 (age 58); rocker David Lee Roth in 1954 (age 53); country singer Tanya Tucker in 1958 (age 49); and pro football star Brett Favre in 1969 (age 38).

On this date in history:

In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was formally opened at Fort Severn, Annapolis, Md., with 50 midshipmen in the first class.

In 1886, Griswold Lorillard of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., fashioned the first tuxedo for men.

In 1963, a dam burst in northern Italy, drowning an estimated 3,000 people.

In 1973, Spiro Agnew became the first U.S. vice president to resign in disgrace after pleading no contest to income tax evasion.

In 1985, movie legend Orson Welles, whose remarkably innovative "Citizen Kane" of 1941 was named the best American-made picture of all time in a 1998 American Film Institute poll, died of a heart attack at the age of 70.

In 1993, Greek voters returned to power former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and his Pan-Hellenic socialist movement.

In 1994, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, commander in chief of the Haitian armed forces, resigned to make way for the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In 1995, Israel freed some 900 Palestinian prisoners and pulled its troops out of four towns as the second phase of the peace plan was implemented on the West Bank.

In 1997, the major tobacco companies agreed to a settlement in the class-action suit brought against them by 60,000 present and former flight attendants. They had claimed second-hand smoke in airplanes had caused them to get cancer and other diseases.

Also in 1997, it was announced that the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its coordinator, Jody Williams of Putney, Vt.

In 2001, representatives of 56 Islamic nations, in an emergency meeting on Qatar, condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

In 2002, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was cited for his efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and his commitment to human rights and democratic values around the world.

In 2003, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Iranian lawyer Shurin Ebadi for her work in promoting democracy and human rights in Iran and beyond. She was the first Muslim woman, and third Muslim, to win the award.

In 2004, a videotape of the beheading of British hostage Kenneth Bigley in Iraq was shown on an Islamic Web site.

Also in 2004, more than 100 people died in flash floods in northeastern India.

In 2005, Angela Merkel became the first woman chancellor of Germany after her Christian Democrats won the parliamentary election. The incumbent, Gerhard Schroeder, said he would play no role in the new governing coalition.

In 2006, Russian military experts backed North Korea’s claim that it had carried out a test of a nuclear weapon. There had been initial doubt that an actual nuclear device was used. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that diplomacy must be the response.

A thought for the day: Queen Elizabeth I said, "I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything."