The almanac

Today is Monday, May 5, the 126th day of 2008 with 240 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard in 1813; German political theorist Karl Marx in 1818; hatmaker John Stetson in 1830; crusading journalist Nelly Bly in 1864; author Christopher Morley in 1890; radio actor Freeman Gosden, Amos of "Amos and Andy," in 1899; actor Tyrone Power in 1914; singer/actress Alice Faye in 1915; actor Michael Murphy in 1938 (age 70); singer Tammy Wynette in 1942; and actors Michael Palin ("Monty Python's Flying Circus") in 1943 (age 65), Lance Henriksen ("Millennium"), in 1940, (age 68) and Tina Yothers ("Family Ties") in 1973 (age 35).

On this date in history:

In 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the island of St. Helena.

In 1847, the American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.

In 1862, Mexican troops, outnumbered 3-1, defeated the invading French forces of Napoleon III.

In 1893, Wall Street stock prices took a sudden drop, sparking the second-worst economic crisis in U.S. history.

In 1904, Cy Young pitched major league baseball's first perfect game to lead the Boston Americans to a 3-0 win over Philadelphia.

In 1925, biology teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in violation of Tennessee state laws.

In 1945, Allied troops liberated the Netherlands from Nazi Germany.

Also in 1945, Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children were killed in Lakeview, Ore., when a Japanese balloon they had found in the woods exploded. They were listed as the only known World War II civilian fatalities in the continental United States.

In 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the United States' first man in space in a brief, sub-orbital flight from Cape Canaveral.

In 1981, imprisoned Irish-Catholic militant Bobby Sands died after refusing food for 66 days in protest of his treatment as a criminal rather than a political prisoner by British authorities.

In 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan ignored an international uproar and visited a cemetery at Bitburg, West Germany, that contained the graves of World War II Nazi S.S. storm troopers.

In 1993, the self-declared Bosnian-Serb parliament rejected the international peace plan that was supposed to end the yearlong war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Also in 1994, civil war erupted in Yemen.

In 1996, Jose Maria Aznar became prime minister of Spain.

In 2003, a wave of tornadoes killed 40 people in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee.

Also in 2003, India and Pakistan agreed to renew diplomatic ties but India turned down Pakistan's offer of bilateral nuclear disarmament.

In 2004, Republican senators sought an investigation into charges that Iraq misused revenue from the U.N. oil-for-food program. A report estimated the Saddam Hussein regime collected $10.7 billion in illegal oil revenues.

In 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was elected to a third term.

In 2006, 10 U.S. soldiers were killed in the crash of their helicopter in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

In 2007, a Newsweek poll indicated U.S. President Bush had fallen to 28 percent approval among the nation's voters, worst presidential rating since Jimmy Carter's 28 percent in 1979.

A thought for the day: "Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy." Cynthia Nelms said that.