The almanac

Today is Thursday, Jan. 15, the 15th day of 2009 with 350 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include outlaw Cole Younger in 1844; nuclear physicist Edward Teller in 1908; drummer Gene Krupa in 1909; actor Lloyd Bridges in 1913; Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1918; civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1929; actress Margaret O'Brien in 1937 (age 72); actress Andrea Martin in 1947 (age 62); and actors Mario Van Peebles in 1957 (age 52) and Chad Lowe in 1968 (age 41).

On this date in history:

In 1870, a cartoon by Thomas Nast appeared in Harper's weekly with a donkey symbolizing the Democratic Party for the first time.

In 1922, the Irish Free State was formed.

In 1943, the Pentagon, the world's largest building of its kind, was completed on the Virginia side of the Potomac River just outside Washington.

In 1967, the first Super Bowl, pitting the NFL and AFL champions, was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with the Green Bay Packers defeating the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

In 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon called a halt to U.S. military offensives in Vietnam.

In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a sweeping arms control plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2000 and rid "mankind of the fear of nuclear catastrophe."

In 1993, four-time Oscar-winning songwriter Sammy Cahn, who wrote such hits as "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Three Coins in the Fountain," died of heart failure at age 79.

In 1997, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reached an agreement on the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank city of Hebron.

In 1999, Serb forces killed 45 ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo.

In 2002, John Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old American seized with the Taliban in Afghanistan in December, was charged with conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and abetting terrorist groups.

In 2005, U.S. President George Bush outlined his plan to secure Social Security with current benefit levels, no payroll tax rise and partial private investment accounts.

In a 2006 runoff, Chile elected Michelle Bachelet as its first female president.

Also in 2006, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, died at the age 77.

In 2007, hundreds of thousands of central U.S. homes from Michigan south to Texas were without power as deadly ice storms coated the region.

Also in 2007, civil unrest in Somalia led to a government shutdown of TV and radio stations while other nations sought ways to quell the violence.

In 2008, meat and milk from cloned animals were ruled safe for human consumption by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after years of debate.

Also in 2008, Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank, reported a fourth-quarter loss of $9.83 billion.

And, an Israeli Gaza strike killed as many as 20 Palestinians, including several Hamas fighters, in retaliation to the firing of rockets and mortar bombs into southern Israel.

A thought for the day: John Milton wrote in "Paradise Lost":

"Here at last

"We shall be free;

"the Almighty hath not built

"Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

"Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

"To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

"Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."