The almanac

Today is Thursday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2009 with 322 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1791; Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, and biologist Charles Darwin, both in 1809; actor Lorne Greene in 1915; Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli in 1923 (age 86); baseball player and sports commentator Joe Garagiola in 1926 (age 83); actor Joe Don Baker in 1936 (age 73); author Judy Blume in 1938 (age 71); former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1942 (age 67); actresses Maud Adams in 1945 (age 64) and Joanna Kerns in 1953 (age 56); actor Arsenio Hall in 1955 (age 54); singer Chynna Phillips in 1968 (age 41); and actress Christina Ricci in 1980 (age 29).

On this date in history:

In 1877, Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the telephone, was publicly demonstrated with a hookup between Boston and Salem, Mass.

In 1953, the Soviet Union broke off relations with Israel after terrorists bombed the Soviet legation in Tel Aviv, Israel.

In 1973, with first release of U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam, 116 POWs were flown from Hanoi to the Philippines.

In 1980, the International Olympic Committee rejected a U.S. proposal to postpone or cancel the 1980 Summer Games or move the site from Moscow as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In 1993, about 5,000 demonstrators marched on Atlanta's State Capitol to protest the Confederate symbol on the Georgia state flag.

In 1997, The Washington Post reported the Chinese government might have channeled money to the Democratic National Committee in order to influence the Clinton administration.

In 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted U.S. President Bill Clinton of impeachment charges.

In 2001, a NASA spacecraft landed on the asteroid EROS.

In 2002, the war crimes trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic began at The Hague in the Netherlands.

In 2004, South Korean scientists announced they had created the world's first mature cloned human embryos.

Also in 2004, despite a state law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Thousands of couples applied.

In 2005, officials in Pakistan said the death toll from two weeks of torrential rains and snowstorms grew to 278. Water from a broken dam washed away at least five villages.

In 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a coma since suffering a massive stroke Jan. 4, underwent emergency surgery to remove about a third of his colon.

In 2007, a series of bombings, targeting crowded markets, killed at least 90 people in Baghdad as Shiite Muslims marked the first anniversary of a bombing of a major shrine in Samara.

In 2008, General Motors, which offered buyouts to its 74,000 unionized employees, reported a loss of $38.7 billion for 2007, largest loss ever for an automaker. GM said it had a $722 million fourth-quarter loss, compared with a $920 million profit a year earlier.

Also in 2008, Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyah, believed to have orchestrated several deadly attacks, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, was killed by a car bomb in Syria.

A thought for the day: M.G. Siriam said, "Looking at the proliferation of personal Web pages on the 'Net, it looks like very soon everyone on Earth will have 15 megabytes of fame."