The almanac

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 2, the 245th day of 2009 with 120 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include poet Eugene Field in 1850; American inventor Hiram Maxim, who invented the first portable automatic machine gun, in 1869; authors Cleveland Amory in 1917 and Allen Drury in 1918; dancer Marge Champion in 1919 (age 90); Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who became an astronaut and died when the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986, in 1948; pro football star/sportscaster Terry Bradshaw in 1948 (age 61); actor Mark Harmon in 1951 (age 58); tennis champion Jimmy Connors in 1952 (age 57); actors Keanu Reeves in 1964 (age 45) and Salma Hayek in 1966 (age 43).

On this date in history:

In 1666, the Great Fire of London began. It destroyed 13,000 houses in four days.

In 1935, a hurricane hit the Florida Keys, killing more than 350 people.

In 1945, Japan signed an unconditional surrender aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending World War II.

In 1983, Moscow admitted to the Sept. 1 shooting down of a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747, killing all 269 people aboard, but said the jumbo jet intentionally intruded into Soviet air space.

In 1991, the European Community-approved plan to end the civil war in Yugoslavia was accepted by the Yugoslav federal presidency. But federal forces renewed their offensive against Croatia.

In 1992, more than 100 people were killed when earthquake-spawned tidal waves swept Pacific coast villages in Nicaragua.

In 1997, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 257.36 points for its largest one-day point gain, closing at 7,879.

In 1998, a Swissair jetliner en route from New York to Geneva, Switzerland, crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. All 229 people aboard were killed.

In 1999, the Clintons bought a house in the New York suburb of Chappaqua for $1.7 million, establishing residency for first lady Hillary Clinton, who was planning a run for the U.S. Senate.

In 2004, President George W. Bush accepted the GOP nomination for re-election, promising to build a "safer world and a more hopeful America."

In 2005, the European Commission called for uniform rules for deporting illegal immigrants and refugees who are denied asylum in member countries.

In 2006, Canadian troops under NATO control and Afghan forces launched an offensive in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar Province amid evidence of renewed Taliban influence.

In 2007, the death toll from flooding in Bihar, India, rose to 556 but all major rivers were reported to be receding.

Also in 2007, the Lebanese army defeated Palestinian Islamic militants based at a refugee camp in northern Lebanon, climaxing a three-month siege that killed more than 400 people.

In 2008, Thai leaders in Bangkok declared a state of emergency when government protests grew violent. For more than a week, thousands of protesters have clashed over efforts to force the resignation of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

A thought for the day: Logan Pearsall Smith said, "There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail."