The almanac

Today is Monday, Oct. 12, the 285th day of 2009 with 80 to follow.

This is Columbus Day in the United States.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include Elmer Sperry, who devised practical uses for the gyroscope, in 1860; English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1872; comedian and activist Dick Gregory in 1932 (age 77); opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti in 1935; TV correspondent Chris Wallace in 1947 (age 62); singer/actress Susan Anton in 1950 (age 59); actors Adam Rich in 1968 (age 41) and Kirk Cameron in 1970 (age 39); and track star Marion Jones in 1975 (age 34).

On this date in history:

In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached America, making his first landing in the New World on one of the Bahamas Islands. Columbus believed he had reached India.

In 1899, the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State in southern Africa declared war on the British. The Boer War was ended May 31, 1902, by the Treaty of Vereeniging.

In 1915, British nurse Edith Cavell, 49, was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev removed one of his shoes and pounded it on his desk during a speech before the United Nations.

In 1964, the Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1 into orbit around Earth, with three cosmonauts aboard. It was the first spacecraft to carry a multi-person crew and the two-day mission was also the first flight performed without space suits.

In 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon nominated U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Gerald Ford, R-Mich., for the vice presidency to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned two days earlier.

In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped injury in the bombing of a hotel in Brighton, England. Four people were killed in the attack, blamed on the Irish Republican Army.

In 1991, Iran agreed to withdraw its 1,500 Revolutionary Guards from Lebanon.

In 1992, more than 500 people were killed and thousands injured when an earthquake rocked Cairo, Egypt.

In 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard died five days after the 21-year-old gay man was beaten, robbed and left tied to a fence.

In 1999, the elected government of Pakistan was overthrown in an apparently bloodless military coup. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and several other leaders were arrested.

In 2000, 17 sailors were killed when an explosion rocked the USS Cole as it refueled in Yemen. U.S. President Bill Clinton blamed the attack on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

In 2002, a bomb exploded near two crowded night clubs on the Indonesian island of Bali, killing 202 people.

Also in 2002, the terror continued for Washington area residents as the weeklong death toll from a mysterious sniper reached eight.

In 2003, Uganda said its army rescued more than 400 children held captive by rebels in a remote village north of Kampala.

In 2004, a report of the CIA's top weapons investigator said Saddam Hussein thought U.S. officials knew he had no weapons of mass destruction before the invasion.

In 2005, newly released documents charged that the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles allegedly shielded priests accused of sexual abuse by moving them from one parish to another.

In 2006, a London man admitted helping plan terrorist attacks in Britain and the United States, including at the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2007, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to publicize a man-made climate change and explain how to counteract it.

Also in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the United States against installing missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In 2008, the 15 countries of the Eurozone agreed on an emergency deal to guarantee financial debt for five years and to take a direct stake in banks if needed. The countries also agreed to shore up interbank markets to jump-start lending.

A thought for the day: Chinese educator, writer and diplomat Tehyi Hsieh said, "The key to success isn't much good until one discovers the right lock to insert it in."