The almanac

Today is Friday, Nov. 13, the 317th day of 2009 with 48 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include St. Augustine of Hippo, a theologian, in 354; King Edward III of England in 1312; Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1850; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1856; actor Richard Mulligan in 1932; TV producer/director Garry Marshall in 1934 (age 75); and actors Dack Rambo in 1941; Joe Mantegna in 1947 (age 62), Whoopi Goldberg in 1955 (age 54), Tracy Scoggins in 1953 (age 56) and Chris Noth in 1954 (age 55).

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On this date in history:

In 1927, the Holland Tunnel was opened under the Hudson River, linking New York City and New Jersey.

In 1933, the first recorded "sit-down" strike in the United States was staged by workers at the Hormel Packing Company in Austin, Minn.

In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case from Montgomery, Ala., that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional.

In 1967, Carl Stokes became the first black U.S. mayor when he was elected in Cleveland.

In 1974, Yasser Arafat told the U.N. General Assembly that the goal of the Palestine Liberation Organization was to establish an independent state of Palestine.

In 1982, the Vietnam War Memorial was dedicated in Washington.

In 1985, a volcano erupted in Colombia, killing 25,000 people. It was the third-deadliest volcano disaster in history.

In 1992, a group of Peruvian military officers tried unsuccessfully to assassinate President Alberto Fujimori and overthrow the government.

In 1993, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Farooq Leghari was chosen president.

In 1997, Iraq expelled the U.S. members of the U.N. team that had been sent to verify Iraq's compliance with U.N. directives.

In 2001, U.S. President George Bush and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons by about two-thirds.

In 2004, one day after Yasser Arafat's burial, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei called for the continuation of peace talks with Israel.

Also in 2004, an Iraqi national security adviser said up to 1,000 insurgents were killed in the six-day battle for Fallujah.

In 2006, as many as 150 people were kidnapped from Iraq's Ministry of Higher Education in Baghdad by about 80 gunmen in security services uniforms.

Also in 2006, nearly two dozen people were killed and thousands more displaced in flooding in northern Kenya.

In 2008, milk-containing Chinese imports was ordered held at the border until tests prove they aren't contaminated, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. The FDA said it issued the alert because of concerns that Chinese products such as candy snacks and cereal may be contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine.

Also in 2008, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir ordered a cease-fire with rebels in war-torn Darfur and said he would move to disarm pro-government militias. Up to 300,000 black African inhabitants of Darfur have died since 2003 in what officials call an ethnic cleansing campaign.

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A thought for the day: U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur said, "In war there is no substitute for victory."