The almanac

Today is Thursday, Sept. 23, the 266th day of 2010 with 99 to follow.

This is the first day of autumn.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include Greek playwright Euripides in 400 B.C.; Roman Emperor Augustus in 63 B.C.; Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan in 1215; educator William McGuffey, author of the McGuffey "eclectic readers" for school children, in 1800; feminist and presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull in 1838; surgeon William Halsted, who introduced operations for hernia and breast cancer, in 1852; journalist Walter Lippmann in 1889; actors Walter Pidgeon in 1897 and Mickey Rooney in 1920 (age 90); jazz saxophonist John Coltrane in 1926; soul singer/pianist Ray Charles in 1930; singer Julio Iglesias in 1943 (age 67); actors Paul Petersen in 1945 (age 65) and Mary Kay Place in 1947 (age 63); rock star Bruce Springsteen in 1949 (age 61); actors Jason Alexander in 1959 (age 51) and Elizabeth Pena in 1961 (age 49); singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco in 1970 (age 40); and writer Ana Marie Cox in 1972 (age 38).

On this date in history:

In 1779, the USS Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, defeated British frigate HMS Serapis in a battle off the coast of Scotland.

In 1806, U.S. explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned to St. Louis from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast and back.

In 1846, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune at the Berlin Observatory. Neptune generally is the eighth planet from the sun.

In 1909, Gaston Leroux's "Phantom of the Opera" published.

In 1950, Congress adopted the Internal Security Act, which provided for the registration of communists. It was ruled later unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1966, a Rolling Stones' concert at England's Royal Albert concert hall was halted temporarily when screaming girls attacked Mick Jagger onstage. The riotous enthusiasm of the fans resulted in a ban of pop concerts at the hall.

In 1973, Juan Peron was again elected president of Argentina after 18 years in exile. His second wife, Isabel, became vice president and succeeded him when he died 10 months later.

In 1985, nine days of street fighting in Tripoli, Lebanon, left 183 people dead.

In 1991, 44 U.N. inspectors were detained in Baghdad after attempting to remove secret Iraqi plans for building nuclear weapons. They were freed five days later.

In 1992, the worst storm in years struck southeastern France, triggering flash flooding that left 34 people dead and 50 missing.

In 1993, the Israeli Knesset approved the peace agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

In 1999, Russian planes began three days of attacks on targets in Chechnya, in response to several bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities.

In 2001, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States, the nation remained on increased alert for possible suspects in this country while troops in Afghanistan searched for Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. The FAA halted crop-dusting activities, fearing they might be used to spread toxic substances.

In 2003, Thai police reportedly foiled an al-Qaida plot to shoot down an El Al passenger jet with a surface-to-air missile at Bangkok's airport.

In 2004, Haiti's death toll from flooding caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne could top 2,000, a Haitian civil defense official said.

In 2005, a reported 24 people were killed when a bus carrying Texas nursing home evacuees from Hurricane Rita was destroyed by fire.

In 2006, as observance of the holy month of Ramadan began in Iraq, a bomb that killed at least 35 people, mostly women lined up for kerosene in Sadr City.

In 2007, Yasuo Fukuda, a long-time political force and son of a former prime minister, was chosen prime minister of Japan, succeeding Shinzo Abe, who resigned amid financial scandals.

Also in 2007, the U.S. Air Force sought to determine how six nuclear warheads were accidentally shipped from North Dakota to Louisiana with no one noticing and sat unguarded for a day.

In 2008, a 22-year-old male student killed 11 fellow adult students and himself at a western Finland vocational college 205 miles north of Helsinki.

Also in 2008, Galveston, Texas, officials sought $2.2 billion in federal disaster funds to repair inland port damage from Hurricane Ike.

In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted for a 13-week, $1.4 billion extension of unemployment benefits for 27 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, where the unemployment rate was 8.5 percent or higher.

Also in 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama told Israeli and Palestinian leaders in their first trilateral talks they must begin "permanent" peace negotiations "soon" and urged them to be ready to take risks.

A thought for the day: Indian Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore said, "The artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and her master."