The almanac

Today is Thursday, Dec. 8, the 342nd day of 2011 with 23 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Mary Queen of Scots in 1542; Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, in 1765; General Motors founder William Durant in 1861; Finnish composer Jean Sibelius in 1865; Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in 1886; humorist and artist James Thurber in 1894; actor Lee J. Cobb in 1911; entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in 1925; actor Maximilian Schell in 1930 (age 81); comedian Flip Wilson in 1933; actors David Carradine in 1936 and James MacArthur in 1937; Irish flutist James Galway in 1939 (age 72); rock musicians Jim Morrison in 1943 and Gregg Allman in 1947 (age 64); actors Kim Basinger in 1953 (age 58) and Teri Hatcher in 1964 (age 47); political commentator Ann Coulter in 1961 (age 50); and Irish singer/songwriter Sinead O'Connor in 1966 (age 45).

On this date in history:

In 1886, delegates from 25 unions founded the American Federation of Labor, forerunner of the modern AFL-CIO, in Columbus, Ohio.

In 1941, the United States, Britain and Australia declared war on Japan.

In 1949, the Chinese Nationalist government, defeated by the Communists, retreated from the mainland to the island of Taiwan.

In 1980, former Beatle John Lennon was shot to death outside his apartment building in New York City. He was 40.

In 1986, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told the House Foreign Affairs Committee the transfer of Iran arms money to the Nicaraguan Contras was illegal.

In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first treaty between the two superpowers to reduce their massive nuclear arsenals.

In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist when the republics of Russia, Byelorussia (now known as Belarus) and Ukraine signed an agreement creating the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In 1997, Jenny Shipley was sworn in as the first woman prime minister of New Zealand.

In 2002, Iraq said all its chemical and biological weapons programs ended in 1991 and that the country had never reached the assembly or testing stage for nuclear weapons.

In 2004, International Business Machines Corp. reported it was selling its personal computer business to Chinese rival Lenovo Group for $1.25 billion in cash and stock.

In 2005, a suicide bomber detonated explosives on a crowded bus in Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and wounding 27 others.

Also in 2005, a Southwest Airlines jetliner overshot a runway at Chicago's Midway International Airport in a snowstorm, crashing through a fence into a city street. A 6-year-old boy in a car hit by the plane was killed and at least 11 others were hurt.

In 2007, dozens of dead and injured seabirds coated in black goo were the most visible victims of a 58,000-gallon oil spill in San Francisco Bay that fouled miles of coastline. The spill was caused when a South Korea-bound container ship hit a tower supporting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in dense fog.

Also in 2007, Afghanistan was in official mourning after a suicide bombing at a school in the north killed at least 52 people and injured 102 others. The dead included 18 children.

In 2008, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and four co-defendants told a military judge at Guantanamo Bay that they want to confess to all charges of murder and war crimes.

Also in 2008, five employees of Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. contractor hired to provide security guards in Iraq, were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter.

In 2009, an apparently coordinated series of car bombs destroyed several government buildings in Baghdad, killing at least 121 people and wounding 499 others.

In 2010, a prison fire south of Santiago, Chile, killed at least 81 people and injured a dozen others. The San Miguel fire reportedly broke out after a fight between inmates.

Also in 2010, in an escalating cyberbattle, hundreds of Internet activists, using copy overload and other tactics, brought down the Swedish government's Web site for several hours and attacked a number of businesses, including Amazon.com and MasterCard, seen as "enemies" of WikiLeaks and its co-founder, Julian Assange, arrested on a sex charge.

A thought for the day: Saki, the pen name for Hector Hugh Munro, said, "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation."