The almanac

Today is Saturday, June 29, the 180th day of 2013 with 185 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include William Mayo, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in 1861; astronomer George Ellery Hale, founder of the Yerkes and Mount Palomar observatories, in 1868; French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery in 1900; actor/singer Nelson Eddy in 1901; composer/arranger Leroy Anderson in 1908; Broadway songwriter Frank Loesser in 1910; composer/conductor Bernard Herrmann in 1911; actor Slim Pickens in 1919; baseball Hall of Fame member Harmon Killebrew in 1936; "black power" advocate Stokely Carmichael in 1941; singer Little Eva -- Eva Narcissus Boyd -- in 1943; actor Gary Busey in 1944 (age 69); Swiss fashion designer Egon von Furstenberg in 1946; comedian Richard Lewis in 1947 (age 66); actor and former U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa, in 1948 (age 65); and actors Sharon Lawrence in 1961 (age 52) and Bret McKenzie in 1976 (age 37).

On this date in history:

In 1853, the U.S. Senate ratified the $10 million Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, adding more than 29,000 square miles to the territories of Arizona and New Mexico and completing the modern geographical boundaries of the contiguous 48 states.

In 1933, Fatty Arbuckle, the silent film comedian and one of Hollywood's most beloved personalities until a manslaughter charge ruined his career, died while preparing a comeback. He was 46.

In 1941, Isabella Peron took office as president of Argentina, succeeding her husband.

In 1946, two years before Israel became a nation, British authorities arrested more than 2,700 Jewish Zionists in an effort to stop terrorism in Palestine.

In 1970, the last U.S. troops were withdrawn from Cambodia into South Vietnam.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment, as then administered by individual states, was unconstitutional.

In 1992, doctors in Pittsburgh reported the world's first transplant of a baboon liver into a human patient. The recipient, a 35-year-old man, survived three months.

In 1994, in a taped interview on British TV, Prince Charles admitted he had been unfaithful to his estranged wife, Princess Diana.

In 1995, the U.S. shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir.

In 2003, Hollywood legend Katherine Hepburn died at the age of 96 after a six-decade career in which she won a record four Oscars in the Best Actress category.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled U.S. President George W. Bush didn't have authority, under military law or the Geneva Conventions to set up military tribunals for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2007, the American bald eagle, declared endangered in 1967, was flourishing and no longer imperiled, the U.S. Interior Department announced.

In 2009, Bernard Madoff, architect of a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

In 2010, the leading candidate for governor in the violence-torn Mexican state of Tamaulipas, Rodolfo Torre, and four others were ambushed and killed.

In 2011, Greek lawmakers approved some of the toughest economic measures in the nation's modern history in a five-year austerity plan that included tax increases and job cuts. Observers said the severe budget could be critical to the future of the euro.

In 2012, thousands of people at a rally in Cairo demanded that the military transfer full power to new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who told the crowd, "There is no power above people power."

A thought for the day: Walt Whitman wrote, "Whoever degrades another degrades me."