UPI Almanac for Sunday, Nov. 8, 2015

Today is Sunday, Nov. 8, the 312th day of 2015 with 53 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include British astronomer Edmond Halley in 1656; games producer Milton Bradley in 1836; Irish author Bram Stoker ("Dracula") in 1847; author Margaret Mitchell ("Gone With the Wind") in 1900; actors June Havoc in 1912 and Esther Rolle in 1920; heart transplant pioneer Dr. Christiaan Barnard in 1922; football Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Bowden in 1929 (age 86); TV journalist Morley Safer in 1931 (age 84); science fiction writer Ben Bova in 1932 (age 83); actor Virna Lisi in 1936 (age 79); singers Patti Page in 1927, Bonnie Bramlett in 1944 (age 71), Minnie Riperton in 1947 and Bonnie Raitt in 1949 (age 66); National Rifle Association official Wayne LaPierre in 1948 (age 67); TV personality Mary Hart in 1950 (age 65); actor Alfre Woodard in 1952 (age 63); singer Rickie Lee Jones in 1954 (age 61); TV chef Gordon Ramsay in 1966 (age 49); and actors Courtney Thorne-Smith in 1967 (age 48), Parker Posey in 1968 (age 47), Tara Reid in 1975 (age 40) and Jade Pettyjohn in 2000 (age 15).

On this date in history:

In 1837, Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts became the first U.S. college founded exclusively for women.

In 1864, amid the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as president. (He was assassinated five months later.)

In 1889, Montana was admitted to the union as the 41st state.

In 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X-rays.

In 1923, Adolf Hitler leads a failed attempt to overthrow the German government in what has become known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler was quickly arrested and charged with treason.

In 1933, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt set up the Civil Works Administration as an emergency Depression agency to provide jobs for the unemployed.

In 1942, as World War II raged on, more than 400,000 Allied soldiers invaded North Africa.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy won the U.S. presidential election, defeating Richard Nixon. Kennedy was the 35th president.

In 1965, the United Kingdom formally abolishes the death penalty as Royal Assent is given to the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965.

In 1973, the right ear of John Paul Getty III, who had been kidnapped four months earlier, was delivered, along with a ransom note, to a daily newspaper. The ransom was reluctantly paid, with Getty III found alive at a gas station in southern Italy.

In 1985, a judge overturned Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's conviction for a 1966 triple killing in a Patterson, N.J., bar, freeing the former boxer after 19 years in prison.

In 1988, U.S. Vice President George H.W. Bush was elected as the 41st president of the United States.

In 1994, in a stunning upset, Republican candidates swept the general election, regaining control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress. It marked the first time in 40 years the Republicans controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In 2005, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin declared a state of emergency in a bid to quell the nation's worst rioting in decades.

In 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush introduced former CIA Director Robert Gates as secretary of defense, succeeding Donald Rumsfeld.

In 2011, remains of U.S. soldiers were mishandled and body parts were lost at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, a scathing Washington report concluded. Three senior officials at the base were disciplined following an 18-month investigation.

In 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, smashed into the Philippines, causing death and destruction on island after island. The death toll rose into the thousands, with hundreds of people injured and missing and tens of thousands displaced. (On Jan. 3, 2014, government officials said at least 6,166 people had been killed and 28,626 injured.)

A thought for the day: "The Department of Defense is the largest, most complex organization on the planet: 3 million people, civilian and military, with a budget, the last year I was there (2011) of over $700 billion." -- Robert M. Gates, former U.S. secretary of defense.