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The Almanac

By United Press International
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Today is Friday, Oct. 26, the 299th day of 2001 with 66 to follow.

The moon is waxing, moving toward its full phase.

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The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

The evening stars are Mercury and Mars.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1879; gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in 1911; French President Francois Mitterrand in 1916; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, in 1919; actor Bob Hoskins in 1942 (age 59); author Pat Conroy in 1945 (age 56); TV personality Pat Sajak and filmmaker Ivan Reitman, both in 1946 (age 55); Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of President Clinton, in 1947 (age 54); and actors Jaclyn Smith in 1948 (age 53) Cary Elwes ("Twister") and Dylan McDermott ("The Practice"), both in 1962 (age 39); and singer Natalie Merchant in 1963 (age 38).

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On this date in history:

In 1906, workers in St. Petersburg set up the first Russian "soviet," or council.

In 1920, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Ireland, Terence McSwiney, died after a two-and-a-half-month hunger strike in a British prison cell, demanding independence for Ireland.

In 1942, Japanese warships sank the aircraft carrier USS Hornet off the Solomon Islands.

In 1979, South Korean President Park Chung Hee was assassinated by the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1990, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $5,000 for his conviction on misdemeanor drug charges.

In 1992, beseiged GM Chairman Robert Stempel resigned as head of the No. 1 U.S. automaker.

In 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty at a desert site along the Israeli-Jordanian border.

In 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was hospitalized with heart trouble for the second time in less than four months.

Also in 1995, Islamic Jihad leader Fathi ash-Shiqaqi was assassinated in Malta.

In 1996, the New York Yankees won the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves.

In 1998, just one day before threatened NATO air strikes were to begin, Serbian soldiers and police began what was said to be a significant pullback from positions in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, where they were massacring ethnic Albanians.

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Also in 1998, the presidents of Ecuador and Peru signed a peace treaty, ending a decades-long border dispute between the two countries.


A thought for the day: English writer William Hazlitt said, "Men of genius do not excel in any profession because their labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel."

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