The Almanac

Today is Thursday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2003 with 90 to follow.

The moon is waxing, in its first quarter. The morning stars are Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. The evening stars are Mars, Pluto, Venus, Uranus and Neptune.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include England's King Richard III in 1452; Nat Turner, a black slave and leader of the only effective and sustained U.S. slave revolt, in 1800; German statesman Paul von Hindenburg in 1847; French World War I military commander Ferdinand Foch in 1851; Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, in 1869; comedians Groucho Marx in 1890 and Bud Abbott in 1895; child actor George "Spanky" McFarland of "Our Gang" and "Little Rascals" fame, in 1928; movie critic Rex Reed in 1939 (age 64); pop singer Don McLean in 1945 (age 58); fashion designer Donna Karan in 1948 (age 55); rock singer Sting (Gordon Sumner) in 1951 (age 52); and actress Lorraine Bracco in 1955 (age 48).

On this date in history:

In 1780, British spy Major John Andre was convicted in connection with Benedict Arnold's treason and was hanged in Tappan, N.Y.

In 1950, the "Peanuts" comic strip by Charles M. Schulz was published for the first time.

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

In 1968, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas withdrew his nomination as chief justice. Six months later, he resigned from the court, admitting he had made a financial deal with the Louis Wolfson Foundation.

In 1984, Richard Miller became the first FBI agent ever to be charged with espionage. He was convicted two years later of passing government secrets to the Soviet Union through his Russian lover.

In 1985, actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS. He was 59 years old.

In 1991, the Organization of American States resolved to isolate Haiti's military junta and restore Aristide's government to power.

In 1992, the Clinton and Bush camps agreed to a marathon nine days of four presidential and one vice presidential debates.

Also in 1992, the House failed to override President Bush's veto of a bill that would have reversed the administration's "gag rule" on abortion information.

In 1993, ousted Russian vice president Aleksandr Rutskoi called for people to take to the streets against President Boris Yeltsin's "dictatorship."

In 1996, former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman pleaded guilty to perjury for testifying at the O.J. Simpson murder trial that he'd never uttered a racial slur in 10 years; a recording proved otherwise.

In 2001, NATO said that the United States had shown evidence, sufficient to justify NATO military action, that Osama bin Laden and his organization were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

And in 2001, for the 9th time that year, the Federal Reserve Board cut its rate for overnight loans among banks, this time from 3 percent to 2.5 percent, a 36-year low.

In 2002, the first in a series of apparent random sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington area for three weeks occurred on this date with the slaying of a 55-year-old Maryland man.

A thought for the day: Queen Elizabeth I of England said, "A fool too late bewares when all the peril is past."