The Almanac

Today is Friday, May 7, the 128th day of 2004 with 238 to follow.

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Neptune, Uranus, Mercury and Pluto. The evening stars are Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Scottish philosopher David Hume in 1711; English poet Robert Browning in 1812; German composer Johannes Brahms in 1833; Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1840; Western actor Gabby Hayes in 1885; poet Archibald MacLeish and Yugoslav leader Josef Broz Tito, both in 1892; actor Gary Cooper in 1901; Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid instant camera, in 1909; actor Darren McGavin in 1922 (age 82); singer Teresa Brewer in 1931 (age 73); Pro Football Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas in 1933; and filmmaker Amy Heckerling in 1954 (age 50).

On this date in history:

In 1763, Ottawa Indian chief Pontiac led a major uprising against the British at Detroit.

In 1789, the first presidential inaugural ball, celebrating the inauguration of George Washington, was held in New York City.

In 1824, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time at Vienna, Austria.

In 1915, a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, killing nearly 1,200 people, including 124 Americans.

In 1945, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany from Gen. Alfred Jodl.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, had confessed he was on a spying mission for the CIA.

In 1985, 10 years after the Vietnam War ended, New York City honored Vietnam veterans with a huge ticker tape parade.

In 1987, Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., died of AIDS at age 56, the first member of Congress identified as a victim of the disease.

In 1989, opposition candidates claimed victory in Panama's presidential election.

In 1992, a constitutional amendment to bar Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises finally was ratified, 203 years after it was proposed, when Michigan and New Jersey approved the measure.

In 1993, a Florida teenager was identified as the sixth patient infected with the AIDS virus by Dr. David Acer, a dentist who had died in 1990.

In 1995, Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris and former French premier, was elected president of France on his third try.

In 1997, the Army's highest enlisted soldier, Sgt. Major Gene McKinney, became the latest to be charged in the military sex-harassment investigation.

Also in 1997, a Bosnian Serb, Dusan Tadic, was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal in the first case of its kind to go to trial since just after World War II.

In 1998, Daimler-Benz AG and the Chrysler Corporation announced plans to merge.

In 1999, a U.S. stealth bomber mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three people. Apologies failed to prevent massive Chinese outrage at the incident.

In 2000, Vladimir Putin was sworn in as Russia's second president in the first democratic transfer of executive power in the nation's 1,000-year history.

In 2002, Luke John Heider, 21, a student at the University of Wisconsin at Menomonic, was arrested for planting pipebombs in or near rural mailboxes. Bombs were found at nearly two dozen locations in five states; six people were hurt when six of the bombs exploded.

In 2003, The White House denied charges President George W. Bush engaged in political grandstanding in traveling last week to the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and declaring major military operations in Iraq over.

Also in 2003, as the U.S.-led coalition searched for deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the Sydney Morning Herald said it had received an audiotape message purportedly recorded this week by Saddam, calling on Iraqis to stand together against the occupying forces.

A thought for the day: Lenin said, "A lie told often enough becomes truth."