The Almanac

Today is Saturday, Oct. 2, the 276th day of 2004 with 90 to follow.

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and, Mars. The evening stars are Pluto, 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 65); pop singer Don McLean in 1945 (age 59); fashion designer Donna Karan in 1948 (age 56); rock singer Sting (Gordon Sumner) in 1951 (age 53); and actress Lorraine Bracco in 1955 (age 49).

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.

In 2003, David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, told Congress his team had yet to find any conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Also in 2003, in a surprise ruling, a federal judge barred prosecutors of accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui from seeking the death penalty or linking him with the Sept. 11 attacks because he had not been allowed to interview al-Qaida operatives who might help his case.

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