The Almanac

Today is Saturday, Oct. 9, the 283rd day of 2004 with 83 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include French composer Camille Saint-Saens in 1835; Charles Rudolph Walgreen, drug store chain founder, in 1873; American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in 1890; Civil War historian Bruce Catton in 1899; convicted Watergate burglar and lecturer E. Howard Hunt Jr. in 1918 (age 86); former baseball player Joe Pepitone in 1940 (age 64); singer/songwriters John Lennon in 1940 and Jackson Browne in 1948 (age 56); writer/actor Robert Wuhl in 1951 (age 53); and actors Scott Bakula in 1955 (age 49) and Zachery Ty Bryan ("Home Improvement") in 1981 (age 23).

On this date in history:

In 1934, King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a Croatian terrorist during a state visit to France.

In 1974, Oskar Schindler, the German businessman credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, died at the age of 66.

In 1975, Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, became the first Soviet citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1983, James Watt, facing Senate condemnation for a racially insensitive remark, resigned as President Reagan's interior secretary.

In 1986, the Senate convicted imprisoned federal Judge Harry Claiborne of tax cheating, making him only the fifth U.S. judge to be impeached and removed from office.

In 1989, the Soviet news agency Tass, under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of increasing openness in society, reported a flying saucer visit to the Soviet Union.

In 1990, President Bush, having vetoed one budget continuing resolution and allowing the government's spending authority to expire, signed a second measure preventing a virtual government shutdown.

In 1992, the White House said an American citizen working along the Iraq-Kuwait border had been seized by the Iraqis. Baghdad announced the next day they'd freed the man.

Also in 1992, NASA announced that the Pioneer spacecraft was apparently lost after orbiting Venus for 14 years.

In 1995, an Amtrak passenger train derailed in a remote area of Arizona southwest of Phoenix, killing one member of the crew and injuring about 100 more people. Authorities later said the track had been sabotaged.

Also in 1995, a newly acquitted O.J. Simpson agreed to a live one-hour interview with NBC News. He pulled out two days later, saying he feared he was being "set up."

In 1997, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned after Communist members of Parliament withdrew their support for his coalition government.

In 2001, the Pentagon reported the destruction of seven terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and, claiming control of the skies over Afghanistan, launched heavy air strikes against Taliban garrisons and troop encampments.

In 2002, the Washington area sniper claimed a seventh victim with the slaying of a man at a gas station near Manassas, Va.

Also in 2002, As stock prices continued to fluctuate wildly, the Dow Jones industrials closed at 7,286.27, a five-year low.

In 2003, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the U.S. budget deficit for the 2003 fiscal year would be $374 billion, the largest ever in dollar terms.

A thought for the day: in "The Taming of the Shrew," William Shakespeare wrote, "Do as adversaries do in law. Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."