The Almanac

Today is Thursday, Sept. 1, the 244th day of 2005 with 121 to follow.

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

Those born on this day are under the sign of Virgo. They include German composer Engelbert Humperdinck in 1854; "Tarzan" author Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1875; dancer/singer Marilyn Miller in 1898; actress Yvonne De Carlo ("The Munsters") in 1922 (age 83); boxing champ Rocky Marciano in 1923; country music singer Conway Twitty in 1933; symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa in 1935 (age 70); attorney Alan Dershowitz in 1938 (age 67); comedian/actress Lily Tomlin in 1939 (age 66); Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees pop music group in 1946 (age 59); and singer Gloria Estefan in 1957 (age 48).

On this date in history:

In 1807, Aaron Burr, vice president of the United States under Thomas Jefferson, was acquitted of treason charges growing out of an alleged plot to set up an independent empire in the nation's south and west.

In 1914, the last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

In 1923, an earthquake struck Yokohama, Japan, killing an estimated 143,000 people.

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France served an ultimatum on Adolf Hitler, but it was ignored.

In 1983, a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 strayed into Soviet air space and was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter. All 269 people aboard died.

In 1985, scientists found the wreck of the British luxury liner Titanic, sunk by an iceberg in 1912, in the Atlantic Ocean south of Newfoundland.

In 1990, three planes left Iraq with about 500 Western and Japanese women and children in the first airlift, four days after Saddam Hussein's pledge to begin releasing some of his so-called "guests."

In 1991, President Bush established diplomatic relations with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In 1992, the insurance industry estimated that insured damage from Hurricane Andrew would reach $7.3 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

In 1993, Bosnian Muslims refused to accept a draft of an U.N. peace agreement unless the Serbs and Croats ceded them more land.

In 1995, a peace agreement worked out among Liberia's warring militias moved forward with the swearing in of an interim ruling council.

In 1996, the U.N. suspended the permission it gave Iraq to sell oil again after Iraq took over the unofficial Kurdish capital city in violation of the cease-fire terms of the Gulf War.

In 1998, President Clinton held two days of talks with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow but the deadlock over the START II treaty remained unresolved.

In 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a new investigation into the events of April 19,1993, that ended the siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. About 80 cultists died in a compound fire.

In 2003, Libya agreed to compensate relatives of the 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara.

In 2004, Republicans opened their national convention in New York to officially choose George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for re-election.

Also in 2004, a heavily armed band of 31 Chechen terrorists seized a school in Belstan in southern Russia, taking hundreds of hostages.

And, sexual assault charges against pro basketball star Kobe Bryant were dropped at the request of the prosecution after the alleged victim refused to testify.

A thought for the day: Edward Bellamy wrote, "An American credit card ... is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be."