The Almanac

Today is Saturday, Nov. 19, the 323rd day of 2005 with 42 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include English King Charles I in 1600; frontier military leader George Rogers Clark in 1752; James Abram Garfield, 20th president of the United States, in 1831; religious revivalist Billy Sunday in 1862; explorer Hiram Bingham, discoverer of the Inca city of Machu Picchu, in 1875; actor Clifton Webb in 1896; bandleader Tommy Dorsey in 1905; Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1917; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick in 1926 (age 79); talk show host Larry King in 1933 (age 72); entertainer Dick Cavett in 1936 (age 68); entrepreneur Ted Turner in 1938 (age 67); fashion designer Calvin Klein in 1942 (age 63); sportscaster Ahmad Rashad in 1949 (age 56); actress Kathleen Quinlan in 1954 (age 51); Eileen Collins, first female space shuttle commander, in 1956 (age 49); actress Meg Ryan in 1961 (age 44); actress/director Jodie Foster in 1962 (age 43); actress Terry Farrell ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") in 1963 (age 42); and Olympic gymnast Kerri Strung in 1977 (age 28).

On this date in history:

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on a Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.

In 1919, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles drawn up by the Paris peace conference at the end of World War I.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for his presidential library at Hyde Park, N.Y.

In 1954, the first automatic toll collection machine went into service -- at the Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.

In 1985, a Houston jury ruled Texaco must pay $10.5 billion, the largest damage award in United States history, to Pennzoil Co. or Texaco's 1984 acquisition of Getty Oil Co.

In 1986, at the beginning of what became the Iran-Contra scandal, President Reagan said the United States would send no more arms to Iran.

In 1990, NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations signed a massive conventional arms treaty in Paris to end the 40-year Cold War.

In 1991, a cargo train derailment in central Mexico killed 70 people and injured 40 more when the boxcars crushed automobiles on a highway below the tracks.

In 1994, Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano and his party claimed victory in the country's first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections.

In 1995, in a close presidential runoff election in Poland, former communist party leader Aleksander Kwasniewski defeated incumbent Lech Walesa.

In 1997, Bobbi McCaughey gave birth to septuplets in Des Moines, Iowa, the first time seven babies had been born and survived.

In 2001, the U.S. government offered a $25 million award for information leading to the location or capture of Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

In 2002, 13 months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to create a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department, kicking into motion the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years.

Also in 2002, The World Wildlife Fund warned that an oil tanker that broke in half and was sinking off the coast of Spain could trigger an ecological disaster far worse than the one Exxon Valdez caused in Alaska 13 years ago.

In 2003, Saudi Arabia braced for expected al-Qaida suicide strikes to coincide with the end of the Islamic fast month of Ramadan.

In 2004, the chief of U.S. forces in South Korea said he is concerned that North Korea may sell its weapons-grade plutonium to international terrorists.

Also in 2004, an Islamic group long active in Iraq warned citizens to skip the coming election and told candidates to drop out of the running.

A thought for the day: Milan Kundera said, "The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past."