The Almanac

Today is Wednesday, April 26, the 116th day of 2006 with 249 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include naturalist John James Audubon in 1785; landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1822; author Anita Loos in 1893; Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, in 1894; inventor Charles Richter, responsible for the Richter scale of earthquake measurement, in 1900; novelist Bernard Malamud in 1914; architect I.M. Pei in 1917 (age 89); actress/comedian Carol Burnett in 1936 (age 70); influential pop guitarist Duane Eddy in 1938 (age 68); pop singer Bobby Rydell in 1942 (age 64); and actors Giancarlo Esposito in 1958 (age 48) and Kevin James in 1965 (age 41).

On this day in history:

In 1607, the first British colonists to establish a permanent settlement in America landed at Cape Henry, Va.

In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, German-made planes destroyed the Basque town of Guernica, Spain.

In 1986, a fire at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear reactor north of Kiev resulted in the world's worst nuclear disaster.

In 1992, powerful aftershocks rattled Northern California following a 6.9 earthquake that injured at least 65 people.

In 1993, a domestic Indian airliner slammed into parked truck during takeoff and crashed near Aurangabad, killing at least 55 of the 118 people aboard.

Also in 1993, gunmen seized the Costa Rica Supreme Court, holding 17 judges and five other people hostage. The assailants freed their hostages three days later and were captured en route to the airport.

And, the U.S. Holocaust Museum opened in Washington.

In 1994, South Africans began going to the polls in the country's first election that was open to all. Four days of voting would elect Nelson Mandela president.

In 1996, an auction of the belongings of Jackie Onassis yielded $34 million, about seven times what Sotheby's auction house had estimated.

In 2002, a German youth who had been expelled from the Gutenberg school in Erfurt, Germany, returned to the school and shot 16 people to death.

In 2003, U.S. officials said a large munitions dump at a coalition-controlled Iraqi army base exploded, sending an errant missile into a neighborhood and killing at least six Iraqi civilians and injuring many more.

Also in 2003, a Soyuz rocket carrying a U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off for the International Space Station.

In 2004, a government report said that for the last three years no U.S. state adequately protected children from abuse and neglect.

In 2005, the last of the Syrian troops left Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence.

A thought for the day: "The best proof of love is trust." Dr. Joyce Brothers said that.