The Almanac

Today is Wednesday, July 5, the 186th day of 2006 with 179 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include David Farragut, the first U.S. Navy admiral, in 1801; showman P.T. Barnum in 1810; British colonialist Cecil Rhodes, founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in 1853; Dwight Davis, founder of the Davis Cup tennis tournament, in 1879; French writer and film director Jean Cocteau in 1889; politician and diplomat Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in 1902; actor Milburn Stone ("Gunsmoke") in 1904; former football coach John McKay in 1923; actor Warren Oates in 1928; actress Katherine Helmond in 1934 (age 72); Robbie Robertson, composer, musician, member of The Band, in 1944 (age 62); Julie Nixon Eisenhower in 1948 (age 58); and rock singer Huey Lewis in 1951 (age 55).

On this date in history:

In 1865, William Booth founded the Salvation Army in London.

In 1916, children under 16 were banned from New York City theaters due to an outbreak of polio. Some 200 theaters shut down throughout the summer.

In 1935, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act.

In 1945, U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur announced the liberation of the Philippines as World War II approached its end.

In 1946, French engineer Louis Reard introduced the bikini swimsuit.

In 1954, newcomer Elvis Presley recorded "That's All Right, Mama," a song he had not intended to do when he began his first recording session at Sun Records in Memphis and it became an instant local sensation.

In 1982, the Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma was declared insolvent, touching off a bank crisis that affected much of the United States.

In 1991, BCCI, with $20 billion in assets, was seized by regulators in the United States, Cayman Islands, France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland.

In 1994, the United States stopped accepting Haitian refugees and asked that other countries provide them with "safe havens."

In 1997, Martina Hingis, 16, of Switzerland, became the youngest in 100 years to win the women's singles tennis championship at Wimbledon.

In 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had agreed to meet at Camp David, Md., to discuss peace.

In 2002, baseball great Ted Williams died at the age of 83. At the time of his death, Williams, who played his entire, war-interrupted career with the Boston Red Sox, was the last player to hit .400 in a major league baseball season (.406 in 1941).

In 2003, 16 people died during Russia's biggest rock concert in Moscow when two female suicide bombers detonated explosives. Security officials stopped the women, suspected of being Chechen terrorists, before they could mingle with the 40,000 concertgoers.

Also in 2003, the World Health Organization said the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, appeared to be contained.

In 2004, an opinion poll conducted by Baghdad University suggested 89 percent of Iraqis were ready to cooperate with their interim government.

In 2005, senior Pakistani and Bahraini diplomats survived attacks by gunmen in separate Iraq attacks. The assaults followed an attack that killed the Egyptian envoy to Iraq. The U.N. Security Council was called into an emergency session to discuss the problem.

A thought for the day: Emily Dickinson wrote, "There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away."