The Almanac

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 15, the 319th day of 2006 with 46 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include British statesman William Pitt ("the elder") in 1708; British astronomer William Herschel, discoverer of the planet Uranus, in 1738; Nobel Prize-winning physiologist August Krogh of Denmark in 1874; artist Georgia O'Keeffe in 1887; jurist Felix Frankfurter in 1882; diplomat W. Averell Harriman and World War II German Gen. Erwin Rommel, both in 1891; Annunzio Mantovani, orchestra leader, in 1905; U.S. Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay in 1906; TV personality and retired Judge Joseph Wapner in 1919 (age 87); actor Edward Asner in 1929 (age 77); pop singer Petula Clark in 1932 (age 74); actors Yaphet Kotto in 1937 (age 69) and Sam Waterston in 1940 (age 66); conductor Daniel Barenboim in 1942 (age 64); actress Beverly D'Angelo in 1951 (age 55); and "Tonight Show" band leader Kevin Eubanks in 1957 (age 48).

On this date in history:

In 1864, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman began his Civil War march from Atlanta to the sea.

In 1920, the first assembly of the League of Nations was called to order in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1943, Heinrich Himmler ordered gypsies and part-gypsies to be placed in Nazi concentration camps.

In 1960, Hollywood king Clark Gable, best remembered as Rhett Butler in "Gone With The Wind," died of a heart attack at the age of 59.

In 1969, 250,000 people demonstrated in Washington against the Vietnam War.

In 1984, 5-week-old Baby Fae died after her body rejected the baboon heart she had lived with for 20 days at California's Loma Linda University Medical Center.

In 1987, 27 people were killed when a Continental Airlines DC-9 jet crashed in a snowstorm during takeoff from Denver.

In 1989, tornadoes struck six Southern states, killing 17 people and injuring 463, causing at least $100 million in damage in Huntsville, Ala.

In 1990, the so-called "Keating Five" -- Sens. Alan Cranston, D-Calif.; Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.; John Glenn, D-Ohio; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Donald Riegle, D-Mich. -- were accused of influence peddling on behalf of savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating.

In 1992, Newsweek quoted Elizabeth Tamposi saying a U.S. State Department colleague acting on behest of the White House asked her to dig up information on Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton.

In 2001, U.S. commandos were on the ground in southern Afghanistan in the search for al-Qaida leaders and more than 250 U.S. and British special-force troops landed north of Kabul.

In 2002, the White House and the FBI backed off from a warning that al-Qaida was plotting "spectacular" attacks against the United States after critics latched onto it to show progress in the war on terror was faltering.

In 2003, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat, was elected Louisiana's first female chief executive in a runoff.

In 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell submitted his resignation to U.S. President George Bush.

Also in 2004, facing the possibility of U.N. sanctions, Iran announced it would suspend its uranium enrichment program.

In 2005, the official death toll from Hurricane Katrina stood at 972 with more bodies found as Louisiana residents returned home more than a month after the search for victims officially ended.

Also in 2005, the U.S. Senate voted to require regular reports on the war in Iraq with steps taken to get the United States closer to a military withdrawal.

A thought for the day: Nobel Prize-winning poet George Seferis said, "We have many monsters to destroy."