The Almanac

Today is Friday, Nov. 24, the 328th day of 2006 with 37 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Dutch philosopher Baruch "Benedict" de Spinoza in 1632; British novelist and clergyman Laurence Sterne in 1713; Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States, in 1784; gambler, frontier lawman and sports writer William "Bat" Masterson in 1853; painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec in 1864; ragtime composer Scott Joplin in 1868; lecturer and author Dale Carnegie in 1888; pianist Teddy Wilson in 1912; actress Geraldine Fitzgerald in 1913; columnist William F. Buckley, in 1925 (age 81); and actors Dwight Schultz in 1947 (age 59) and Stanley Livingston in 1950 (age 56).

On this date in history:

In 1863, Union Gen. U.S. Grant launched the U.S. Civil War Battle of Chattanooga in Tennessee.

In 1869, women from 21 states met in Cleveland to organize the American Women Suffrage Association.

In 1874, Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which made the farming of the Great Plains possible.

In 1963, accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in a Dallas jail building.

In 1971, a middle-aged man whose ticket was made out to "D.B. Cooper" hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle. Somewhere south of Seattle, he parachuted from the plane with the $200,000 in ransom he'd collected from the airline and was never heard from again.

In 1985, Arab commandos forced an Egypt Air jetliner to Malta and began shooting passengers, killing two. Fifty-seven other people died when Egyptian commandos stormed the jet.

In 1989, Czech reform politician Alexander Dubcek made his first public appearance in Prague since the Soviet invasion of 1968.

In 1993, the Brady Bill handgun-control legislation cleared the U.S. Congress. U.S. President Bill Clinton signed it into law on Nov. 30, 1993.

In 1995, Irish voters passed a referendum removing the constitutional ban on divorce.

In 2001, the successful cloning of 24 cows was reported by a team of scientists in Worcester, Mass.

In 2002, suspected Islamic terrorists stormed a famous Hindu temple in Kashmir, India, killing seven people and wounding 30 others.

In 2003, jurors in Virginia Beach, Va., recommended John Allen Muhammad be put to death for the 2002 Washington-area sniper slayings.

Also in 2003, Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn, the winningest left-hander in major league baseball history, died at the age of 82.

In 2004, Iraqis who escaped the recent U.S.-led offensive against insurgents in Fallujah reportedly claimed to have witnessed the killing of unarmed civilians.

Also in 2004, Brazilian energy officials said the South American country will begin enriching uranium with the full consent of the United Nations.

In 2005, a suicide car bomber struck at an Iraqi hospital where U.S. soldiers were giving away toys, killing at least 31 people, mostly women and children. Nearly two dozen others died in further violence during the day in Iraq.

A thought for the day: Dutch philosopher Baruch "Benedict" de Spinoza said, "Peace is not an absence of war. It is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."