The almanac

Today is Monday, Nov. 10, the 315th day of 2008 with 51 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism, in 1483; William Hogarth, English artist and engraver, in 1697; Irish author Oliver Goldsmith in 1730; actors Claude Rains in 1889, Richard Burton in 1925 and Roy Scheider in 1932; singer Jane Froman in 1907; bandleader/trumpet/arranger Billy May in 1916; American Indian rights activist/actor Russell Means in 1939 (age 69); lyricist Tim Rice in 1944 (age 64); country singer Donna Fargo in 1945 (age 63); actresses Ann Reinking in 1949 (age 59) and Mackenzie Phillips in 1959 (age 49); filmmaker Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day") in 1955 (age 53); and comedian Sinbad in 1956 (age 52).

On this date in history:

In 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps was formed by order of the Continental Congress.

In 1871, journalist Henry Stanley found missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone in a small African village. His famous comment: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

In 1917, 41 women from 15 U.S. states were arrested outside the White House for suffragette demonstrations. U.S. women won the right to vote three years later.

In 1951, area codes were introduced in the United States, Canada and parts of the Caribbean, allowing direct-dialing of long-distance telephone calls. Prior to this, all such calls were operator-assisted.

In 1969, the long-running children's show "Sesame Street" premiered on PBS.

In 1975, the ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald broke in two and sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members. It was the worst Great Lakes ship disaster of the decade.

In 1982, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75 after 18 years in power.

In 1983, Microsoft released its Windows computer operating system.

In 1989, Bulgaria's long-reigning, hard-line president Todor Zhivkov resigned as democratic reform continued to sweep the Eastern Bloc.

Also in 1994, the only privately owned manuscript of Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci was sold at auction at Christie's in New York for $30.8 million, the highest amount paid for a manuscript.

In 1996, a bomb at a Moscow cemetery killed 11 and injured one dozen other people.

In 2001, Taliban officials confirmed that the Northern Alliance had captured the Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, while U.S. President George Bush told the U.N. General Assembly that the time had come for countries to take swift and decisive action against global terrorism.

In 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to allow U.S. President George Bush to take unilateral military action against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq without conditions beyond Congress being informed almost immediately.

In 2003, Lee Malvo, one of two suspects in the rash of sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington area, pleaded innocent as his trial opened in Chesapeake, Va. The trial overlapped that of the other suspect, John Muhammad, in Virginia Beach, Va.

In 2004, Shell Hydrogen opened the first hydrogen outlet at a retail gasoline station in Washington to service fuel cell vehicles from General Motors.

Also in 2004, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a bill prohibiting pensions to families of suicide bombers.

In 2005, a bomb explosion in a central Baghdad restaurant killed at least 34 people and wounded some 25 others.

In 2006, the head of Britain's MI5 counter-terrorism agency said there were 30 "mass casualty" terror plots being planned in the country.

Also in 2006, Mexico City lawmakers officially recognized same-sex civil unions, subject to approval by the mayor.

In 2007, Bank of America, CitiGroup and JPMorgan Chase, the nation's three biggest banks, agreed to a simplified structure for a reported $75 billion fund designed to stabilize U.S. credit markets.

A thought for the day: Irish author Oliver Goldsmith said, "A book may be amusing with numerous errors or it may be very dull without a single absurdity."