The almanac

Today is Sunday, June 10, the 162nd day of 2012 with 204 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are Mercury, Saturn and Mars.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include actor Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Oscar (best supporting actress in 1939 for "Gone with the Wind"), in 1895; Broadway composer Frederick Loewe in 1901; Nobel literature laureate Saul Bellow in 1915; Britain's Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1921 (age 91); Hollywood icon Judy Garland in 1922; children's author and illustrator Maurice Sendak in 1928; attorney F. Lee Bailey in 1933 (age 79); football Hall of Fame member Dan Fouts in 1951 (age 61); actor Andrew Stevens in 1955 (age 57); model/actor Elizabeth Hurley in 1965 (age 47); Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in 1971 (age 41); Olympic figure skater Tara Lipinski in 1982 (age 30) and actor Leelee Sobieski in 1983 (age 29).

On this date in history:

In 1652, silversmith John Hull, in defiance of English colonial law, established the first mint in America.

In 1692, in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget Bishop was the first colonist tried in the Salem witch trials, was hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft.

In 1898, U.S. Marines invaded Cuba in the Spanish-American War.

In 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio.

In 1942, the German Gestapo burned the tiny Czech village of Lidice after shooting 173 men and shipping the women and children to concentration camps.

In 1943, Hungarian Laszlo Biro invented the ballpoint pen.

In 1989, the Rev. Jerry Falwell said his conservative lobbying group, the Moral Majority, had accomplished its goals and would disband.

In 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted, spewing debris as far as 20 miles away.

In 1992, Texas law officers urged a boycott of Time-Warner and Warner Bros. over a recording by rap artist Ice-T that they said encouraged the shooting of officers.

In 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton froze most financial transactions between the United States and Haiti and suspended commercial flights to the Caribbean nation.

In 1995, Cuba announced the arrest of U.S. financier-turned-fugitive Robert Vesco on spying charges. Vesco had fled the United States in 1972 ahead of embezzlement charges.

In 1998, a jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. liable in the lung cancer death of a smoker. The jury awarded his family $950,000, including $450,000 in punitive damages -- the first such assessment in a smoking-related lawsuit.

In 2000, Syrian President Hafez Assad died from a heart attack at age 69. He had ruled Syria since 1970.

In 2003, a three-member Ontario Court of Appeal in Canada ordered that full marriage rights be extended to same-sex couples.

In 2004, Ray Charles, a 12-time Grammy-winning singer-pianist who pioneered the blending of country and R&B, died at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 73.

In 2006, three detainees at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, hanged themselves in the first reported deaths at the facility.

In 2009, Chrysler, one of America's "Big 3" automakers, climbed out of bankruptcy with a reconstruction plan that included a partnership deal with Italian carmaker Fiat.

Also in 2009, a security guard was killed at the entrance of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, allegedly by an 88-year-old white supremacist.

In 2010, two dozen gunmen slaughtered 19 people at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in the Mexican city of Chihuahua in the opening stages of a bloody five-day flare up of drug-related violence that officials said claimed hundreds of lives. Mexican President Felipe Calderon blamed the problem on U.S. demand for drugs.

In 2011, the U.S. Congress received a letter purportedly from Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, seeking a cease-fire in the North African country and asking American leadership in peace negotiations.

A thought for the day: Joseph Joubert wrote, "Children need models more than they need critics."