The almanac

Today is Friday, July 6, the 188th day of 2012 with 178 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 Cancer. They include John Paul Jones, founder of the U.S. Navy, in 1747; Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in 1907; singer Laverne Andrews, of the Andrews Sisters, in 1911; British actor Sebastian Cabot in 1918; former U.S. first lady Nancy Reagan in 1921 (age 91); TV entertainer, producer Merv Griffin and rock 'n' roll pioneer Bill Haley ("Rock Around The Clock"), both in 1925; actor Janet Leigh in 1927; singer/actor Della Reese in 1931 (age 81); the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in 1935 (age 77); actors Ned Beatty in 1937 (age 75), Burt Ward in 1945 (age 67) and Sylvester Stallone in 1946 (age 66); former U.S. President George W. Bush, also in 1946 (age 66); actors Shelley Hack in 1947 (age 65), Geoffrey Rush in 1951 (age 61) and Allyce Beasley in 1954 (age 58); singer Nanci Griffith in 1953 (age 59); and rapper 50 Cent in 1975 (age 37).

On this date in history:

In 1699, pirate Capt. William Kidd was seized in Boston and deported to England where he was hanged.

In 1854, the Republican Party was formally established at a meeting in New York City.

In 1885, French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur inoculated the first human being, a boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The youngster didn't develop rabies.

In 1919, a British dirigible landed at New York's Roosevelt Field to complete the first airship crossing of the Atlantic.

In 1923, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed.

In 1933, the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The American League beat the National League, 4-2.

In 1942, diarist Anne Frank and her family took refuge in a secret section of an Amsterdam warehouse where they hid from the Nazis for two years. Finally discovered, they were sent to concentration camps where Anne died.

In 1944, fire in the big top of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Conn., killed 167 people, two-thirds of them children, and injured 682 others.

In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first black athlete to win a Wimbledon championship.

Also in 1957, while attending a church picnic near Liverpool, 15-year-old Paul McCartney met 16-year-old John Lennon. Lennon's band was playing at the picnic and by the end of the day McCartney had joined the group.

In 1958, Alaska became the 49th U.S. state.

In 1967, civil war broke out in Nigeria.

In 1971, Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, one of the 20th century's most influential American musicians, died at age 69.

In 1976, women were first admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy. The other military academies soon followed suit.

In 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, in a TV interview, said it was a "probability" that many young people now paying into Social Security "will never be able to receive as much as they're paying."

In 1994, a firestorm killed 14 forest fire fighters near Glenwood Springs, Colo.

In 1997, the Mars Pathfinder deployed the remote-controlled Sojourner to explore the surface of Mars.

Also in 1997, for the first time since it was founded in 1929, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party failed to win a majority in voting for the lower house of Congress.

In 1999, U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton announced she was forming an committee to look into running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.

Also in 1999, Ehud Barak was sworn in as prime minister of Israel.

In 2004, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, chose Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., as his running mate.

In 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sent to jail for refusing to name her source in connection with the leaking of a CIA agent's identity to the media.

Also in 2005, London was chosen for the site of the 2012 Olympic Games in a close decision over Paris.

In 2006, a record $145 billion class action award against five tobacco companies was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court.

Also in 2006, Felipe Calderon of Mexico's ruling National Action Party won a tight race for president over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama met in Moscow with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, and announced an agreement to reduce nuclear arsenals.

Also in 2009, a federal judge approved a restructuring plan whereby General Motors reportedly sold its best assets to a government-supported company to ensure GM will be able to clear bankruptcy court, officials said.

In 2010, a drug bust in Helmand, Afghanistan's opium producing province, left a reported 64 terrorists dead and yielded some 37,000 pounds of narcotics.

In 2011, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2018 Winter Olympic Games to the South Korea city of Pyeongchang, set in the Taebaek Mountains 110 miles east of Seoul and host to the 2013 Special Olympics. The winner far outdistanced Munich, Germany, and Annecy, France.

A thought for the day: Ambrose Bierce defined a cynic as "a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be."