The almanac

Today is Sunday, July 22, the 204th day of 2012 with 162 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 poet Emma Lazarus in 1849; painter Edward Hopper in 1882; U.S. political family matriarch Rose Kennedy in 1890; U.S. psychiatrist Karl Menninger in 1893; poet Stephen Vincent Benet and sculptor Alexander Calder, both in 1898; former U.S. Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., in 1923 (age 89); actor Orson Bean in 1928 (age 84); fashion designer Oscar de la Renta in 1932 (age 80); actors Louise Fletcher in 1934 (age 78) and Terence Stamp in 1938 (age 74); "Jeopardy!" game show host Alex Trebek in 1940 (age 72); actor/singer Bobby Sherman in 1943 (age 69); actor Danny Glover in 1946 (age 66); comedian/actor Albert Brooks and rock musician Don Henley, both in 1947 (age 65); composer Alan Menken in 1949 (age 63); actor Willem Dafoe in 1955 (age 57); R&B singer Keith Sweat in 1963 (age 49); comedians John Leguizamo and David Spade, both in 1964 (age 48); actor Colin Ferguson in 1972 (age 40); and singer Rufus Wainwright in 1973 (age 39).

On this day in history:

In 1376, according to German legend, a piper -- having not been paid for ridding the town of Hamelin of its rats -- led the town's children away, never to be seen again.

In 1620, Dutch pilgrims started for America. Their ship -- called the "Speedhaven" -- set sail from Delfshaven, Holland.

In 1793, Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific.

In 1864, in the first battle of Atlanta, Confederate troops under Gen. John Hood were defeated by Union forces under Gen. William Sherman.

In 1916, a bomb hidden in a suitcase exploded during a Preparedness Day parade on San Francisco's Market Street, killing 10 people and wounding 40. The parade was in support of the United States' entrance into World War I.

In 1933, Wiley Post completed his first solo flight around the world. It took him 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

In 1934, bank robber John Dillinger died in a hail of bullets from federal agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater.

In 1991, Milwaukee police arrested Jeffrey Dahmer as a suspect in the deaths of at least 15 people.

In 1992, Pablo Escobar, the boss of the Medellin cocaine cartel, and nine henchmen vanished from a Colombian prison. Many months later, Escobar was surrounded and killed.

In 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered the Pentagon to begin a major relief effort in Rwanda.

Also in 1994, a U.S. federal judge ordered The Citadel, a state-financed military college in Charleston, S.C., to open its doors to women.

And, at his arraignment, O.J. Simpson declared himself "100 percent not guilty" in the killings of his ex-wife and her friend.

In 1999, China outlawed the Falun Gong religious sect and began detaining thousands of its members.

In 2003, Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusai, were killed by U.S. forces in a fierce, 6-hour firefight at a house in Mosul in northern Iraq.

Also in 2003, at least 600 people were reported dead in a series of clashes in the Liberian civil war.

In 2004, the Sept. 11 commission recommended a radical overhaul of the way the nation's intelligence and counter-terror agencies were run and criticized Congress and two administrations for failing to stop the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

In 2006, Afghanistan was "close to anarchy" with Western military forces "running out of time," the head of NATO's international security force in that country said.

Also in 2006, China's death toll from Tropical Storm Bilis topped 500.

In 2007, the moderate Islamic party ruling Turkey added to its majority in parliamentary elections with 47 percent of the vote, largest share of Turkish votes for any party since 1965.

Also in 2007, at least 26 people died when a bus carrying Roman Catholic pilgrims from Poland fell into a ravine near Grenoble in the French Alps.

In 2008, jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and four other members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were indicted on charges of child sexual assault by a grand jury in Texas.

In 2009, millions of Hindus bathed in India's holy rivers and throngs across Asia sought vantage points to view a rare 4-minute total solar eclipse, longest of the 21st century.

In 2010, congressional investigators said U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N,Y, appeared to have violated several ethics rules but the probe would continue before deciding on any further steps toward the 80-year-old former House Ways and Means chairman.

Also in 2010, top executives at several major banks that got government bailout loans received $1.58 billion in reportedly unwarranted bonuses, a U.S. official concluded.

In 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, a 33-year-old Norwegian rightwing extremist, boasted he was responsible for the massacre of 77 people in Norway's worst peacetime atrocity. But, he denied criminal guilt at his Oslo trial, saying he was trying to stop a Muslim takeover. Breivik admitted killing 69 people, mostly teenagers, in a shooting rampage at a youth summer camp and setting a bomb that killed eight others in Oslo.

A thought for the day: Mordecai Richler wrote: "The revolution eats its own. Capitalism re-creates itself."