The almanac

Today is Saturday, Sept. 1, the 245th day of 2012 with 121 to follow.

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

Those born on this day are under the sign of Virgo. They include German composer Engelbert Humperdinck in 1854; "Tarzan" creator Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1875; dancer/singer Marilyn Miller in 1898; labor leader Walter Reuther in 1907; actors Richard Farnsworth in 1920, Yvonne De Carlo in 1922 and George Maharis in 1928 (age 74); undefeated heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano in 1923; country music singers Boxcar Willie in 1931 and Conway Twitty in 1933; symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa in 1935 (age 77); lawyer adn commentator Alan Dershowitz in 1938 (age 74); comedian/actor Lily Tomlin in 1939 (age 73); conductor Leonard Slatkin in 1944 (age 68); Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees pop music group in 1946 (age 66); TV talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw in 1950 (age 62); and singer Gloria Estefan in 1957 (age 55).

On this date in history:

In 1715, French King Louis XIV dies after ruling the country for 72 years, the longest reign for a French monarch.

In 1807, Aaron Burr, vice president of the United States under Thomas Jefferson, was acquitted of treason charges growing out of an alleged plot to set up an independent empire in the nation's south and west.

In 1914, the last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

In 1923, an earthquake struck Yokohama, Japan, killing an estimated 143,000 people.

In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Great Britain and France served an ultimatum on Adolf Hitler but it was ignored.

In 1972, American Bobby Fischer defeated Russian Boris Spassky for the world chess championship.

In 1983, a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 strayed into Soviet air space and was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter. All 269 people aboard died.

In 1985, scientists found the wreck of the British luxury liner Titanic, sunk by an iceberg in 1912, in the Atlantic Ocean south of Newfoundland.

In 1990, three planes left Iraq with about 500 Western and Japanese women and children in the first airlift, four days after Saddam Hussein's pledge to begin releasing some of his so-called guests.

In 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush established diplomatic relations with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In 1996, the United Nations suspended the permission it gave Iraq to sell oil after Iraq took over the unofficial Kurdish capital city in violation of the cease-fire terms of the Gulf War.

In 2003, Libya agreed to compensate relatives of the 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara.

In 2004, a heavily armed band of 31 Chechen terrorists seized a school in Belstan in southern Russia, taking hundreds of hostages.

In 2006, a fiery airport crash of a Russian-made Tupolev 154 airliner in Mashland, Iran, left 29 people dead but 148 passengers survived.

In 2007, Russia was set to expand testing of new warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles. That word came amid growing tensions about a U.S. plan to deploy elements of its global anti-ballistic missile defense system in Central Europe.

In 2008, Hurricane Gustav slammed into Louisiana southwest of New Orleans as a Category 2 storm, packing winds of 110 mph and heavy rain and forcing evacuation of about 2 million people. But, New Orleans' levee system, strengthened since 2005's Hurricane Katrina devastated the area, held against a 12-foot storm surge.

Also in 2008, the United States transferred responsibility for security of the once-troubled province of Anbar, known as a center for Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi military and police. More than 1,000 members of the U.S. military died there during the war.

And, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, in office barely a year, announced he would resign. Critics in Parliament accused him of mismanagement of domestic issues.

In 2009, leaders of the southern Afghan tribe of Bariz accused President Hamid Karzai and his aides of vote forgery and ballot box-stuffing in the recent election.

In 2010, Israel would be willing to consider dividing Jerusalem if it meant peace with the Palestinians, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview.

In 2011, embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, believed to be holed up in a desert stronghold after his forces were beaten in Tripoli, said in a television interview he was prepared for a "long drawn-out war" and proclaimed, "Let Libya burn."

Also in 2011, Turkish officials said they were cutting diplomatic ties with Israel following the leak of a U.N. report on Israel's 2010 attack on a Gaza-bound ship.

A thought for the day: Edward Bellamy wrote, "An American credit card ... is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be."