The almanac

Today is Sunday, Oct. 28, the 302nd day of 2012 with 64 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus in 1466; rifle maker Eliphalet Remington in 1793; Russian writer Ivan Turgenev in 1818; movie costumer Edith Head in 1897; actor Elsa Lanchester in 1902; English novelist Evelyn Waugh in 1903; Dr. Jonas Salk, a developer of the polio vaccine, in 1914; former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn in 1926; country musician Charlie Daniels in 1936 (age 76); basketball Hall of Fame member Lenny Wilkens in 1937 (age 75); actors Jane Alexander in 1939 (age 73) and Dennis Franz in 1944 (age 68); rock singer Wayne Fontana in 1945 (age 67); singer/actor Telma Hopkins in 1948 (age 64); Olympic decathlon champion-turned-sportscaster Bruce Jenner in 1949 (age 63); Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 1955 (age 57); Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 1956 (age 56); actors Annie Potts in 1952 (age 60), Lauren Holly in 1963 (age 49), Jami Gertz in 1965 (age 47), Andy Richter in 1966 (age 46), Julia Roberts in 1967 (age 45) and Joaquin Phoenix in 1974 (age 38).

On this date in history:

In 312, in a battle that marked the beginning of the Christian era in Europe, Constantine's army, wearing the cross, defeated the forces of Maxentius at Mulvian Bridge in Rome.

In 1636, Harvard College, now Harvard University, was founded in Massachusetts.

In 1846, the pioneering Donner Party of 90 people set out from Springfield, Ill., for California.

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States, was dedicated in New York Harbor by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

In 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Volstead Act, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, enforcing the constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of alcoholic beverages.

In 1962, Russian chief Nikita Khrushchev announced that all Soviet offensive missiles would be removed from Cuba.

In 1985, the leader of the so-called Walker family spy ring, John Walker, pleaded guilty to giving U.S. Navy secrets to the Soviet Union.

In 1989 sports, the Oakland A's wrapped up an earthquake-delayed sweep of the World Series over the San Francisco Giants.

In 2001, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a third New Jersey postal worker had an anthrax inhalation infection, bringing the number to eight, including three people who died from the most serious form of the disease.

In 2002, U.S. diplomat John Foley was killed in Amman, Jordan. An unknown group called the Honest People of Jordan claimed it was a response to U.S. support of Israel and actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2004, insurgents executed 11 Iraqi soldiers in what they said was revenge for women and children killed in U.S. strikes on the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.

In 2005, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff and national security adviser to the vice president, resigned after he was indicted on multiple counts in the CIA leak case in which an operative's name was revealed to the media.

In 2007, U.S.-led forces killed nearly 80 Taliban fighters during a fierce six-hour air and ground battle in southern Afghanistan.

Also in 2007, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner became the first woman to be elected president of Argentina. She succeeded her husband, Nestor Kirchner.

In 2009, more than 100 people, most of them women and children, were killed when a car bomb tore through a busy market in Peshawar, Pakistan, on a day U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders.

In 2010, officials reported breaking up an alleged plot in which explosives rigged as bombs and hidden in printer cartridges were shipped from Yemen addressed to Chicago synagogues.

Also in 2010, China announced it had built what experts said was the world's fastest supercomputer, capable of a sustained performance 40 percent greater than the previous record holder built in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

In 2011, unusually heavy monsoon rains that began in the summer and stretched into the fall drenched Thailand producing its worst flooding in half a century with about one-third of the country ultimately under water. Damage to homes, factories and crops was widespread and the death toll topped 400.

A thought for the day: poet Emily Dickinson wrote, "I'll tell you how the sun rose --

"A Ribbon at a time --"