The almanac

Today is Wednesday, May 22, the 142nd day of 2013 with 223 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include German composer Richard Wagner in 1813; Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, in 1859; baseball Hall of Fame member Al Simmons in 1902; actor Laurence Olivier in 1907; game show announcer Johnny Olson in 1910; pioneering jazz musician Sun Ra (born Herman Blount) in 1914; critic Judith Crist in 1922; French singer Charles Aznavour in 1924 (age 89); entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens, Jr. in 1928 (age 85); activist Harvey Milk in 1930; pianist/composer Peter Nero in 1934 (age 79); journalist Bernard Shaw in 1940 (age 73); Northern Irish political activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams in 1943 (age 70); actors Richard Benjamin in 1938 (age 75), Paul Winfield in 1939 and Michael Sarrazin in 1940; Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski in 1942 (age 71); soccer legend George Best in 1946; British songwriter Bernie Taupin in 1950 (age 63); model/actor Naomi Campbell in 1970 (age 43); actor Ginnifer Goodwin in 1978 (age 35); Olympic champion skater Apolo Anton Ohno in 1982 (age 31); and tennis player Novak Djokovic in 1987 (age 26).

On this date in history:

In 334 B.C., Alexander the Great defeated Persian King Darius III at Granicus, Turkey.

In 1868, seven members of the Reno gang stole $98,000 from a railway car at Marshfield, Ind. It was the original "Great Train Robbery."

In 1924, the discovery of the body of Bobby Franks, 13, of Chicago led to the arrest and conviction of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. They were sentenced to 99 years in prison for the so-called thrill killing.

In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first U.S president to visit Moscow.

In 1987, a tornado flattened Saragosa, Texas, population 185, killing 29 residents and injuring 121.

In 1992, Johnny Carson ended his nearly 30-year career as host of "The Tonight Show" with what NBC said was the highest-rated late-night TV show.

In 1993, France, Britain, Russia, Spain and the United States approved a policy calling for a negotiated settlement of the war in Bosnia but the Muslim president of Bosnia rejected the plan.

In 1998, voters in Ireland and Northern Ireland approved a peace plan for violence-torn Ulster.

In 2002, authorities in Birmingham, Ala., convicted a fourth suspect in a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls. Bobby Frank Cherry, 71, a former Ku Klux Klansman, was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2003, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft orbiting Mars took a unique photo of Earth, the first from another planet, showing Earth as a tiny world in the vast darkness of space.

In 2003 sports, Annika Sorenstam became the first woman in 59 years to compete in a PGA event but her 5-over-par 145 through two rounds of the Bank of America Colonial tournament failed to make the cut.

In 2004, Prince Felipe of Asturias, heir to the Spanish throne, married television newscaster Letizia Ortiz in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Madrid.

In 2008, a Texas appeals court ruled that state authorities acted improperly when they seized 400 minors at a compound owned by a polygamist church group. The court said the state lacked credible proof the children were in imminent danger of sexual or physical abuse.

In 2009, General Motors struck a deal with union workers in which GM would finance half of a $20 billion retiree health benefit obligation with company stock.

In 2011, the deadliest tornado to strike the United States in half a century sliced into the heart of Joplin, Mo., on a vicious 6-mile sweep, three quarters of a mile wide, packing 200 mph winds, destroying nearly one-third of the city and claiming more than 160 lives.

In 2012, Wisconsin U.S. Rep Paul Ryan, who would become Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney's running mate, said, "I think he is going to beat Barack Obama and I think we are going to save this country."

A thought for the day: William Lyon Phelps wrote, "You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by living in New York."