The almanac

Today is Friday, June 7, the 158th day of 2013 with 207 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include British fashion-plate George "Beau" Brummell in 1778; French post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin in 1848; bandleader Glen Gray in 1900; actor Jessica Tandy in 1909; actor-singer Dean Martin and Gwendolyn Brooks, the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, both in 1917; singer Tom Jones in 1940 (age 73); talk-show host Jenny Jones in 1946 (age 67); actor Liam Neeson in 1952 (age 61); singer/songwriter Prince in 1958 (age 55); former tennis player Anna Kournikova in 1981 (age 32) and actor Michael Cera in 1988 (age 25).

On this date in history:

In 1776, the Lee Resolution, which led to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, was introduced in the Continental Congress.

In 1864, Republican delegates meeting in Baltimore nominated Abraham Lincoln as president. His running mate was Andrew Johnson.

In 1942, Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands. U.S. forces retook the islands one year later.

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law banning contraceptives.

In 1975, the first videocassette recorder went on sale to the public.

In 1982, Israeli jets bombed central Beirut while Israeli ground forces captured Beaufort Castle and surrounded the Lebanese city of Sidon.

In 1983, one day after Nicaragua expelled three U.S. diplomats, the Reagan administration ordered six Nicaraguan consulates closed and expelled six of the country's diplomats.

In 1990, South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted a 4-year-old nationwide state of emergency in all but the strife-torn Indian Ocean province of Natal.

In 1996, Max Factor, who pioneered smudge-proof lipstick, died.

In 2002, U.S. missionary Martin Burnham, captured in the Philippines by a Muslim group more than a year earlier, was fatally shot during a rescue attempt.

In 2004, a classified U.S. Department of Defense report said the United States, under national security considerations, wasn't bound by international laws prohibiting torture.

In 2008, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., officially ended her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president.

In 2009, a coalition of pro-Western and anti-Syria parties outpolled the militant Hezbollah faction to retain its parliamentary majority in Lebanon.

In 2010, Countrywide Home Loans, now a part of Bank of America, agreed to settle a $108 million Federal Trade Commission penalty for allegedly gouging customers trying to save their home loans from default and their houses from foreclosure.

In 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syrian President Bashar Assad has "doubled down on his brutality and duplicity." She said Syria cannot be peaceful or stable "until Assad goes."

A thought for the day: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said: "Talent develops in quiet, Character in the torrent of the world."