The almanac

Today is Friday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2013 with 193 to follow.

This is the first day of summer.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Mars, Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are Saturn and Venus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include Boy Scouts of America founder Daniel Carter Beard in 1850; cartoonist Al Hirschfeld in 1903; philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre in 1905; actors Jane Russell in 1921, Maureen Stapleton in 1925, Bernie Kopell in 1933 (age 80), Monte Markham in 1935 (age 78), Ron Ely in 1938 (age 75); and Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter, both in 1947 (age 66); singer O.C. Smith in 1932; actor/TV host Mariette Hartley in 1940 (age 73); comic actor Joe Flaherty in 1941 (age 72); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Ray Davies (The Kinks) in 1944 (age 69); Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi in 1947 (age 66); writer Ian McEwan in 1948 (age 65); rock musician Nils Lofgren in 1951 (age 62); two-time Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto in 1953; actors Robert Pastorelli in 1954 and Juliette Lewis in 1973 (age 40); country singer Kathy Mattea in 1959 (age 54); sportscaster Kevin Harlan in 1960 (age 53); Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra in 1967 (age 46); rock musician Brandon Flowers in 1981 (age 32); and Britain's Prince William in 1982 (age 31).

On this date in history:

In 1788, the U.S. Constitution became effective when a ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified it.

In 1945, Japanese defenders of Okinawa Island surrendered to U.S. troops.

In 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared on their way to investigate a church burning in Philadelphia, Miss. Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam Aug. 4.

In 1982, John Hinckley Jr. was found innocent by reason of insanity in the March 1981 shootings of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and three other people.

In 1972, Hurricane Agnes hit the eastern U.S. seaboard, killing 118 people over a seven-state area.

In 1985, international experts in Sao Paulo, Brazil, conclusively identified the bones of a 1979 drowning victim as the remains of Dr. Josef Mengele, a Nazi war criminal, ending a 40-year search for the "angel of death" of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

In 1990, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck northwestern Iran, killing as many as 50,000 people.

In 1997, Cambodia announced the capture of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

In 1998, opposition leader Andres Pastrana Arango was elected president of Colombia by a narrow margin.

In 2000, NASA announced that its Mars Global Surveyor had spotted grooved surface features, suggesting a relatively recent water flow on the planet.

In 2004, Connecticut Gov. John Rowland resigned. He faced possible impeachment charges in a scandal involving state contractors.

In 2005, a Mississippi jury convicted 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen of manslaughter in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

In 2007, U.S. President George Bush's public approval rating hit a low, 26 percent, in a Newsweek poll while Congress' rating was 25 percent. In the previous 35 years, only Richard Nixon had a lower Newsweek approval rating -- 23 percent in 1974.

In 2008, more than 1,300 people, most of them on a ferry that capsized, were reported killed in Typhoon Fengshen in the Philippines.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a law making it a crime to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

In 2011, a RusAir passenger plane flying from Moscow to Petrozavodsk in rain and fog crashed on a highway near the airport and broke apart in flames. Forty-four people died, eight survived.

In 2012, the White House announced the resignation of Commerce Secretary John Bryson, who was involved in two traffic accidents after suffering a seizure.

A thought for the day: Confucius said, "The only people who cannot change are the most wise and the most stupid."