The almanac

Today is Friday, Sept. 6, the 249th day of 2013 with 116 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include the Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolutionary War, in 1757; pioneer social worker and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jane Addams in 1860; financier-diplomat Joseph P. Kennedy in 1888; theatrical producer Billy Rose in 1899; comedienne Jo Anne Worley in 1937 (age 76); singer-songwriter David Allen Coe in 1939 (age 74); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Rogers Waters (Pink Floyd) in 1943 (age 70); actors Swoosie Kurtz in 1944 (age 69) and Jane Curtin in 1947 (age 66); business executive Carly Fiorina in 1954 (age 59); comedians Jeff Foxworthy and Michael Winslow, both in 1958 (age 55); singer Macy Gray in 1967 (age 46); actors Rosie Perez in 1964 (age 49) and Justin Whalin in 1974 (age 39); rapper Foxy Brown in 1978 (age 35); and British socialite Pippa Middleton in 1983 (age 30).

On this date in history:

In 1522, one of Ferdinand Magellan's five ships -- the Vittoria -- arrived at Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain, completing the first circumnavigation of the world.

In 1620, 149 Pilgrims set sail from England aboard the Mayflower, bound for the New World.

In 1901, U.S. President William McKinley was shot by an anarchist at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. He died eight days later.

In 1909, word was received that U.S. Navy Adm. Robert Peary had reached the North Pole five months earlier, on April 6, 1909.

In 1966, South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, an architect of his nation's apartheid policies, was stabbed to death by a deranged messenger during a parliamentary meeting in Cape Town.

In 1991, the Soviet State Council recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania after 51 years of Soviet occupation.

In 1995, the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee unanimously recommended that Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., be expelled from the Senate on charges of sexual misconduct and influence peddling. He resigned two days later.

In 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr., played his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking the record set in 1939 by Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees.

In 1996, Hurricane Fran made landfall at Cape Fear, N.C., with 115 mph winds. It killed 28 people.

In 1997, Britain bid an emotional farewell to Princess Diana -- killed in a car accident a week earlier -- with a funeral service at London's Westminster Abbey that was broadcast worldwide.

In 2003, an unemployed electrician was charged in the bombing of an open market in Omagh, Northern Ireland, that killed 29 people and injured 220.

In 2004, former U.S. President Bill Clinton underwent a four-hour quadruple heart bypass operation at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

In 2007, Luciano Pavarotti, one of opera's foremost tenors, died of cancer at his home in Modena, Italy. He was 71.

In 2008, Asif Ali Zardari, husband of slain politician Benazir Bhutto, was elected president of Pakistan by a wide margin. Bhutto, a two-time prime minister who had returned from self-imposed exile a short time earlier, was assassinated two weeks before the 2007 presidential election in which she was a leading candidate.

In 2010, officials said they feared as many as 270 people died in two weekend riverboat accidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2011, Solyndra, a California solar energy company, became a major political embarrassment for the Obama administration when it filed for bankruptcy after getting $535 million in federal loan guarantees.

In 2012, a jury in Joliet, Ill., found Drew Peterson, a former police sergeant, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. Peterson was sentenced to 38 years in prison.

A thought for the day: "We are bound together by the most powerful of all ties -- our fervent love for freedom and independence, which knows no homeland but the human heart." -- Gerald R. Ford.