The almanac

Today is Monday, Sept. 23, the 266th day of 2013 with 99 to follow.

The moon is waning. 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 Libra. They include Greek playwright Euripides in 480 B.C.; Roman Emperor Augustus in 63 B.C.; Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan in 1215; educator William McGuffey, author of the McGuffey "eclectic readers" for school children, in 1800; feminist and presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull in 1838; surgeon William Halsted, who introduced operations for hernia and breast cancer, in 1852; journalist Walter Lippmann in 1889; actors Walter Pidgeon in 1897 and Mickey Rooney in 1920 (age 93); jazz saxophonist John Coltrane in 1926; soul singer/pianist Ray Charles in 1930; singer Julio Iglesias in 1943 (age 70); actors Paul Petersen in 1945 (age 68) and Mary Kay Place in 1947 (age 66); rock and roll Hall of Fame members Dan Toler (Allman Brothers Band) in 1948 and Bruce Springsteen in 1949 (age 64); actors Jason Alexander in 1959 (age 54) and Elizabeth Pena in 1961 (age 52); singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco in 1970 (age 43); and writer Ana Marie Cox in 1972 (age 41).

On this date in history:

In 1779, the USS Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, defeated the British frigate HMS Serapis in a battle off the coast of Scotland.

In 1806, U.S. explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned to St. Louis from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast and back.

In 1846, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune at the Berlin Observatory. Neptune generally is the eighth planet from the sun.

In 1909, Gaston Leroux's "Phantom of the Opera" was published.

In 1950, Congress adopted the Internal Security Act, which provided for the registration of communists. It was later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1966, a Rolling Stones' concert at England's Royal Albert concert hall was halted temporarily when screaming girls attacked Mick Jagger onstage. The riotous enthusiasm of the fans resulted in a ban of pop concerts at the hall.

In 1973, Juan Peron was again elected president of Argentina after 18 years in exile. His second wife, Isabel, became vice president and succeeded him when he died 10 months later.

In 1985, nine days of street fighting in Tripoli, Lebanon, left 183 people dead.

In 1991, 44 U.N. inspectors were detained in Baghdad after attempting to remove secret Iraqi plans for building nuclear weapons. They were freed five days later.

In 1992, the worst storm in years struck southeastern France, triggering flash flooding that left 34 people dead and 50 missing.

In 1999, Russian planes began three days of attacks on targets in Chechnya in response to several bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities.

In 2004, Haiti's death toll from flooding caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne could top 2,000, a Haitian civil defense official said.

In 2005, a fire killed 23 people on a bus carrying Texas nursing home evacuees from Hurricane Rita.

In 2007, Yasuo Fukuda, a long-time political force and son of a former prime minister, was chosen prime minister of Japan, succeeding Shinzo Abe, who resigned amid financial scandals.

In 2008, a 22-year-old student killed 11 adult students and himself at a vocational college in Finland 205 miles north of Helsinki.

In 2010, the U.S. Congress enacted the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act, a multibillion-dollar package of tax breaks and government loans to aid small businesses in the United States. U.S. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law Sept. 27.

In 2011, Palestinians officially requested statehood in an appearance before the U.N. Security Council.

In 2012, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, asked if his wife, Hillary, might run for president in 2016, said: "Whatever she does I am for her first, last and always. She is the ablest [of potential candidates]. I know I am biased but I think she demonstrated as senator and as secretary of state that she has extraordinary ability."

A thought for the day: British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a 2013 speech on making the Internet safer for children, said, "I want to talk about the Internet, the impact it is having on the innocence of our children, how online pornography is corroding childhood and how, in the darkest corners of the Internet, there are things going on that are a direct danger to our children, and that must be stamped out."