The almanac

Today is Sunday, Sept. 29th, the 272nd day of 2013 with 93 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 Spanish poet-novelist Miguel de Cervantes, author of "Don Quixote," in 1547; Italian artist Caravaggio in 1571; Adm. Horatio Nelson, British naval hero, in 1758; pioneer nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi in 1901; actor Greer Garson in 1904; singing movie cowboy Gene Autry in 1907; film directors Michelangelo Antonioni in 1912 and Stanley Kramer in 1913; actors Trevor Howard in 1913 and Anita Ekberg in 1931 (age 84); British writer Colin Dexter in 1930 (age 83); rock 'n' roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis in 1935 (age 78); four-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 1936 (age 77); actor Larry Linville and singer/songwriter Tommy Boyce, both in 1939; actors Madeline Kahn and Ian McShane (age 71), both in 1942; Polish leader Lech Walesa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in 1943 (age 70); composer Mike Post in 1944 (age 69); TV personality Bryant Gumbel and rock guitarist Mark Farner, both in 1948 (age 65); Olympic gold medal-winning runner Sebastian Coe in 1956 (age 57); and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 1961 (age 52).

On this date in history:

In 1789, the U.S. War Department organized the United States' first standing army -- 700 soldiers who would serve for three years.

In 1923, Britain began to govern Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.

In 1936, in the U.S. presidential race between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon, the Democratic and Republican parties used radio for the first time.

In 1941, the Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children began on the outskirts of Kiev in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

In 1991, sharing power for first time in 26 years, Zaire's President Mobuto Sese Seko named opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi prime minister.

In 1992, Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced he was returning to the Los Angeles Lakers less than a year after he retired because he had the AIDS virus.

In 2003, electricity was restored in Italy after a weekend blackout put 57 million people in the dark.

In 2005, John Roberts Jr. easily won confirmation by the U.S. Senate to become chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He succeeded the late William Rehnquist.

In 2006, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned in the wake of revelations he sent inappropriate email messages to an underage former Capitol Hill page.

In 2007, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a bus that killed at least 27 Afghan soldiers and injured 21 in Kabul.

In 2008, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 778 points, its biggest one-day point decline.

In 2009, an 8-magnitude undersea earthquake and tsunami struck Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, killing about 150 people.

In 2011, a special court in India convicted 269 police officers and others for their roles in a 1992 raid on a small village that resulted in multiple rapes and beatings.

In 2012, the North Korean government charged that South Korea is trying to enforce an illegal border in the Yellow Sea. The North called the border, where there have been clashes between the countries, "an illegal ghost-like line."

A thought for the day: British statesman Edmund Burke said, "Superstition is the religion of feeble minds."