The almanac

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 9, the 282nd day of 2013 with 83 to follow.

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

Those born on this date were under the sign of Libra. They include French composer Camille Saint-Saens in 1835; French officer Alfred Dreyfus, who was accused of treason, in 1859; Charles Rudolph Walgreen, drugstore chain founder, in 1873; baseball Hall of Fame member Rube Marquard in 1886; American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in 1890; Civil War historian Bruce Catton in 1899; Scottish actor Alastair Sim in 1900; baseball Hall of Fame member Walter O'Malley in 1903; convicted Watergate burglar, novelist and lecturer E. Howard Hunt Jr. in 1918; former Beatle John Lennon in 1940; C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb in 1941 (age 72); The Who bassist John Entwistle in 1944; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Jackson Browne in 1948 (age 65); Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams in 1950 (age 63); writer/actor Robert Wuhl in 1951 (age 62); television personality Sharon Osbourne in 1952 (age 61); football Hall of Fame member Mike Singletary in 1958 (age 55); film director Guillermo del Toro in 1964 (age 49); actors Tony Shalhoub in 1953 (age 60); Scott Bakula and John O'Hurley, both in 1954 (age 59), Michael Pare in 1958 (age 55) and Zachery Ty Bryan in 1981 (age 32); British Prime Minister David Cameron in 1966 (age 47); and golf Hall of Fame member Annika Sorenstam in 1970 (age 43).

On this date in history:

In 1888, the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., was opened to the public.

In 1934, King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a Croatian terrorist during a state visit to France.

In 1974, Oskar Schindler, the German businessman credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, died at the age of 66.

In 1975, Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, became the first Soviet citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1983, James Watt, facing U.S. Senate condemnation for a racially insensitive remark, resigned as U.S. President Ronald Reagan's interior secretary.

In 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" opened in London.

In 1992, NASA announced that the unmanned Pioneer spacecraft was apparently lost after orbiting Venus for 14 years.

In 1997, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned after Communist members of Parliament withdrew their support for his coalition government.

In 2001, the Pentagon reported the destruction of seven terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and, claiming control of the skies over Afghanistan, launched heavy airstrikes against Taliban garrisons and troop encampments.

In 2002, as stock prices continued to fluctuate wildly, the Dow Jones industrials closed at 7,286.27, a five-year low.

In 2004, John Howard won a fourth term as Australian prime minister.

In 2006, the U.N. Security Council approved South Korean Foreign Secretary Ban Ki-moon as the next U.N. secretary-general to succeed Kofi Annan.

In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

In 2012, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report said Transportation Security Administration screeners routinely failed to check bags for explosives at Honolulu International Airport. It said inspectors found "a lack of effective and consistent supervision of TSA screeners by their managers, as well as inconsistent adherence to operating procedures."

A thought for the day: in "The Taming of the Shrew," William Shakespeare wrote: "And do as adversaries do in law. Strive mightily but eat and drink as friends."