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The almanac

By United Press International
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Today is Monday, Oct. 21, the 294th day of 2013 with 71 to follow.

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Jupiter and Mars. The evening stars are Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.

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Those born this date are under the sign of Libra. They include English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1772; Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize, in 1833; dancer/choreographer Ted Shawn in 1891; conductor Georg Solti in 1912; mathematician Martin Gardner in 1914; jazz trumpeter John "Dizzy" Gillespie in 1917; baseball Hall of Fame member Whitey Ford in 1928 (age 85); author Ursula K. Le Guin in 1929 (age 84); rock musician Manfred Mann in 1940 (age 73); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Steve Cropper in 1941 (age 72); Judith "Judge Judy" Sheindlin in 1942 (age 71); Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 1949 (age 64); and actor-author Carrie Fisher in 1956 (age 57); actor Ken Watanabe in 1959 (age 54); and socialite Kim Kardashian in 1980 (age 33).

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On this date in history:

In 1805, in one of history's greatest naval battles, the British fleet under Adm. Horatio Nelson defeated the combined French-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar off the coast of Spain.

In 1879, after 14 months of experiments, Thomas Edison invented the first practical electric incandescent lamp.

In 1908, The Saturday Evening Post magazine carried an ad for a brand new product: a two-sided phonograph record.

In 1950, Chinese troops occupied Tibet.

In 1959, rocket designer Wernher von Braun and his team were transferred from the U.S. Army to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In 1987, the U.S. Senate rejected U.S. President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court by the biggest margin in history, 58-42.

In 1990, gunmen stormed the home of a key supporter of Lebanese Christian military leader Michel Aoun, killing him, his wife and their two sons.

In 1991, Beirut University Professor Jesse Turner, a hostage since January 1987, was released by his captors in Lebanon.

In 1994, Rosario Ames, wife of confessed spy Aldrich Ames, was sentenced to 63 months in prison for collaborating with him.

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In 1996, the Dow Jones industrial average of 30 major stocks topped the 6,000 mark for the first time.

In 2004, the most senior soldier accused in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In 2010, a U.S. government report indicated that the mortgage-financing enterprises known as Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac, already recipients of $148 billion in federal bailout funds, might need $200 billion more to stay solvent through 2013.

In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the United States will withdraw all troops from Iraq at the end of the year and engage in a "normal relationship" with the nation. "After nearly nine years," Obama said, "America's war in Iraq will be over."

In 2012, a gunman shot seven women in a day spa in Brookfield, Wis., killing three of them before taking his own life. Police said one of the women killed was the gunman's wife, who worked at the spa.


A thought for the day: Italian goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini wrote in his autobiography, "One can pass on responsibility but not the discretion that goes with it."

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