The almanac

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 12, the 316th day of 2013 with 49 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include French physicist Jacques Charles in 1746; women's suffrage activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1815; Baha'u'llah (born Mirza Husayn Ali), founder-prophet of the Baha'i faith, in 1817; publishers DeWitt Wallace, cofounder of Readers Digest, in 1889; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun in 1908; singer Jo Stafford in 1917; actor Kim Hunter in 1922; Princess Grace of Monaco (former American movie star Grace Kelly), in 1929; cult leader Charles Manson in 1934 (age 79); actor and playwright Wallace Shawn in 1943 (age 70); sportscaster Al Michaels in 1944 (age 69); Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members Booker T. Jones in 1944 (age 69) and Neil Young in 1945 (age 68); IKranian President Hassan Rouhani in 1948 (age 65); actor Megan Mullally in 1958 (age 55); Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci in 1961 (age 52); writer Naomi Wolf in 1962 (age 51); former baseball slugger Sammy Sosa in 1968 (age 45); and actors Ryan Gosling in 1980 (age 33) and Anne Hathaway in 1982 (age 31).

On this date in history:

In 1799, the first North American meteor shower on record took place. Early American astronomer Andrew Ellicott Douglass said, "The whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with sky rockets."

In 1892, the first professional football game was played in Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Athletic Association defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 4-0. (Touchdowns at the time were worth 4 points.)

In 1941, the German army's drive to take Moscow was halted on the city's outskirts in World War II.

In 1948, a war crimes tribunal in Japan sentenced former premier Hideki Tojo and six other World War II Japanese leaders to death by hanging.

In 1980, the Voyager 1 spacecraft passed Saturn and sent back stunning pictures.

In 1981, the shuttle Columbia became the first spacecraft launched twice from Earth.

In 1982, former KGB chief Yuri Andropov succeeded the late Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

In 1990, Akihito was crowned the 125th emperor of Japan.

In 1992, Volker Keith Meinhold became the first openly gay person on active duty in the U.S. military when, armed with a court order, he reported to work at the Moffett Naval Air Station in Mountain View, Calif., for reinstatement as a chief petty officer.

In 1993, pop star Michael Jackson, hounded by allegations that he had molested a teenage boy, canceled the rest of his worldwide "Dangerous" tour, citing an addiction to painkillers.

In 1997, Ramzi Ahmed and Eyad Ismoil were convicted of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. Four other men had been convicted in 1994.

In 2001, an American Airlines Airbus crashed shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport in New York, killing more than 260 people.

In 2003, actor Art Carney, who won fame and Emmy Awards as sewer worker Ed Norton on the "Honeymooners" TV show in the 1950s and an Oscar in 1974 for "Harry and Tonto," died at age 85.

In 2009, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in a Fort Hood, Texas, shooting spree. Hasan, a 39-year-old psychiatrist, was convicted in August 2013 of killing allegedly killed 12 unarmed soldiers and wounded more than 30 other people Nov. 5. He was sentenced to death.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the U.S. Defense Department from discharging openly gay military personnel under its "don't ask, don't tell" policy. A federal judge earlier ruled the policy was unconstitutional and should be ended.

In 2012, the U.S. Energy Department said more than 160,000 customers in 10 states were still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which struck two weeks earlier.

A thought for the day: Women's suffrage activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal."