The almanac

This is Thursday, Nov. 28, the 332nd day of 2013 with 33 to follow.

This is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

The moon is waning. 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 Sagittarius. They include English writer John Bunyan in 1628; English poet William Blake in 1757; John Hyatt, inventor of celluloid, in 1837; architect Henry Bacon, designer of the Lincoln Memorial, in 1866; Motown Records founder and Rock and Roll Hall of fame member Berry Gordy in 1929 (age 84); actor Hope Lange in 1933; Oscar winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer/composer Randy Newman in 1943 (age 70); ballet dancer Alexander Godunov and band leader Paul Shaffer (age 64), both in 1949; actors Ed Harris in 1950 (age 63), S. Epatha Merkerson (TV's "Law and Order") in 1952 (age 61) and Judd Nelson in 1959 (age 54); movie director Alfonso Cuaron in 1961 (age 52); and comedian Jon Stewart in 1962 (age 51).

On this date in history:

In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan entered the Pacific Ocean on his way around the world. He was the first European to sail the Pacific from the east.

In 1919, Virginia-born Nancy Astor became the first woman member of the British Parliament.

In 1925, "The Grand Ole Opry," the famed country music show, made its radio debut.

In 1942, a fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston killed 491 people. Most victims suffocated or were trampled to death.

In 1958, the United States fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time.

In 1963, Cape Canaveral, the space center in Florida, was renamed Cape Kennedy to honor the assassinated president. Area residents later voted to revert to the original name.

In 1989, Czechoslovakian Premier Ladislav Adamec agreed to a coalition government. The next day, the Czech Parliament revoked the Communist Party's monopoly.

In 1992, a fire destroyed parts of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, threatening the famous Lipizzaner stallions.

In 1993, Carlos Roberto Reina was elected president of Honduras.

In 1994, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and a second inmate were beaten to death by another prisoner at the Columbia Correctional Center in Portage, Wis.

In 2003, an estimated 182 people were killed when two crowded ferries collided during a storm in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2004, a gas explosion in a central China mine killed more than 160 people. About 123 miners escaped.

In 2005, at least 150 miners were killed in a northeast China coal mine explosion. Seventy-one were reported missing.

In 2006, leftist candidate Rafael Correa was declared winner of the Ecuadorian presidential election.

In 2007, a U.S. airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed 22 Afghan civilian road construction workers. The men, working on a U.S. military contract, died as they slept in tents in a remote mountainous area.

In 2008, at least 400 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in clashes in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians over local elections.

In 2009, golf superstar Tiger Woods was treated and released at a hospital after his car slammed into a fire hydrant and tree near his home in suburban Orlando, Fla. Police said Woods was unconscious and they were told his wife smashed a window with a golf club to pull him from the car.

In 2010, reaction around the world was swift and mostly negative to a new batch of more than 200,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic documents published on the WikiLeaks whistle-blower website. U.S. officials denounced the release, which included many items classified as secret, and branded them a threat to global security.

In 2012, seven expatriate Egyptians, all Coptic Christians who were involved in making an anti-Islam film, "Innocence of Muslims," were sentenced to death in absentia by the Cairo Criminal Court.

A thought for the day: In his 1963 Thanksgiving Day proclamation (issued 18 days before he was assassinated in Dallas), President John F. Kennedy said: "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them."