The almanac

Today is Thursday, Jan. 2, the second day of 2014 with 363 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include Virginia patriot Nathaniel Bacon in 1647; British Gen. James Wolfe, hero of the battle of Quebec, in 1727; former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., the 1964 Republican nominee for president, in 1909; author Isaac Asimov in 1920; singer Julius La Rosa in 1930 (age 84) and singer/songwriter Roger Miller in 1936; former televangelist Jim Bakker in 1940 (age 74); zoologist Jack Hanna in 1947 (age 67); journalist Judith Miller in 1948 (age 66); actors Tia Carrere in 1967 (age 47), Cuba Gooding Jr. in 1968 (age 46) and Taye Diggs in 1971 (age 43); model Christy Turlington in 1969 (age 45); and actor Kate Bosworth in 1983 (age 31).

On this date in history:

In 1788, Georgia ratified the Constitution, the fourth of the original 13 colonies to do so, and was admitted to the Union.

In 1811, Timothy Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, became the first U.S. senator to be censured after being accused of publicly revealing secret presidential documents.

In 1942, Japanese forces occupied Manila, forcing U.S. and Philippine forces under U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula.

In 1959, the Soviet Union launched Lunik-1, the first unmanned spacecraft to travel to the moon.

In 1974, U.S. President Richard Nixon signed a bill requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph or lose federal highway funds.

In 1990, Britain's most-wanted terrorism suspect, Patrick Sheehy, was found dead in the Republic of Ireland.

In 2006, 12 men were killed in a methane gas explosion in a West Virginia coal mine. One man was found alive after 41 hours trapped underground.

In 2009, in a tight runoff after an even tighter general election, John Atta Mills was elected president of Ghana with 50.2 percent of the vote, edging Nana Akufo-Addo.

In 2011, Prince Harry, grandson of England's Queen Elizabeth II, was sent home from military service in Afghanistan after a magazine revealed his presence in the war zone. (He later returned to continue training as a gunship pilot.)

In 2013, a Kremlin statement said President Vladimir Putin raised Russia's retirement age to 70, allowing the country to keep "highly qualified and experienced civil servants as upper level personnel in the federal civil service."

A thought for the day: "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." -- Mahatma Gandhi