UPI Almanac for Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024

Today is Thursday, Dec. 5, the 340th day of 2024, with 26 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Pope Julius II in 1443; Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States, in 1782; poet Christina Rossetti in 1830; U.S. Army Gen. George Custer in 1839; filmmaker Fritz Lang in 1890; physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1901; Walt Disney in 1901; U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., in 1902; filmmaker Otto Preminger in 1905; musician Little Richard in 1932; writer Joan Didion in 1934; writer Calvin Trillin in 1935 (age 89); musician J.J. Cale 1938; musician Jose Carreras in 1946 (age 78); Football Hall of Fame member Jim Plunkett in 1947 (age 77); actor Brian Backer in 1956 (age 68); musician John Rzeznik (Goo Goo Dolls) in 1965 (age 59); comedian/actor Margaret Cho in 1968 (age 56); actor Catherine Tate in 1969 (age 55); actor Kali Rocha in 1971 (age 53); actor Paula Patton in 1975 (age 49); actor Amy Acker in 1976 (age 48); actor Nick Stahl in 1979 (age 45); actor Gabriel Luna in 1982 (age 42); actor Lauren London in 1984 (age 40); auto racer/actor Frankie Muniz in 1985 (age 39); musician Conan Gray in 1998 (age 26).

On this date in history:

In 1776, the first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at William and Mary College in Virginia.

In 1933, prohibition of liquor in the United States was repealed when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers disappeared on a routine flight in the area of the Atlantic known as the Bermuda Triangle. Fourteen airmen on the planes were lost and 13 others in a search plane killed.

In 1955, in one of the early civil rights actions in the South, Black Americans declared a boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Ala., demanding seating on an equal basis with white people. The boycott was prompted by the arrest of Rosa Parks, a Black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.

In 1988, a UPI poll of U.S. newspaper and broadcast editors named President-elect George H.W. Bush and incoming first lady Barbara Bush as male and female newsmakers of the year.

In 1993, Rafael Caldera Rodriguez was elected president of Venezuela.

In 2001, factions in war-shaken Afghanistan agreed on an interim government, naming Hamid Karzai as their new leader.

In 2002, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., celebrated his 100th birthday on Capitol Hill. Thurmond, who retired the following year, had served in the Senate since 1954, making him both the longest-serving and oldest member of Congress. He died June 27, 2003.

In 2008, former NFL star O.J. Simpson was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison for holding up two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel. He was released in October 2017.

In 2009, an explosion and fire ignited by fireworks killed 156 people and injured dozens of others at a Russian nightclub in the Urals.

In 2013, Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison and helped end apartheid in South Africa, died in Johannesburg at the age of 95. "He is now resting. He is now at peace," President Jacob Zuma said. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father."

In 2014, NASA successfully launched its Orion spacecraft, its hope for the future of manned space travel and an eventual trip to Mars.

In 2017, the International Olympic Committee banned the entire Russian Olympic team from the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea over a doping scandal. Select Russian olympians were allowed to participate under the team name "Olympic athletes from Russia."

In 2022, construction began in Australia on the Square Kilometre Array, which is expected to produce the highest-resolution -- and fastest -- images in all of astronomy. A second phase of the project, which is headquartered at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Britain, will include construction in South Africa.

A thought for the day: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live ... . We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five." -- American author Joan Didion