UPI Almanac for Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 10, the 283rd day of 2018 with 82 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Libra. They include English chemist/physicist Henry Cavendish, discoverer of hydrogen, in 1731; Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1813; jazz musician Thelonious Monk in 1917; filmmaker Ed Wood in 1924; actor Peter Coyote in 1941 (age 77); singer John Prine in 1946 (age 72); entertainer Ben Vereen in 1946 (age 72); actor Jessica Harper in 1949 (age 69); writer Nora Roberts in 1950; rocker David Lee Roth in 1954 (age 64); country singer Tanya Tucker in 1958 (age 60); actor Bradley Whitford in 1959 (age 59); slain journalist Daniel Pearl in 1963; actor Bai Ling in 1966 (age 52); football star Brett Favre in 1969 (age 49); actor Wendi McLendon-Covey in 1969 (age 49); actor Mario Lopez in 1973 (age 45); race car driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 1974 (age 44); actor Andrea Navedo in 1977 (age 41); singer Mya in 1979 (age 39); actor Dan Stevens in 1982 (age 36); actor Maggie Elizabeth Jones in 2003 (age 15).

On this date in history:

In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was formally opened at Fort Severn, Annapolis, Md., with 50 midshipmen in the first class.

In 1886, Griswold Lorillard of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., fashioned the first tuxedo for men.

In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek became chairman of the Republic of China. Following two civil wars, separated by a World War, Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang party would head into exile in 1949 following defeat at the hands of the Communists.

In 1933, a United Airlines Boeing 247 is destroyed by sabotage, the first such proven case in the history of commercial aviation.

In 1956, no sign of compromise seen in Suez Canal dispute. Egypt had been pressing for a negotiated solution, "consistent with Egyptian sovereignty," though there were no signs that the Egyptians or the British and French were ready to compromise.

In 1971, having been sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

In 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns in disgrace after pleading no contest to income tax evasion.

In 1985, movie legend Orson Welles, whose innovative Citizen Kane of 1941 was regarded by many as the best American-made film of all time, died of a heart attack at the age of 70.

In 1995, Israel freed about 900 Palestinian prisoners and pulled its troops out of four towns as the second phase of a peace plan was implemented on the West Bank.

In 1997, major tobacco companies agreed to a settlement in a class-action lawsuit by 60,000 flight attendants who said second-hand smoke made them ill. About a week earlier, tobacco executives admitted that tobacco causes lung cancer and other diseases.

In 2003, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Iranian lawyer Shurin Ebadi for her work in promoting democracy and human rights in Iran and beyond. She was the first Muslim woman to win the award.

In 2004, Superman actor Christopher Reeve, who became paralyzed after a horseback-riding accident nearly a decade earlier, died of cardiac arrest after undergoing treatment for a pressure wound.

In 2005, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor of Germany after her Christian Democrats won the parliamentary election.

In 2013, Scott Carpenter, one of NASA's seven original Mercury astronauts, died in Denver at the age of 88. On May 24, 1962, Carpenter flew the Aurora 7 spacecraft through three revolutions of Earth, becoming the second American (after John Glenn) to make a manned orbital flight.

In 2014, the Nobel committee awarded the peace prize to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, children's rights activists. Yousafzai, the youngest Nobelist in history, became a household name after Taliban militants shot her in the head in Pakistan, bringing attention to her cause -- education for girls.

In 2017, Chris Hemsworth, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson and Mark Ruffalo attended the Los Angeles premiere of Thor: Ragnarok, the third film in Thor series and part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.

A thought for the day: "We all should rise above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness and selfishness." -- Booker T. Washington