The almanac

By United Press International   |   Dec. 1, 2013 at 3:30 AM

This is Sunday, Dec. 1, the 335th day of 2013 with 30 to follow.

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 French wax-figure sculptor Marie Tussaud in 1761; detective novelist Rex Stout in 1886; former United Mine Workers President W.A. "Tony" Boyle in 1904; baseball Hall of Fame member Walter Alston in 1911; singer/actor Mary Martin in 1913; soul singer Lou Rawls in 1933; comedian/filmmaker Woody Allen in 1935 (age 78); golf Hall of Fame member Lee Trevino in 1939 (age 74); comedian Richard Pryor in 1940; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member John Densmore (The Doors) in 1944 (age 69); singer/actor Bette Midler in 1945 (age 68); actor Treat Williams in 1951 (age 62); model Carol Alt in 1960 (age 53); comedian Sarah Silverman in 1970 (age 43); and Matthew Shepard, University of Wyoming student killed because he was gay, in 1976.


On this date in history:

In 1891, the game of basketball was invented when James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., put peach baskets at the opposite ends of a gym and gave students soccer balls to toss into them.

In 1903, the world's first drive-in gasoline station opened for business in Pittsburgh.

In 1917, the Rev. Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town near Omaha.

In 1943, ending a "Big Three" meeting in Tehran, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Russian Premier Josef Stalin pledged a concerted effort to defeat Nazi Germany.

In 1953, the first Playboy magazine was published. Marilyn Monroe was on the cover.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus, signaling, along with its resulting bus boycott and related events, the birth of the modern civil rights movement.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto was appointed prime minister of Pakistan, a post she held until August 1990 (and again from October 1993 to November 1996).

In 2005, same-sex marriage became legal in South Africa when the country's Constitutional Court ruled that laws banning it were unconstitutional.

In 2008, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama introduced Hillary Clinton, his chief rival in the Democratic presidential race, as his choice for secretary of state.

In 2011, Iceland became the first Western European country to recognize a Palestinian sovereign state.

In 2012, police said Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher committed suicide at the team's practice facility after killing his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins.


A thought for the day: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -- Nelson Mandela

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