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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include German philosopher Georg Hegel in 1770; novelist Theodore Dreiser in 1871; English automaker Charles Rolls in 1877; novelist C.S. Forester in 1899; Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the United States, in 1908; Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa in 1910; singer/actress Martha Raye in 1916; singer/actor Tommy Sands in 1937 (age 70); actress Tuesday Weld in 1943 (age 64); actor Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) in 1952 (age 55); and actress Sarah Chalke in 1976 (age 31).

In 1859, the first successful oil well in the United States was drilled near Titusville, Pa.

In 1883, the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurred on Krakatoa, a small, uninhabited island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia.

In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war as a means to settle international disputes, was signed by 15 nations in Paris. World War II began 11 years later.

In 1939, Adolf Hitler served notice on England and France that Germany wanted Danzig and the Polish Corridor.

In 1977, IRA terrorists killed Louis Mountbatten, a cousin of the queen, by blowing up his boat. It was the IRA's first attack on the royal family.

In 1985, U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger canceled the U.S. Army's $1.8 billion Sergeant York weapon system, declaring it ineffective.

In 1991, the Soviet republic of Moldavia declared independence and the European Community recognized Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as independent nations.

In 1992, Serbian leaders at the Yugoslav peace conference pledged to close the prisoner-of-war camps, end ethnic cleansing and work toward peace.

Also in 1992, Canada's Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a law that would have prevented a man from claiming the Nazi Holocaust was a hoax.

In 1996, Israel approved new development in the West Bank.

In 1999, two Russian cosmonauts and a French astronaut left Mir to return to Earth, leaving the orbiting Russian space station unmanned for the first time in 13 years.

In 2003, the United States and North Korea met privately in Beijing during the six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program. Diplomats said there was no breakthrough in the talks.

In 2004, Russian authorities said traces of explosives were found in the wreckage of two airliners that crashed within minutes of each other after takeoff earlier in the week in Moscow, heightening suspicion of terrorism. A total of 89 people died in the crashes.

In 2005, the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and the Florida Panhandle was battening down for the second landfall of Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm and strengthening.

In 2006, reports said hundreds of tribal chiefs signed a pact supporting reconciliation and an end to sectarian strife in Iraq while bombs and gunfire killed 100 Iraqis over a two-day period.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include German poet, novelist and dramatist Johann von Goethe in 1749; Elizabeth Ann Seton, first U.S.-born saint of the Roman Catholic Church, in 1774; actor Charles Boyer in 1899; psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in 1903; actor/dancer Donald O'Connor in 1925; actor Ben Gazzara in 1930 (age 77); former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen in 1940 (age 67); singer/actor David Soul in 1943 (age 64); actor Daniel Stern in 1957 (age 50); ice skater Scott Hamilton in 1958 (age 49); actors Emma Samms in 1960 (age 47) and Jason Priestley in 1969 (age 38); and country singers Shania Twain in 1965 (age 42) and LeAnn Rimes in 1982 (age 25).

In 1922, a New York City realty company paid $100 for the first radio commercial, on station WEAF.

In 1955, while visiting family in Money, Miss., 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African-American from Chicago, was slain for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His alleged killers were acquitted.

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous I have a dream speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before more than 200,000 people gathered for the Freedom March in Washington.

In 1968, the Democratic Party nominated Hubert Humphrey for president as thousands of anti-Vietnam war demonstrators battled police in the streets and parks of Chicago.

In 1986, Soviet spy Jerry Whitworth was sentenced in San Francisco to 365 years in prison and fined $410,000.

In 1988, more than 50 people were killed in the Philippines in an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Corazon Aquino.

In 1990, at least 27 people died and more than 350 were injured when a tornado struck Will County, Ill., southwest of Chicago.

In 1992, federal relief got under way for the South Florida victims of Hurricane Andrew with the arrival giant C-5A military transport at devastated Homestead Air Force Base.

In 1996, after four years of separation, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, were formally divorced.

In 1997, Proposition 209, California's controversial anti-affirmative action measure approved by the state's voters a year earlier, officially took effect.

In 2002, four men, three of them working at the airport, were indicted in Detroit as suspected terrorists. Another man, suspected of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, was indicted in Seattle.

In 2003, North Korea said it would prove it had nuclear weapons by conducting a test. The warning came at the conclusion of talks in Beijing with other nations over North Korea's weapons program.

In 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell canceled plans to attend closing ceremonies at the Summer Olympics in Athens after protests against U.S. foreign policy.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina picked up strength as it roared toward the Gulf Coast, reaching Category 5 status, with winds of almost 150 miles an hour, touching off one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history. The mayor of New Orleans issued a mandatory evacuation order for his city while fleeing residents clogged highways in other parts of Louisiana and in Mississippi and Alabama.

In 2006, U.S. schoolteacher John Mark Karr was returned to the United States to face charges of killing JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old Colorado beauty queen 10 years earlier and whose slaying he had admitted. But, the case against him quickly crumbled when DNA tests showed he wasn't involved.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include English philosopher John Locke in 1632; author and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in 1809; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in 1811; automotive inventor Charles Kettering in 1876; trombonist/bandleader Jack Teagarden in 1905; actor Barry Sullivan in 1912; actress Ingrid Bergman in 1915; jazz saxophonist Charlie Bird Parker in 1920; British filmmaker Richard Attenborough in 1923 (age 84); jazz and pop singer Dinah Washington in 1924; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 1936 (age 71); actor Elliott Gould in 1938 (age 69); filmmaker William Friedkin (The Exorcist) in 1935 (age 72); TV personality Robin Leach (Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous) in 1941 (age 66); pop singer Michael Jackson in 1958 (age 49); and actress Rebecca De Mornay in 1962 (age 45).

In 1533, Atahualpa, last of the Inca rulers, was strangled under orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. The Inca Empire died with him.

In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb at a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.

In 1965, U.S. astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad landed safely to end the eight-day orbital flight of Gemini 5.

In 1973, U.S. District Judge John Sirica ordered U.S. President Richard Nixon to turn over secret Watergate tapes. Nixon refused and appealed the order.

In 1991, in Kiev, the republics of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to remain in the Soviet Union and negotiate a loose federation.

In 1994, Israel and the PLO signed a new agreement to shift West Bank administrative functions to the Palestinian National Authority.

In 1995, Eduard Shevardnadze, the head of state in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, was slightly injured when a bomb exploded near his motorcade in Tbilisi.

In 2003, a car bomb explosion killed more than 80 worshippers at the Imam Ali Mosque in the Iraqi Shitte holy city of Najaf.

In 2004, the Summer Olympics came to a close in Athens, Greece. The United States won 103 medals, 35 of them gold, led by swimmer Michael Phelps who took home six gold and two bronze medals.

In 2005, downgraded to a Category 4 but packing high storm surges and sustained winds of more than 140 miles an hour, Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore on the Gulf Coast, its eye crossing northeast Louisiana, just east of New Orleans, inflicting severe damage in New Orleans and along coastlines of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, with high winds and killer floods, becoming the costliest storm in history with reports of more than $125 billion in damage and more than 1,800 killed.

Also in 2005, the average U.S. pump price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline rose to a record $2.60.

In 2006, a report said hurricane damages were soaring to new levels and causing insurance companies, staggered by Hurricane Katrina, to abandon homeowners in high-risk coastal areas.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein) in 1797; Louisiana Gov. Huey Long in 1893; actor Raymond Massey in 1896; journalist/author John Gunther and civil rights leader Roy Wilkins, both in 1901; actor Fred MacMurray in 1908; actresses Shirley Booth in 1898 and Joan Blondell in 1906; baseball legend Ted Williams in 1918; country music singer Kitty Wells in 1919 (age 87); singer John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas in 1935; actress Elizabeth Ashley in 1939 (age 68); French Olympic champion skier Jean-Claude Killy in 1943 (age 64); and actors Timothy Bottoms in 1951 (age 56), Michael Chiklis in 1963 (age 44), Michael Michele in 1966 (age 41) and Cameron Diaz in 1972 (age 35).

In 30 B.C., Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, committed suicide following the defeat of her forces by Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.

In 1780, Gen. Benedict Arnold betrayed the United States when he promised secretly to surrender the fort at West Point to the British army. He later fled to England and died in poverty.

In 1941, German forces began the 900-day siege of Leningrad. When it ended, the Russian city lay in ruins and hundreds of thousands of people had died.

In 1983, Guion Bluford became the first black astronaut in space.

In 1992, at least 15 people were killed and 31 wounded when an artillery shell exploded in a crowded Sarajevo market.

In 1994, the Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations agreed to a merger that would create the largest U.S. defense contractor.

In 1997, the Houston Comets defeated the New York Liberty, 65-51, to become the fledgling Women's National Basketball Association's first champions.

In 2003, more than 120 people, including prominent Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, were killed in a bombing attack on Iraq's Imam Ali Mosque.

In 2004, at least 240 people were arrested during a New York anti-Bush demonstration two days before the National Republican convention.

In 2005, on the day after Hurricane Katrina struck, 80 percent of New Orleans was under water. Electric, water, sewage, communication and transportation systems were out. Three-fourths of all houses were reported damaged or destroyed. Thousands were rescued, many plucked from rooftops and some sought shelter in the Superdome stadium.

In other areas along the Gulf, meanwhile, Katrina flattened much of Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., flooded Mobile, Ala., and heavily damaged smaller towns in between. The death toll report eventually would top 1,800, most of those dying in New Orleans, with more than $100 billion in damages.

In 2006, Hurricane John, moving north-northwest along the southwest coast of Mexico, was upgraded to a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds.

Also in 2006, one year after Hurricane Katrina triggered the devastation of New Orleans, authorities said bickering was holding up almost $1 billion in relief from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include Italian educator Maria Montessori in 1870; actor Fredric March in 1897; entertainer Arthur Godfrey in 1903; writer William Saroyan in 1908; astronomer Alfred Bernard Lovell in 1913; journalist Daniel Schorr in 1916 (age 91); lyricist Alan Jay Lerner in 1918; comedian Buddy Hackett in 1924; actor James Coburn in 1928; baseball star/manager Frank Robinson, first black to manage a major league team, in 1935 (age 72); black militant Eldridge Cleaver, also in 1935; violinist Itzhak Perlman and rock singer Van Morrison, both in 1945 (age 62); actor Richard Gere in 1949 (age 58); Olympian track athlete Edwin Moses in 1955 (age 52); and singer/actress Debbie Gibson in 1970 (age 37).

In 1897, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph.

In 1888, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols became the first victim of the notorious London serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.

In 1903, a Packard automobile completed a 52-day journey from San Francisco to New York, becoming the first car to cross the nation under its own power.

In 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 collided with a single-engine plane over Cerritos, Calif., killing 82 people, including 15 on the ground.

In 1991, the Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia declared independence, leaving five republics in the Soviet Union.

Also in 1991, Serbia accepted a European Community proposal that included international observers to oversee a cease-fire in Croatia.

In 1992, white separatist Randy Weaver surrendered, ending an 11-day siege of his Idaho mountain cabin that cost the lives of his wife, teenage son and a U.S. marshal.

In 1993, the Israeli government agreed in principle a plan for interim Palestinian self-rule of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

In 1994, the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire following six months of secret talks with Britain.

In 1997, Britain's Princess Diana died of injuries a few hours after a car accident in Paris that killed her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their driver.

In 2003, a Russian K-159 nuclear-powered submarine was lost in the Barents Sea, claiming the lives of nine of its 10-member crew. Russian authorities blamed negligence by navy officials.

Also in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi officials began laying plans to form an Iraqi paramilitary force of several thousand to help secure the country.

In 2004, in the first major attack inside Israel in nearly six months, Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses almost simultaneously in Beersheba, killing at least 16 passengers and themselves and wounding more than 80.

In 2005, close to 1,000 people, largely Shiite pilgrims, died in a stampede and the partial collapse of a bridge over the Tigris River in northern Baghdad.

Also in 2005, the White House decided to release some of the 700 million barrels of crude oil it keeps for emergencies.

And in New Orleans, martial law was declared amid reports of looters running wild, food and drinking water dwindling, and bodies floating in the floodwaters. Apparently poor coordination of federal, state and city officials led to a different kind of flood, of anger and delay.

In 2006, Norwegian authorities recovered the world famous painting The Scream by Edvard Munch, stolen at gunpoint, along with Munch's Madonna, from their Oslo museum nine days earlier. It was the second time The Scream had been stolen and recovered in good shape.

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

Those born on this day are under the sign of Virgo. They include German composer Engelbert Humperdinck in 1854; Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1875; dancer/singer Marilyn Miller in 1898; actress Yvonne De Carlo (The Munsters) in 1922; undefeated heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano in 1923; country music singer Conway Twitty in 1933; symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa in 1935 (age 72); attorney Alan Dershowitz in 1938 (age 69); comedian/actress Lily Tomlin in 1939 (age 68); Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees pop music group in 1946 (age 61); and singer Gloria Estefan in 1957 (age 50).

In 1807, Aaron Burr, vice president of the United States under Thomas Jefferson, was acquitted of treason charges growing out of an alleged plot to set up an independent empire in the nation's south and west.

In 1914, the last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

In 1923, an earthquake struck Yokohama, Japan, killing an estimated 143,000 people.

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France served an ultimatum on Adolf Hitler, but it was ignored.

In 1983, a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 strayed into Soviet air space and was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter. All 269 people aboard died.

In 1985, scientists found the wreck of the British luxury liner Titanic, sunk by an iceberg in 1912, in the Atlantic Ocean south of Newfoundland.

In 1990, three planes left Iraq with about 500 Western and Japanese women and children in the first airlift, four days after Saddam Hussein's pledge to begin releasing some of his so-called guests.

In 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush established diplomatic relations with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In 1993, Bosnian Muslims refused to accept a draft of an U.N. peace agreement unless the Serbs and Croats ceded them more land.

In 1995, a peace agreement worked out among Liberia's warring militias moved forward with the swearing in of an interim ruling council.

In 1996, the United Nations suspended the permission it gave Iraq to sell oil again after Iraq took over the unofficial Kurdish capital city in violation of the cease-fire terms of the Gulf War.

In 1999, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a new investigation into the events of April 19, 1993, that ended the siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. About 80 cultists died in a compound fire.

In 2003, Libya agreed to compensate relatives of the 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara.

In 2004, a heavily armed band of 31 Chechen terrorists seized a school in Belstan in southern Russia, taking hundreds of hostages.

In 2005, U.S. President George Bush ordered a suspension of rules restricting shipments of oil and gasoline between U.S. ports to help ease hurricane-caused shortages.

Meanwhile, floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina were reported receding in New Orleans where many of its thousands of homeless were being sent to other states for shelter.

In 2006, the U.S. Defense Department said casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces had increased 51 percent during May 20 to Aug. 11, compared to the previous three-month period, said to be an average of nearly 120 Iraqis a day.

Also in 2006, a fiery airport crash of a Russian-made Tupolev 154 airliner in Mashland, Iran, left 29 people dead but 148 passengers survived.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Virgo. They include poet Eugene Field in 1850; American inventor Hiram Maxim, who invented the first portable automatic machine gun, in 1869; authors Cleveland Amory in 1917 and Allen Drury in 1918; dancer Marge Champion in 1923 (age 84); Christa McAuliffe in 1948, was the school teacher who became an astronaut but was killed when the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986; also born in 1948, pro football star/sportscaster Terry Bradshaw (age 59); actor Mark Harmon in 1951 (age 56); tennis champion Jimmy Connors in 1952 (age 55); actors Keanu Reeves in 1964 (age 43) and Selma Hayek in 1966 (age 41).

In 1666, the Great Fire of London began. It destroyed 13,000 houses in four days.

In 1935, a hurricane hit the Florida keys, killing more than 350 people.

In 1945, Japan signed an unconditional surrender aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending World War II.

In 1983, Moscow admitted to the Sept. 1 shooting down of a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747, killing all 269 people aboard, but said the jumbo jet intentionally invaded Soviet air space.

In 1991, the European Community-approved plan to end the civil war in Yugoslavia was accepted by the Yugoslav federal presidency. But federal forces renewed their offensive against Croatia.

In 1992, more than 100 people were killed when earthquake-spawned tidal waves swept Pacific coast villages in Nicaragua.

In 1997, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 257.36 points for its largest one-day point gain ever, closing at 7,879.

In 1998, a Swissair jetliner en route from New York to Geneva, Switzerland, crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. All 229 people aboard were killed.

In 1999, the Clintons bought a home in the New York suburb of Chappaqua for $1.7 million, establishing residency for first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, planning a run for the U.S. Senate.

In 2004, President George W. Bush accepted the GOP nomination for re-election, promising to build a safer world and a more hopeful America.

Also in 2004, South Korea acknowledged it conducted secret experiments to enrich uranium to weapons-grade status but said it was solely for the domestic production of nuclear fuel.

In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush sharply criticized relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and pledged the situation would improve.

Also in 2005, the European Commission called for uniform rules for deporting illegal immigrants and refugees who are denied asylum in member countries, a move that could bring the commission into conflict with Britain and other nations.

In 2006, Canadian troops under NATO control and Afghan forces launched a new offensive in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar Province amid evidence of renewed Taliban influence.

Also in 2006, Syria promised to enforce an embargo on arms shipments from Syria to Lebanon.