ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 333rd day of 2017 and the 69th day of autumn.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1929, Richard Byrd and Brent Balchen became the first men to fly over the South Pole.

In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.

In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson formed the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In 1972, the first commercially successful video game, "Pong," was released in California.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), author; C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), scholar/author; Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908-1972), civil rights leader/politician; Vin Scully (1927- ), sportscaster; Chuck Mangione (1940- ), musician/composer; Garry Shandling (1949-2016), actor/comedian; Joel Coen (1954- ), filmmaker; Howie Mandel (1955- ), actor/TV personality; Don Cheadle (1964- ), actor; Mariano Rivera (1969- ), baseball player; Anna Faris (1976- ), actress; Lucas Black (1982- ), actor; Russell Wilson (1988- ), football player.

TODAY'S FACT: One of the first video games was created in 1958 by William Higginbotham, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven lab. The game, "Tennis for Two," was very similar to "Pong."

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1997, legendary Grambling State University Tigers football coach Eddie Robinson coached his last game, a 30-7 loss to the Southern University Jaguars. Robinson had coached the Tigers for 55 seasons.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us." -- Louisa May Alcott, "Rose in Bloom"

TODAY'S NUMBER: 8,327 -- feet below sea level at the lowest point in Antarctica's Bentley Subglacial Trench, the world's lowest elevation not covered by ocean.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Nov. 26) and full moon (Dec. 3).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 332nd day of 2017 and the 68th day of autumn.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1895, the first automobile race in the United States was held in Chicago.

In 1905, Arthur Griffith formed the Sinn Fein political party, with the goal of independence for all of Ireland.

In 2016, a chartered plane carrying the Chapecoense football team of Brazil crashed in Colombia, killing 71 of its 77 passengers.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: William Blake (1757-1827), poet/artist/philosopher; Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), social philosopher; Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), social anthropologist; Berry Gordy Jr. (1929- ), Motown Records founder; Randy Newman (1943- ), composer; Paul Shaffer (1949- ), bandleader; Ed Harris (1950- ), actor; Alfonso Cuaron (1961- ), filmmaker; Jon Stewart (1962- ), TV personality; Karen Gillan (1987- ), actress; Chase Elliott (1995- ), race car driver.

TODAY'S FACT: Berry Gordy Jr. fought 17 times as an amateur and professional boxer, winning 12 bouts, before founding Motown Records (as Tamla Records) in 1959 using an $800 loan from his family.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1979, Billy Smith of the New York Islanders became the first goalie in NHL history to be credited with a goal. After a Colorado Rockies player mistakenly hit the puck into his own team's net, Smith was awarded the goal as the last Islander to touch the puck.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite." -- William Blake

TODAY'S NUMBER: 7 -- Enron's rank among the largest U.S. companies before it went bankrupt in December 2001. Enron stock, which had reached a high of $90 per share in August 2000, plunged below $1 on this day in 2001.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Nov. 26) and full moon (Dec. 3).

ANDREWS MCMEEL ALMANAC

Today is the 331st day of 2017 and the 67th day of autumn.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize.

In 1942, the French navy sank its fleet at Toulon to prevent its use by the Nazis.

In 1973, the U.S. Senate approved the nomination of House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, a Michigan Republican, as vice president, following the resignation of Spiro Agnew.

In 2005, French surgeons completed the first known partial face transplant, grafting a new nose, lips and chin.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Anders Celsius (1701-1744), scientist/inventor; Robert Livingston (1746-1813), diplomat; Charles A. Beard (1874-1948), historian; James Agee (1909-1955), author/critic; Bruce Lee (1940-1973), actor/martial artist; Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970), singer-songwriter; Kathryn Bigelow (1951- ), film director; Bill Nye (1955- ), educator/TV personality; Caroline Kennedy (1957- ), diplomat/writer; Sharlto Copley (1973- ), actor.

TODAY'S FACT: Pierre and Marie Curie are the only husband and wife to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing the award in 1903.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1985, Vince Coleman became the fourth person ever to be unanimously named National League Rookie of the Year. He had stolen 110 bases for the St. Louis Cardinals.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." -- Charles A. Beard

TODAY'S NUMBER: 49 -- Nobel Prizes that have been awarded to women since 1901.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Nov. 26) and full moon (Dec. 3).