Above: What a great idea, Harvey! You should patent that...oh, you did! (See 1896 below)
Today is Friday, August 11, 2017 the 223rd day of the year with 142 days remaining.
- Sunrise: 6:22am
- Sunset: 8:07pm
...giving us 13 hours and 45 minutes of daylight. 90% of the waning moon will be visible, rising at 10:38pm.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 2:12am/3:19pm
- Low: 8:24am/8:54pm
Special international celebrations today…
- Heroes' Day - Zimbabwe
- Independence Day - Chad
- King Hussein Accession - Jordan
- Montserrat Annual Pilgrimage - Montserrat
It’s also…
- Presidential Joke Day
- Kool-Aid Weekend
- Shop Online For Groceries Day
- National Raspberry Bombe Day
- Son & Daughter Day
On this day in…
1860 - The first successful silver mill in America began operations. The mill was in Virginia City,NV.
1874 - A patent for the sprinkler head was given to Harry S. Parmelee.
1877 - The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos and Deimos.
1896 - Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain.
1909 - The American ship Arapahoe became the first to ever use the SOS distress signal off the coast of Cape Hatteras,NC.
1924 - Newsreel pictures were taken ofU.S. presidential candidates for the first time.
1934 - Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, received federal prisoners for the first time.
1941 - The Atlantic Charter was signed byU.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
1942 - During World War II, Pierre Laval publicly announced "the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war."
1945 - The Allies informed Japan that they would determine Emperor Hirohito's future status after Japan's surrender.
1951 - The firstmajor league baseball game to be televised in color was broadcast. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves 8-1.
1954 - Seven years of fighting came to an end in Indochina. A formal peace was in place for the French and the Communist Vietminh.
1962 - Andrian Nikolayev, of the Soviet Union, was launched on a 94-hour flight. He was the third Russian to go into space.
1965 - The U.S. conducted a second launch of "Surveyor-SD 2" for a landing on the Moon surface test.
1971 - Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins got his 500th and 501st home runs of hismajor league baseball career.
1975 - TheU.S. vetoed the proposed admission of North and South Vietnam to the United Nations. The Security Counsel had already refused to consider South Korea's application.
1984 - Carl Lewis won his fourth gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics.
1984 -U.S. President Ronald Reagan was preparing for his weekly radio broadcast when, during testing of the microphone, the President said of the Soviet Union, "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
1984 - The Cincinnati Reds honoredmajor league All-Star and Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench by retiring his uniform (#5).
1988 - Dick Thornburgh was unanimously confirmed by theU.S. Senate to be the next attorney general. He succeeded Edwin Meese III.
1990 - Egyptian and Moroccan troops joinedU.S. forces in Saudia Arabia to help protect from a possible Iraqi attack.
1991 - The space shuttle Atlantis ended its nine-day journey by landing safely.
1992 - In Bloomington,MN, the Mall of America opened. It was the largest shopping mall in theUnited States.
1994 - The Tenth International Conference on AIDS ended in Japan.
1994 - AU.S. federal jury awarded $286.8 million to about 10,000 commercial fishermen for losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
1995 - AllU.S. nuclear tests were banned by President Clinton.
1997 -U.S. President Clinton made the first use of the line-item veto approved by Congress, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills.
1998 - British Petroleum became No. 3 among oil companies with the $49 billion purchase of Amoco. It was the largest foreign takeover of aU.S. company.
2002 - US Airways announced that it had filed for bankruptcy.
2002 - Jason Priestly crashed his car during practice for a race in the Infiniti Pro Series. He suffered a spinal fracture, a moderate concussion, a broken nose, facial lacerations and broken bones in both feet.
2003 - Charles Taylor, President of Liberia, flew into exile after ceding power to his vice president, Moses Blah.
2003 - In Kabul, NATO took command of the 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Robert Ingersoll 1833
- Carrie Bond 1862
- Lloyd Nolan 1902
- Jean Parker 1912
- Alex Haley 1921
- Carl Rowan 1925
- Mike Douglas 1925
- Arlene Dahl 1928
- Jerry Falwell 1933
- Anne Massey 1937
- Mike Hugg 1942
- Guy Villari 1943
- Jim Kale (The Guess Who) 1943
- John Conlee 1946
- Ian Charleson 1949
- Eric Carmen (Raspberries) 1949
- Steve Wozniak 1950
- Eric Braun (Iron Butterfly) 1950
- Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea 1953
- Joe Jackson 1955
- Richard Reinhardt (The Ramones) 1957
- Diana Woei 1965
- John Mitchell 1965
- Charlie Sexton 1968
- Chris Dave (Mint Condition) 1968
- Ali Shaheed Muhammad 1970
- Will Friedle 1976
- Chris Kelly (Kriss Kross) 1978
