- 207th Day of 2013 /158 Remaining
- 58 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:09
- Sunset:8:23
- 14 Hours 14 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:10:47pm
- Moon Set:10:45am
- Moon’s Phase:79 %
- The Next Full Moon
- August 20 @ 6:45 pm
- Full Sturgeon Moon
- Full Red Moon
- Full Green Corn Moon
- Full Grain Moon
The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.
- Tides
- High:8:05am/8:50pm
- Low:1:44am/2:47pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:0.0
- This Year:0.0
- Last Year:0.01
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- Ratification Day-New York
- National Coffee Milkshake Day
- Curacao Day-Curacao
- Independence Day-Liberia
- Independence Day-Maldives
- National Day-Cuba
- On This Day In …
- 1775 --- The Second Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General.
- 1788 --- New York, the 11th state, entered the United States of America this day. New York City, one of the most famous cities in the world, was once the capital of the Empire State, but that ended in 1796. Albany, once called Fort Orange, has been the capital of the State of New York ever since. The beautiful rose is the official state flower with the colorful bluebird taking the honorable title of New York’s state bird.
- 1847 --- The Republic of Liberia, formerly a colony of the American Colonization Society, declares its independence. Under pressure from Britain, the United States hesitantly accepted Liberian sovereignty, making the West African nation the first democratic republic in African history. A constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution was approved, and in 1848 Joseph Jenkins Roberts was elected Liberia's first president.
- 1881 --- Thomas Edison and Patrick Kenny execute a patent application for a facsimile telegraph (U.S. Pat. 479,184).
- 1908 --- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hired federal investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice. One year later, the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- 1926 --- Roquefort cheese is the first cheese designated with an appellation d'origine controlee. Only cheese that is processed in
Roquefort, France and aged in the caves there may be called 'Roquefort Cheese.'
- 1931 --- A swarm of grasshoppers descends on crops throughout the American heartland, devastating millions of acres. Iowa,
Nebraska and South Dakota, already in the midst of a bad drought, suffered tremendously from this disaster.
- 1942 --- Judy Garland joined Gene Kelly to record For Me and My Gal for Decca Records. The song is featured in the movie of the same name.
- 1947 --- President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, which becomes one of the most important pieces of Cold War legislation. The act established much of the bureaucratic framework for foreign policymaking for the next 40-plus years of the Cold War. The National Security Act had three main parts. First, it streamlined and unified the nation's military establishment by bringing together the Navy Department and War Department under a new Department of Defense. This department would facilitate control and utilization of the nation's growing military. Second, the act established the National Security Council (NSC). Based in the White House, the NSC was supposed to serve as a coordinating agency, sifting through the increasing flow of diplomatic and intelligence information in order to provide the president with brief but detailed reports. Finally, the act set up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA replaced the Central Intelligence Group, which had been established in 1946 to coordinate the intelligence-gathering activities of the various military branches and the Department of State. The CIA, however, was to be much more--it was a separate agency, designed not only to gather intelligence but also to carry out covert operations in foreign nations.
- 1952 --- Bob Mathias wins his second straight gold medal in the
Olympic decathlon. Just three months before his high school graduation, Mathias competed in his first meet, in Los Angeles, and won, which qualified him for the national championship. To his great surprise, he won that as well, which gave him for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. The decathlon at the 1948 London Olympics took place in miserable cold and rainy conditions. Mathias was forced to huddle under a blanket between events, many of which were delayed by downpours. The lousy weather, however, didn’t stop Mathias: With a score of 7,887, he broke the world record and became the youngest man in Olympic history to medal in a track and field event. "There was no pressure on me the first time because I didn’t know any better," Mathias would later recall. For his performance, Mathias won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete.In 1952, Mathias traveled to Finland to defend his title. Despite struggling with a strained thigh muscle and intense media pressure, Mathias managed to beat out American Milton Campbell by more than 900 points, breaking his own world record and becoming the first repeat winner of the decathlon in Olympic history.
- 1953 --- Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. Castro eventually ousted Batista six years later.
- 1956 --- The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas across Egypt, was completed by French engineers in 1869. For the next 87 years, it remained largely under British and French control, and Europe depended on it as an inexpensive shipping route for oil from the Middle East. After World War II, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone, and in July 1956 President Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French troops landed in early November, occupying the canal zone. Under Soviet, U.S., and U.N. pressure, Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the canal and reopened it to commercial shipping.
- 1964 --- Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa and six others were convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the handling of a union pension fund.
- 1969 --- The Rolling Stones released the album "Beggar's Banquet."
- 1970 --- Home runs came in triplicate. Orlando Cepeda of the Atlanta Braves launched a trio of homers in a game with the Chicago Cubs and Johnny Bench of the Cincinnati Reds belted three home runs against the St. Louis Cardinals.
- 1975 --- Van McCoy and The Soul City Symphony reached the top spot on the Billboard record chart for the first -- and only -- time. The disco hit The Hustle became the top record in the U.S.
- 1984 ---Purple Rain,the film creation of Prince, premiered in Hollywood.
- 1990 --- President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- 1990 --- Brent Mydland (Grateful Dead) died of a drug overdose at the age of 38.
- 1998 --- The U.S. 500, the most prestigious race in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, dissolves into tragedy on this day in 1998, when three fans are killed and six others wounded by flying debris from a car at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. While rounding the fourth turn at Michigan Speedway (a two-mile oval) in the 1998 U.S. 500, driver Adrian Fernandez lost control of his car and crashed into one of the raceway's retaining walls. The car broke apart, and the right front tire and part of the suspension flew over the 15-foot-high wall and into the stands. Traveling nearly 200 mph, the debris hit fans in the eighth and 10th rows. Two people were killed instantly; another died moments later, and six others received minor injuries.
- Birthdays
- Helen Mirren
- Darlene Love
- Carl Jung
- Aldous Huxley
- George Bernard Shaw
- Beatrix Potter
- Blake Edwards
- Gracie Allen
- Mick Jagger
- Roger Taylor
- Dorothy Hamill
- Sandra Bullock
- Jeremy Piven
- Vivian Vance
- Stanley Kubrick
- Jason Robards
- Hoyt Wilhelm
- Louis Bellson