Monday March 5, 2012

• 65^th Day of 2012 / 301 Remaining
• 15 Days Until Spring Begins

• Sunrise:6:35
• Sunset:6:08
• 11 Hr 33 Min

• Moon Rise:3:34pm
• Moon Set:4:35am
• Moon’s Phase: 91 %

• The Next Full Moon
• March 8 @ 1:41 am
• Full Worm Moon
• Full Sap Moon
• Full Crust Moon
• Lenten Moon

As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

• Tides
• High:8:00am/9:32pm
• Low:2:12am/2:50pm

• Rainfall
• This Year:7.38
• Last Year:17.76
• Normal To Date:17.62
• Annual Average: 22.28

• Holidays
• National Cheese Doodle Day
• Crispus Attucks Day
• Act Goofy Day
• Fun Facts about Names Day
• Temperance Day

• Missionary Day-French Polynesia
• National Tree Planting Day-Iran
• Customs Chiefs Day-Vanuatu

• On This Day In …
• 1623 --- America's first temperance law was passed. In a proclamation signed by Governor Sir Francis Wyatt and thirty-two members of the Virginia colonial legislature, Virginia prohibited public intoxication under penalty of a fine. Virginia was later joined by other colonies in taking measures to prohibit the use of alcohol.

• 1624 --- In the American colony of Virginia, the upper class was exempted from whipping by legislation.

• 1750 --- "King Richard III" was performed in New York City. It was the first Shakespearean play to be presented in America.

• 1770 --- A mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that lacked American representation. British Captain Thomas Preston, the commanding officer at the Customs House, ordered his men to fix their bayonets and join the guard outside the building. The colonists responded by throwing snowballs and other objects at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was hit, leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying—Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell—and three more were injured. Crispus Attucks, an African American, was the first to fall, and the deaths of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the American Revolutionary War.

• 1836 --- Samuel Colt manufactured the first pistol (.34-caliber).

• 1867 --- An abortive Fenian uprising against English rule took place in Ireland.

• 1912 --- The Oreo cookie was born at the National Biscuit Company in New York. Since then, somebody has eaten over 62 billion of them. That’s enough to stack and reach the moon and back five times

• 1922 --- Annie Oakley broke all existing records for women’s trap shooting. She smashed 98 out of 100 clay targets thrown at 16 yards while at a match at the Pinehurst Gun Club in North Carolina. She hit the first fifty, missed the 51st, then the 67th. This was a record-breaker, true; but Annie Oakley was well-known throughout the United States and Europe for her expert shooting ability. In one day, ‘Little Sure Shot’ took a .22 rifle and hit 4,772 glass balls out of 5,000 tossed in the air. She could hit a playing card from 90 feet (the thin side facing her), puncturing it at least five times before it hit the ground. It was this display that named free tickets with holes punched in them, Annie Oakleys. In 1935, Phoebe Mozee was immortalized on film in Annie Get Your Gun, which was later made into a musical for the stage. In 1985, another film, Annie Oakley, was made for TV. It included silent-film footage of the record-breaking sharp-shooter, taken by Thomas Edison.

• 1934 --- The first Mother-in-Law Day was celebrated in Amarillo, Texas, sponsored by newspaper editor Gene Howe

• 1946 --- Winston Churchill delivered his famous Iron Curtain Speech at Fulton, MO, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

• 1956 --- The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the ban on segregation in public schools.

• 1963 --- American country singers Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins were killed when their single-engine plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee. They were on their way from Nashville to do a benefit for the widow of deejay Cactus Jack Call, who had been killed in an auto accident.

• 1984 --- The Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League signed quarterback, Steve Young, from Brigham Young University, to a “substantial” contract on this day. The football all-American inked a pact that would earn him $40 million dollars over a 43-year period, in one of the most complicated contracts ever -- lasting until 2027. The USFL folded not long after he signed the lucrative deal. Young became the back-up quarterback for football legend, Joe Montana, in San Francisco. In 1994, when Montana moved to the Kansas City Chiefs, Steve Young took over the reins to lead the 49ers.

• 1984 --- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities had the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.

• 1993 --- Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was banned for life from racing by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) after he failed a dope test. Johnson also had been forced out of the 1988 Seoul Olympics after failing a drug test.

• 1998 --- It was announced that Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins would lead crew of Columbia on a mission to launch a large X-ray telescope. She was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.

• 2005 --- Martha Stewart was convicted in New York of obstructing justice and lying to the government about why she'd unloaded her Imclone stock just before the price plummeted. She served a five-month prison sentence.

• Birthdays
• Eva Mendes
• Eddy Grant
• Marsha Warfield
• Penn Jillette
• Lady Augusta Gregory
• Hector Villa-Lobos
• Heitor Villa-Lobos
• Andy Gibb
• John Frusciante
• Rex Harrison
• Charles Goodnight-He is said to have devised the first 'chuck wagon' from an Army wagon in the 1850s or 1860s, with various shelves and compartments for food, equipment, utensils, medical supplies, etc.