- 263rd Day of 2012 /103 Remaining
- 3 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:55
- Sunset:7:11
- 12 Hours 16 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:11:07am
- Moon Set:9:31pm
- Moon’s Phase: 18 %
- The Next Full Moon
- September 29 @ 8:18pm
- Full Corn Moon
- Full Harvest Moon
This full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked when corn was supposed to be harvested. Most often, the September full moon is actually the Harvest Moon, which is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.
- Tides
- High:1:52am/1:33pm
- Low:7:16am/8:14pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:0.03
- Last Year:0.11
- Normal To Date:0.00
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Woman Road Warrior Day
- National Butterscotch Pudding Day
- International Talk Like a Pirate Day
- International Women's Ecommerce Day
- Respect For the Aged Day-Japan
- Armed Forces Day-Chile
- Moscow Day-Russia
- On This Day In …
- 1783 --- The Montgolfier brothers successfully sent up some live animals in a hot air balloon, including a sheep and a rooster.
- 1819 --- It was such a beautiful fall day that poet John Keats was inspired to take out pen and pad. He inked one of the best-loved English poems, Ode to Autumn.
- 1876 --- Melville R. Bissell of Grand Rapids, MI patented the carpet sweeper on this day. The name, Bissell, became synonymous with carpet sweepers during the first half of the 20th century -- much like Frigidaire and refrigerator, Jell-O and gelatin dessert.
- 1881 --- The 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, died of wounds inflicted by an assassin.
- 1891 --- "The Merchant of Venice" was performed for the first time at Manchester.
- 1955 --- After a decade of rule, Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron is deposed in a military coup. Peron, a demagogue who came to power in 1946 with the backing of the working classes, became increasingly authoritarian as Argentina's economy declined in the early 1950s. His greatest political resource was his charismatic wife, Eva "Evita" Peron, but she died in 1952, signaling the collapse of the national coalition that had backed him. Having antagonized the church, students, and others, he was forced into exile by the military in September 1955. He settled in Spain, where he served as leader-in-exile to the "Peronists"--a powerful faction of Argentines who remained loyal to him and his system.
- 1959 --- In one of the more surreal moments in the history of the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev explodes with anger when he learns that he cannot visit Disneyland. The incident marked the climax of Khrushchev's day in Los Angeles, one that was marked by both frivolity and tension. Khrushchev arrived in the United States on September 15 for an extended visit and a summit meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Soviet leader indicated a desire to see Hollywood and a visit was arranged. On September 19, Khrushchev and his wife arrived in Los Angeles. The day began pleasantly enough, with a tour of the Twentieth Century Fox Studios in Hollywood. The Soviet premier was taken on to the sound stage for the movie "Can-Can" and was immediately surrounded by the cast of the film, including Shirley MacLaine and Juliet Prowse. MacLaine greeted Khrushchev in broken Russian and then attempted to engage the premier in an impromptu dance. Khrushchev jovially begged off and then stood by while the cast members performed a number from the film. Frank Sinatra was brought in to serve as an unofficial master of ceremonies for the visit, and he later lunched with an obviously delighted Khrushchev. Things began to unravel when Twentieth Century Fox President Spyros P. Skouras introduced Khrushchev at Los Angeles Town Hall. Almost immediately, Skouras, who was an ardent anticommunist, irritated Khrushchev by referring to the premier's famous statement that Russia would "bury" capitalism. Skouras declared that Los Angeles was not particularly interested in "burying" anyone, but would meet the challenge if posed. Khrushchev's famous temper quickly flared. He charged that Skouras's remarks were part of a campaign to heckle him during his trip to America. The plan, Khrushchev suggested, was to needle him, "rub" America's strength in his face, and make him "a little shaky in the knees." Addressing Skouras directly, Khrushchev stated, "If you want to go on with the arms race, very well. We accept that challenge. As for the output of rockets--well, they are on the assembly line. This is a most serious question. It is one of life or death, ladies and gentlemen. One of war and peace." Khrushchev's anger increased when he learned that he would not be allowed to visit Disneyland. Government authorities feared that the crowds would pose a safety hazard for the premier. Khrushchev, still fuming about the debate with Skouras, exploded. "And I say, I would very much like to go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?" Khrushchev left Los Angeles the next morning. From photo ops with Shirley MacLaine to a heated debate with the head of a movie studio and a childish outburst about not being allowed into Disneyland, Khrushchev's day in Los Angeles was full of activity. The Soviet leader continued his trip through California without further incident and returned to Washington for his meeting with Eisenhower.
- 1970 --- The Mary Tyler Moore Show was seen for the first time on CBS-TV. It became one of the most successful television shows of the 1970s. The last, original episode aired on September 3, 1977.
- 1973 --- 26-year-old musician Gram Parsons dies of "multiple drug use" (morphine and tequila) in a California motel room. His death inspired one of the more bizarre automobile-related crimes on record: Two of his friends stashed his body in a borrowed hearse and drove it into the middle of the Joshua Tree National Park, where they doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. Parsons' music helped define the country-rock sound, and his records have influenced everyone from the Rolling Stones to Wilco. But like many musicians of his generation, Parsons struggled with drugs and alcohol. His childhood was unhappy: His father committed suicide when he was 12, and his mother died of alcohol poisoning on the day he graduated from high school. He dropped out of Harvard and moved to California, where he played with bands like the Byrds (on their seminal album Sweetheart of the Rodeo) and the Flying Burrito Brothers and released two celebrated solo albums with the then-unknown Emmylou Harris singing backup. At a friend's funeral a few months before he died, Parsons made a drunken pact with his road manager Phil Kaufman: If anything should happen to one of them, the other would take his body to Joshua Tree and cremate it. And so, after Parsons' overdose, Kaufman and a roadie named Michael Martin met his coffin at the Los Angeles airport (for complicated reasons involving a disputed inheritance, his stepfather had arranged for it to be flown to Louisiana for a private funeral) in a borrowed hearse with broken windows and no license plates. (The hearse belonged to Martin's girlfriend, who used it to carry tents and other gear on camping trips.) They convinced the airport staff that the Parsons family had changed its mind about the flight, loaded the coffin into the car, and drove 200 miles to the Mojave Desert, stopping along the way to fill a five-gallon tin can with gasoline. They drove into Joshua Tree and dragged the coffin to the foot of the majestic Cap Rock, where they doused it with the gas and tossed on a match.
- 1975 --- The first episode of 'Fawlty Towers' premiered.
- 1981 --- For their first concert in years, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel reunited for a free concert to benefit New York City parks. The concert attracted a crowd of 500,000 people in Central Park and was broadcast to a TV audience in the millions.
- 1985 --- In Mexico City, this day will forever be remembered. The first of two killer earthquakes hit the city. At 7:18 in the morning, the residents of Mexico City were jolted awake by an 8.1-magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest to ever hit the area. The effects of the quake were particularly devastating because of the type of ground upon which the city sits. Mexico City is on a plateau surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. The plateau region was covered by lakes in ancient times. As the aquifer under the city has slowly drained, it has been discovered that the city sits atop a combination of dirt and sand that is much less stable than bedrock and can be quite volatile during an earthquake. The quake on September 19 was centered 250 miles west of the city but, due to the relatively unstable ground underneath the city, serious shaking lasted for nearly 3 minutes. The prolonged ground movement caused several old hotels, including the Regis, Versailles and Romano, to crumble. A building at the National College of Professional Education fell, trapping hundreds of students who were attending early-morning classes. Many factories in the city, built with shoddy materials, also could not stand. Further, the tremors caused gas mains to break, causing fires and explosions throughout the city.
- 1991 --- Ötzi, the Iceman, was found by a German tourist, Helmut Simon, on the Similaun Glacier in the Tirolean Ötztal Alps, on the Italian-Austrian border. The body is that of a man aged 25 to 35 who had been about 5 feet 2 inches (1.6 meters) tall and had weighed about 50 kg (110 pounds), is the oldest mummified human body ever found intact -- some 5000 years old. And his few remaining scalp hairs provided the earliest archaeological evidence of haircutting. And, if that’s not enough, Ötzi was found to have a number of ‘points’ tattooed on his body, 80% of which are considered valid modern acupucture points and dates acupuncture back to at least 3300 B.C.
- 1995 --- A manifesto by the Unabomber, an anti-technology terrorist, is published by The New York Times and Washington Post in the hope that someone will recognize the person who, for 17 years, had been sending homemade bombs through the mail that had killed and maimed innocent people around the United States. After reading the manifesto, David Kaczynski linked the writing style to that of his older brother Ted, who was later convicted of the attacks and sentenced to life in prison without parole. All told, the Unabomber was responsible for murdering three people and injuring another 23. Theodore John Kaczynski was born May 22, 1942, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. As a student, he excelled at math, graduated from Harvard and received a Ph.D. in math from the University of Michigan. In 1967, he got a teaching job at the University of California at Berkeley, but quit two years later. In 1971, Kaczynski purchased some property in Lincoln, Montana, with his brother. There, the future Unabomber built a small, secluded cabin where he lived off the land as a recluse from the late 1970s until his arrest on April 3, 1996.
- 2008 --- Struggling to stave off financial catastrophe, the Bush administration asked Congress for $700 billion to buy up troubled mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions.
- Birthdays
- Mama Cass Elliot
- Lesley Hornsby”Twiggy”
- Sir William Golding
- Jimmy Fallon
- George Cadbury
- Roger Angell
- Adam West
- Bill Medley
- Joe Morgan
- David Bromberg
- Jeremy Irons
- Joan Lunden
- Trisha Yearwood
- Cheri Oteri
- Soledad O’Brien
- Leon Jaworski
- Frances Farmer