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Wednesday September 26, 2012

  • 270th Day of 2012 /96 Remaining
  • 86 Days Until The First Day of Winter
  • Sunrise:7:01
  • Sunset:7:00
  • 11:59 Hours Minutes of Daylight
  • Moon Rise:4:59pm
  • Moon Set:3:37am
  • Moon’s Phase: 88 %
  • 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:9:21am/9:00pm
  • Low:2:37am/3:05pm
  • 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
  • Johnny Appleseed Day
  • UN World Maritime Day
  • On This Day In …
  • 1580 --- English seaman Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to sail the earth. On December 13, 1577, Drake set out from England with five ships on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World. After crossing the Atlantic, Drake abandoned two of his ships in South America and then sailed into the Straits of Magellan with the remaining three. A series of devastating storms besieged his expedition in the treacherous straits, wrecking one ship and forcing another to return to England. Only the Golden Hind reached the Pacific Ocean, but Drake continued undaunted up the western coast of South America, raiding Spanish settlements and capturing a rich Spanish treasure ship. Drake then continued up the western coast of North America, searching for a possible northeast passage back to the Atlantic. Reaching as far north as present-day Washington before turning back, Drake paused near San Francisco Bay in June 1579 to repair his ship and prepare for a journey across the Pacific. Calling the land "Nova Albion," Drake claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. In July, the expedition set off across the Pacific, visiting several islands before rounding Africa's Cape of Good Hope and returning to the Atlantic Ocean. On September 26, 1580, the Golden Hind returned to Plymouth, England, bearing its rich captured treasure and valuable information about the world's great oceans. In 1581, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Drake during a visit to his ship. The most renowned of the Elizabethan seamen, he later played a crucial role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
  • 1789 --- Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first Secretary of State. John Jay was appointed the first chief justice of the U.S. Samuel Osgood was appointed the first Postmaster-General. Edmund Jennings Randolph was appointed the first Attorney General.
  • 1892 --- The ‘March King’ was introduced to the general public. John Philip Sousa and his band played the Liberty Bell March in Plainfield, New Jersey.
  • 1908 --- An ad for the Edison Phonograph appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The phonograph offered buyers free records by both the Democratic and Republican U.S. presidential candidates!
  • 1957 --- “East Side Story” was the original title of the Shakespeare-inspired musical conceived by choreographer Jerome Robbins, written by playwright Arthur Laurents and scored by composer and lyricist Leonard Bernstein in 1949. A tale of star-crossed lovers—one Jewish, the other Catholic—on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the show in its original form never went into production, and the idea was set aside for the next six years. It was more than just a change of setting, however, that helped the re-titled show get off the ground in the mid-1950s. It was also the addition of a young, relatively unknown lyricist named Stephen Sondheim. The book by Arthur Laurents and the incredible choreography by Jerome Robbins helped make “West Side Story” a work of lasting genius, but it was the strength of the songs by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein that allowed it to make its Broadway debut on this day in 1957. The re-conception of “West Side Story” as a tale of love across the divide of two street gangs, one Latin and one white-ethnic, came quickly once the creative principals returned to the project in 1955. With the support of producer Carol Crawford, plans for the show proceeded over the course of two years, but by the spring of 1957, with no financial backers ready to commit to a controversial show in which Act I would end with two principal characters dead as a result of gang violence, Crawford announced she was pulling out of the project. “West Side Story” seemed to be dead. What saved the show was the relationship between Stephen Sondheim and Broadway producer Hal Prince, whom Sondheim called with the bad news. Prince and his partner Bobby Griffith made arrangements for a quick visit to New York to consult with the “West Side Story” team, and it was there that they were won over by the power of the music Bernstein played them in his midtown apartment. "About halfway through the audition," Prince later recalled, "I started to sing along with the material....At the end of the whole thing, Bobby and I looked at each other, and we said, without hesitation, 'We'll do it!'" With Prince and Griffith's backing, “West Side Story” got back on track for a premiere that would begin one of the longest initial runs in Broadway.
  • 1960 --- Massachusetts Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy and Republican Vice President Richard M. Nixon face each other in a nationally televised presidential campaign debate. The debate ushered in an era in which television would dominate political campaigns. The immediacy and power of television worked well for candidates who could think on their feet and knew how to play to the audience. At the first of four debates, Kennedy arrived looking well-groomed and confident, while his opponent Nixon, who had just been released from the hospital after two weeks recuperating from a badly injured knee, appeared haggard and was sporting a "5 o'clock shadow" or light beard. Although he arrived in a wrinkled suit and appeared underweight and had a grayish pallor, Nixon refused the assistance of a makeup artist, a decision he likely later regretted. Kennedy clearly "won" the debate, a fact attributable to both his superior comfort level with the new communication medium and his "telegenic" good looks. According to the Museum of Broadcast History, radio listeners considered Nixon's answers to questions to be more substantive and gave Nixon the advantage over Kennedy after the first debate. By contrast, television viewers gave Kennedy the edge, as their impressions were based on how the candidate looked as much as what he said. Nixon's negative experience with televised debates led him to refuse to engage in such debates during the 1968 and 1972 campaigns.
  • 1962 --- “Come and listen to the story ’bout a man named Jed...” The Beverly Hillbillies aired on CBS-TV. U.S. audiences were enchanted with Jed, Ellie Mae, Granny, Jethro, Miss Jane and that banker feller. Enchanted, as in a trance, in fact, for 216 shows. Bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs had the honor of composing and recording the theme song and hit record, The Ballad of Jed Clampett.
  • 1964 --- Gilligan’s Island began its 98-show run on CBS. The TV show starred Bob Denver in the title role, Jim Backus as Mr. Howell, Natalie Schafer as Lovey Howell, Alan Hale as the Skipper, Russell Johnson as the Professor and Dawn Wells and Tina Louise as Mary Ann and Ginger, respectively.
  • 1969 --- The Beatles walked the road toward a hit LP for the last time, as Abbey Road was released in London. The 13th and last album for the ‘fab four’ zoomed quickly to the #1 spot on the charts and stayed there for 11 weeks.
  • 1971 --- Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer wins his 20th game of the year, becoming the fourth Orioles pitcher to win 20 games in the 1971 season. This made the 1971 Orioles pitching staff the first since that of the 1920 Chicago White Sox to field four 20-game winners.Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally & Pat Dobson were the other 20 game winners for Baltimore that season.
  • 1986 --- William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as an associate justice.
  • 1991 --- A group of scientists, four men and four women began a two-year stay inside Biosphere 2, a sealed structure in Oracle, AZ. They had planned to have no contact with the outside world; to grow their own food and live peacefully together as future pioneers in a harsh and alien world. Unfortunately, the outside world had to intervene a few times; to get rid of an ant invasion, to pump in oxygen, to tend to a health emergencies, to bring in forgotten necessities like makeup. The scientific team managed to last out the term, but they were half-crazy and half-starved when U.S. marshals led them out two years later.
  • 2000 --- Slobodan Milosevic conceded that his challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, had finished first in Yugoslavia's presidential election. Milosevic declared a runoff, a move that prompted mass protests leading to his ouster.
  • Birthdays
  • Ivan Pavlov
  • Winnie Mandela
  • Serena Williams
  • Johnny Appleseed
  • T.S. Eliot
  • George Gershwin
  • Joseph-Louis Proust
  • Gov Jan Brewer
  • Bryan Ferry
  • Olivia Newton-John
  • Cesar Rosas
  • Albert Anastasia
  • Jack LaLanne
  • George Raft
  • Marty Robbins
  • Donna Douglas
  • Christine Todd Whitman
  • Craig Chaquico
  • Jim Caviezel