- 7th Day of 2013 / 358 Remaining
- 72 Days Until The First Day of Spring
- Sunrise:7:25
- Sunset:5:07
- 9 Hours 42 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:2:56am
- Moon Set:1:21pm
- Moon’s Phase: %
- The Next Full Moon
- January 26 @ 8:40pm
- Full Wolf Moon
Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
- Tides
- High: 7:12am/9:08pm
- Low: 12:31am/2:12pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:13.35
- Last Year:3.34
- Normal To Date:10.11
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day
- National Tempura Day
- Orthodox Christmas
- On This Day In …
- 1610 --- Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons. He named them Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
- 1785 --- Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. The two men nearly crashed into the Channel along the way, however, as their balloon was weighed down by extraneous supplies such as anchors, a nonfunctional hand-operated propeller, and silk-covered oars with which they hoped they could row their way through the air. Just before reaching the French coast, the two balloonists were forced to throw nearly everything out of the balloon, and Blanchard even threw his trousers over the side in a desperate, but apparently successful, attempt to lighten the ship.
- 1789 --- America's first presidential election is held. Voters cast ballots to choose state electors; only white men who owned property were allowed to vote. As expected, George Washington won the election and was sworn into office on April 30, 1789.
- 1894 --- W.K. Dickson received a patent for motion picture film. His demonstration included a 47-frame film. The demo ran about two seconds and showed comedian Fred Ott sneezing.
- 1904 --- The distress signal, “CQD”, was established this day. It didn’t last long. Four years later, “SOS” became the radio distress signal because it was quicker to transmit by wireless radio and could not be misinterpreted.
- 1924 --- George Gershwin began work on the incomparable score of Rhapsody in Blue (he completed it some three weeks later). Incidentally, George was only 26 years old at the time. And, George didn’t even have an interest in music until his family got him a piano when he was twelve. Nine years later he had his first hit, Swanee, with lyrics written by Irving Caesar. Rhapsody in Blue was commissioned by Paul Whiteman and then orchestrated by Ferde Grofe of Grand Canyon Suite fame. This first orchestration of Gershwin’s score was never quite right. Grofe’s style didn’t gel with Gershwin’s. Several other artists attempted to do justice to Rhapsody in Blue, never quite making the grade. Some thirty years later, orchestra leader Hugo Winterhalter with Byron Janis at the piano did a jazzed up version; pretty close to the way Gershwin had described his piece. However, it wasn’t until Gershwin’s original solo piano was accompanied by a jazz band led by Michael Tilson Thomas, that the true arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue was heard. No matter how you hear it, Rhapsody in Blue will remain the signature of one of the most influential of composers, songwriters and pianists in American music history.
- 1929 --- The debut of "Buck Rogers 2429 A.D." occurred in newspapers around the U.S. The title of the comic strip was later changed to "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century."
- 1941 --- Good-for-Nothin’ Joe was recorded by the sultry Lena Horne. She sang the classic song with Charlie Barnet and his orchestra on Bluebird Records.
- 1953 --- In his final State of the Union address before Congress, President Harry S. Truman tells the world that that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.
- 1955 --- Singer Marian Anderson made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, becoming the first black person to perform there as a member.
- 1958 --- The Flying V guitar, which is a favorite of rock musicians, was patented this day by the Gibson Guitar Company.
- 1959 --- Just six days after the fall of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba, U.S. officials recognize the new provisional government of the island nation. Despite fears that Fidel Castro, whose rebel army helped to overthrow Batista, might have communist leanings, the U.S. government believed that it could work with the new regime and protect American interests in Cuba.
- 1970 --- Neighbors of New York landowner Max Yasgur sued him for $35,000 for property damage caused by ‘flower children’ who attended the August 1969 Woodstock Festival. More than 450,000 people attended the three-day event.
- 1972 --- "American Pie" by Don McLean is #1 on the charts.
- 1979 --- Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the brutal regime of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge government.
- 1980 --- U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that authorized $1.5 billion in loans for the bail out of Chrysler Corp.
- 1990 --- The Tower of Pisa was closed to the public after leaning too far. The closing of the monument allowed “the work of consolidation of the foundations and reduction of the inclination.” The tower reopened on Dec 15, 2001 to guided visits only (with a maximum of 30 people), accompanied by employed personnel (the visit takes about 35 minutes). The work, at a cost of more than 27,370,000 Euro, decreased the leaning of the tower by 40.6 centimeters. The tower began to lean at the beginning of its construction in 1173 because of the marshy ground on which it rests and the inclination had continued to increase each year up to the decision to intervene in 1990.
- 1999 --- U.S. President Clinton went on trial before the Senate. It was only the second time in U.S. history that an impeached president had gone to trial. Clinton was later acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
- 2006 --- Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, facing corruption charges, stepped down as House majority leader.
- Birthdays
- Katie Couric
- Aristotle Onassis
- Charles Addams
- Sen Rand Paul
- Paul Revere
- Nicolas Cage
- Millard Fillmore (13th President)
- Butterfly McQueen
- Jan Wenner
- Kenny Loggins
- Kathy Valentine (Go-Go’s)