- 59th Day of 2013 / 306 Remaining
- 20 Days Until The First Day of Spring
- Sunrise:6:42
- Sunset:6:03
- 11 Hours 21 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:9:30pm
- Moon Set:8:00am
- Moon’s Phase:90 %
- The Next Full Moon
- March 27 @ 2:30am
- Full Worm Moon
- Full Crust Moon
- Full Lenten Moon
- Full Crow Moon
- Full Sap 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:1:13am/1:30pm
- Low:7:06am/7:08pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:14.35
- Last Year:6.87
- Normal To Date:18.08
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- Floral Design Day
- National Tooth Fairy Day
- National Public Sleeping Day
- National Chocolate Souffle Day
- National Chili Day
- Andalusia Day-Spain
- Peace Memorial Day-Taiwan
- On This Day In …
- 1827 --- The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. was incorporated.
- 1849 --- If one wanted to make the trip from the U.S. East Coast to the West Coast by steamboat, one had best be prepared for a long journey. Regular steamboat service to California via Cape Horn arrived in San Francisco for the first time. The SS California left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, making the trip in four months, 21 days. We suspect that the marketing phrase was not “Ain’t we got fun?”
- 1935 --- At the DuPont Corporation, Dr. Wallce Hume Carothers invented nylon. A patent was issued in 1937, and nylon stockings soon followed.
- 1953 --- Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick announce that they have determined the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes. Though DNA--short for deoxyribonucleic acid--was discovered in 1869, its crucial role in determining genetic inheritance wasn't demonstrated until 1943. In the early 1950s, Watson and Crick were only two of many scientists working on figuring out the structure of DNA. California chemist Linus Pauling suggested an incorrect model at the beginning of 1953, prompting Watson and Crick to try and beat Pauling at his own game. On the morning of February 28, they determined that the structure of DNA was a double-helix polymer, or a spiral of two DNA strands, each containing a long chain of monomer nucleotides, wound around each other. According to their findings, DNA replicated itself by separating into individual strands, each of which became the template for a new double helix. In his best-selling book, The Double Helix (1968), Watson later claimed that Crick announced the discovery by walking into the nearby Eagle Pub and blurting out that "we had found the secret of life." The truth wasn’t that far off, as Watson and Crick had solved a fundamental mystery of science--how it was possible for genetic instructions to be held inside organisms and passed from generation to generation.
- 1964 --- Beatlemania was at its peak in the winter of 1964, but not every music fan had the Beatles' brand of rock and roll on their turntable. In fact, it was jazz music—vital, innovative, contemporary jazz music—that captured the imagination of a significant proportion of American music fans in 1964, and no jazz musician at that time was more vital, innovative and contemporary than Thelonious Sphere Monk. So important was jazz on the American cultural scene, and so important was Monk in the world of jazz, that his portrait graced the cover of Time magazine February 28, 1964.
- 1972 --- President Richard M. Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai issued the Shanghai Communique at the conclusion of Nixon's historic visit to China, a step toward the eventual normalization of relations between the two countries.
- 1983 -- M*A*S*H became the most watched television program in history, as the final original episode of the fictitious, but uncommonly real, 4077th M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit of the Korean conflict aired. An estimated 125-million people in the U.S. tuned in to see the broadcast on CBS. The program earned a 60.3 rating and a 77 percent share. According to Nielsen Media Research, the 60.3 rating was the average audience rating or the percent tuned to M*A*S*H during the average minute, while the share measured the percentage of TV households whose sets were turned on that night and were tuned to the 2 1/2 hour special of M*A*S*H.
- 1993 --- Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas, prompting a gun battle in which four agents and six cult members are killed. The federal agents were attempting to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on information that the religious sect was stockpiling weapons. A nearly two-month standoff ensued after the unsuccessful raid. The roots of the confrontation between the federal government and the Branch Davidians went back 10 years before the Waco siege. In 1983, a young man named Vernon Howell showed up at the Mt. Carmel headquarters of the sect. Lois Roden and her son, George, were competing for leadership of the commune at the time. Lois had an affair with Howell, but died shortly thereafter. George Roden attempted to take charge of Mt. Carmel, but Howell challenged his leadership, claiming that he was the Lamb from Revelation, and that his children would be descended from God. Roden responded by posing a contest to Howell: Whoever could resurrect an exhumed corpse would prove their worthiness to rule the cult. Howell declined the challenge, going instead to the sheriff to have Roden arrested for illegally digging up a body. When the police wanted no part of it, Howell and Roden ended up in a gunfight that left Roden injured. While Howell was awaiting trial for attempted murder, Roden was jailed for contempt for filing "the most obscene and profane motions that probably have ever been filed in a federal courthouse" in an unrelated case. Howell took over the cult and the Mt. Carmel compound in Roden's absence, and later got a mistrial on the attempted murder charge. Soon, Howell started his own harem, declaring himself the only one allowed to have wives. Reportedly his many wives included girls as young as 12. Howell changed his name to David Koresh in 1990. Not long after, he began filling the cult member's heads with apocalyptic warnings and insisting that they arm themselves. In 1992, a deliveryman accidentally dropped a package and saw that it was filled with grenades. It was against this background that the federal government obtained a warrant for Koresh's arrest. To Koresh, the failed raid served as proof that he really was being persecuted. When federal agents moved in to end the siege on April 19 with tear gas, a fire broke out. Koresh and about two dozen others shot themselves to death or were shot before the fire engulfed the entire compound. Others died in the fire or the rubble of collapsing buildings, bringing the death toll to 80 Branch Davidians. Only 11 Branch Davidians escaped with their lives. Ultimately, eight cult members were convicted of charges ranging from manslaughter to weapons violations.
- 2002 --- Sotheby's auction house announced that it had identified Peter Paul Reubens as the creator of the painting "The Massacre of the Innocents." The painting was previously thought to be by Jan van den Hoecke.
- 2009 --- Reduced demand for butter & cheese and falling milk prices are forcing dairy farmers in the U.S. to sell hundreds of thousands of dairy cows to be slaughtered for meat. Estimates are that more than 15% of the 9.3 million dairy cows were for meat.
- Birthdays
- Svetlana Alliluyeva
- Linus Pauling
- Bernadette Peters
- Sec of Energy Steven Chu
- Gavin McLeod
- Mario Andretti
- Mercedes Ruehl
- Gilbert Gottfried
- John Turturro
- Cindy Wilson(B-52’s)
- Bugsy Siegel
- Zero Mostel
- Vincente Minnelli
- Charles Blondin
- Tommy Tune
- Brian Jones
- Rae Dawn Chong