Wednesday June 26, 2013

• 177^th Day of 2013 / 188 Remaining
• 88 Days Until The First Day of Autumn

• Sunrise:5:49
• Sunset:8:35
• 14 Hours 46 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:11:07pm
• Moon Set:9:44am
• Moon’s Phase:84 %

• The Next Full Moon
• July 22 @ 11:16am
• Full Buck Moon
• Full Thunder Moon
• Full Hay Moon

July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon.

• Tides
• High:12:59am/2:44pm
• Low:7:47am/8:10pm

• Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
• Normal To Date:23.80
• This Year:16.50
• Last Year:15.77
• Annual Seasonal Average:23.80

• Holidays
• National Chocolate Pudding Day
• Descendants Day
• Log Cabin Day
   
• International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
• International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
• Independence Day-Madagascar
• Flag Day-Romania

• On This Day In …

• 1284 --- The Pied Piper exacted his revenge upon the German

  

  town of Hamelin this day. The townspeople had promised to pay the piper a large fee if he could rid their town the nasty rats running all over the place. He had played his trusty pipe and the rats had followed him out of town and into the River Weser. But once the rodents were eliminated, the local folks decided not to pay after all. The piper was not pleased and repaid the townspeople by playing his pipe for the children of Hamelin, just like he had done for the rats. And just like the rats, the children followed him out of town. The Pied Piper of Hamelin led the kiddies into a hole in a hillside. They were never seen again.

• 1483 --- Richard III usurped himself to the English throne.

• 1819 --- The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York City.

• 1870 --- The original wooden boardwalk in Atlantic City was built. It was taken up during the winter months, and was replaced with a larger boardwalk in 1880, which was destroyed in a hurricane in 1889. It was rebuilt again, and in 1898 rebuilt with steel.

• 1894 --- The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

• 1900 --- A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

• 1919 --- The New York Daily News was first published.

• 1925 --- Charlie Chaplin's comedy "The Gold Rush" premiered in Hollywood.

• 1956 --- The U.S. Congress approves the Federal Highway Act, which allocates more than $30 billion for the construction of some 41,000 miles of interstate highways; it will be the largest public construction project in U.S. history to that date. Among the pressing questions involved in passing highway legislation were where exactly the highways should be built, and how much of the cost should be carried by the federal government versus the individual states. Several competing bills went through Congress before 1956, including plans spearheaded by the retired general and engineer Lucius D. Clay; Senator Albert Gore Sr.; and Rep. George H. Fallon, who called his program the "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways," thus linking the construction of highways with the preservation of a strong national defense. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had first realized the value of a national system of roads after participating in the U.S. Army's first transcontinental motor convoy in 1919; during World War II, he had admired Germany's autobahn network. In January 1956, Eisenhower called in his State of the Union address (as he had in 1954) for a "modern, interstate highway system."

• 1959 --- In a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the St. Lawrence Seaway is officially opened, creating a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior. Work on the massive project was initiated by a joint U.S.-Canadian commission in 1954, and five years later, in April 1959, the icebreaker D'Iberville began the first transit of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Since its official opening, more than two billion tons of cargo, with an estimated worth of more than $300 billion, have moved along its canals and channels.

• 1963 --- President John F. Kennedy said 'I am a jelly donut' (Ich bin ein Berliner) in a speech to the citizens of Berlin. He meant to say 'I am a Berliner' or a ‘citizen of Berlin’ (Ich bin Berliner). 'Ein Berliner' means jelly donut.

• 1964 --- A Hard Day’s Night was released by United Artists Records. The album featured all original material by The Beatles and became the top album in the country by July 25, 1964.

• 1965 --- Mr. Tambourine Man, by The Byrds, reached the number one spot on the pop music charts. The song was considered by many to be the first folk-rock hit. The tune was written by Bob Dylan, as were two other hits for the group: All I Really Want to Do and My Back Pages. The group of James Roger McGinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Mike Clarke charted seven hits. The Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

• 1973 --- Former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an "enemies list" kept by the Nixon White House.

• 1974 --- A package of Wrigley’s chewing gum with a bar code printed on it was the 1st product logged on the new Universal Product Code system (UPC).

• 1985 --- You’ve heard of players, managers and owners being ejected from baseball games, right? But have you ever heard of an organist being given the heave-ho? It happened at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida (the home of the Philadelphia Phillies during spring training; a Class A League team uses the stadium the rest of the season). Wilbur Snapp played Three Blind Mice following a call by umpire Keith O’Connor. The umpire was not amused and saw to it that Mr. Snapp was sent to the showers.

• 1993 --- In retaliation for an Iraqi plot to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during his April visit to Kuwait, President Bill Clinton orders U.S. warships to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in downtown Baghdad. On April 13, 1993, the day before George Bush was scheduled to visit Kuwait and be honored for his victory in the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaiti authorities foiled a car-bomb plot to assassinate him. Fourteen suspects, most of them Iraqi nationals, were arrested, and the next day their massive car bomb was discovered in Kuwait City. Citing "compelling evidence" of the direct involvement of Iraqi intelligence in the assassination attempt, President Clinton ordered a retaliatory attack against their alleged headquarters in the Iraqi capital on June 26. Twenty-three Tomahawk missiles, each costing more than a million dollars, were fired off the USS Peterson in the Red Sea and the cruiser USS Chancellorsville in the Persian Gulf, destroying the building and killing several civilians.

• 1997 --- The U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws that allow for a ban on doctor-assisted suicides.

• 1998 --- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers are always potentially liable for supervisor's sexual misconduct toward an employee.

• 2003 --- The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, struck down state bans on gay sex.

• 2008 --- The Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia as it affirmed, 5-4, an individual right to gun ownership.

• Birthdays
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias
• Derek Jeter
• Eleanor Parker
• Mick Jones (the Clash)
• Chris Isaak
• Patty Smyth
• Pearl Buck
• Peter Lorre
• Abner Doubleday
• Col Tom Parker