Monday December 2, 2013

KALW

Published December 2, 2013 at 5:55 AM PST

336^th Day of 2013 / 29 Remaining
19 Days Until The First Day of Winter

Sunrise:7:08
Sunset:4:50
9 Hours 42 Minutes of Daylight

Moon Rise:6:39am
Moon Set:4:59pm
New Moon @ 4:22pm

The Next Full Moon
December 17 @ 1:29amam
Full Cold Moon
Full Long Nights Moon

During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.

Tides
High:9:18am/11:13pm
Low:3:12am/4:16pm

Holidays
National Fritters Day
Special Education Day
National Day-United Arab Emirates
Republic Day-Laos
Higher Education Day-Myanmar/Burma
International Day For The Abolishment of Slavery

On This Day In …
1804 --- Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Napoleon I, the first Frenchman to hold the title of emperor in a thousand years. Pope Pius VII handed Napoleon the crown that the 35-year-old conqueror

of Europe placed on his own head. The Corsican-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s.

1823 --- During his annual address to Congress, President James Monroe proclaims a new U.S. foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the "Monroe Doctrine." Primarily the work of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine forbade European interference in the American hemisphere but also asserted U.S. neutrality in regard to future European conflicts.

1901 --- Gillette patented the KC Gillette Razor. It was first razor to feature a permanent handle and disposable double-edge razor blades.

1927 --- The Ford Motor Company unveiled the Model A automobile, New York City’s Waldorf Hotel and in 35 other cities around the U.S., Canada and Europe. The car was priced affordably: the Phaeton sold for $395.00 and the Tudor Sedan for $495.00. The lag between cars available and orders on hand had mounted to 800,000 by the spring of 1928. Ford made almost two million Model A cars in 1929 alone. But Black Thursday came on October 24th of that year, ushering in the Great Depression, and from that time on it was downhill all the way. In 1931, sales dropped to 620,000 units. Production of Model A was shut down in August, and early the following year, the ‘new order’ took over in the form of the radically different Ford V-8.

1954 --- The U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for conduct unbecoming of a senator. The condemnation, which was equivalent to a censure, related to McCarthy's controversial investigation of suspected communists in the U.S. government, military, and civilian society. What is known as "McCarthyism" began on February 9, 1950, when McCarthy, a relatively obscure Republican senator from Wisconsin, announced during a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he had in his possession a list of 205 communists who had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. The unsubstantiated declaration, which was little more than a publicity stunt, thrust Senator McCarthy into the national spotlight. Asked to reveal the names on the list, the opportunistic senator named just one official who he determined guilty by association: Owen Lattimore, an expert on Chinese culture and affairs who had advised the State Department. McCarthy described Lattimore as the "top Russian spy" in America. These and other equally shocking accusations prompted the Senate to

form a special committee, headed by Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, to investigate the matter. The committee found little to substantiate McCarthy's charges, but McCarthy nevertheless touched a nerve in the American public, and during the next two years he made increasingly sensational charges, even attacking President Harry S. Truman's respected former secretary of state, George C. Marshall. In 1953, a newly Republican Congress appointed McCarthy chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and its Subcommittee on Investigations, and McCarthyism reached a fever pitch. In widely publicized hearings, McCarthy bullied defendants under cross-examination with unlawful and damaging accusations, destroying the reputations of hundreds of innocent officials and citizens. In the early months of 1954, McCarthy, who had already lost the support of much of his party because of his controversial tactics, finally overreached himself when he accused several U.S. Army officers of communist subversion. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower pushed for an investigation of McCarthy's charges, and the televised hearings exposed the senator as a reckless and excessive tyrant who never produced proper documentation for any of his claims. A climax of the hearings came on June 9, when Joseph N. Welch, special attorney for the army, responded to a McCarthy attack on a member of his law firm by facing the senator and tearfully declaring, "Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency?" The crowded hearing room burst into spontaneous applause. On December 2, after a heated debate, the Senate voted to condemn McCarthy for conduct "contrary to senatorial traditions." By the time of his death from alcoholism in 1957, the influence of Senator Joseph McCarthy in Congress was negligible.

1961 --- Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist. The announcement sealed the bitter Cold War animosity between the two nations. Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a successful revolution against the dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista. Almost from the start, the United States worried that Castro was too leftist in his politics. He implemented agrarian reform, expropriated foreign oil company holdings, and eventually seized all foreign-owned property in Cuba. In December 1961, Castro made clear what most U.S. officials already believed. In a televised address on December 2, Castro declared, "I am a Marxist-Leninist and shall be one until the end of my life." He went on to state that, "Marxism or scientific socialism has become the revolutionary movement of the working class." He also noted that communism would be the dominant force in Cuban politics: "There cannot be three or four movements." Some questioned Castro's dedication to the communist cause, believing that his announcement was simply a stunt to get more Soviet assistance. Castro, however, never deviated from his declared principles, and went on to become one of the world's longest-ruling heads of state. In late July 2006, an unwell Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul. Fidel Castro officially stepped down in February 2008.

1969 --- The Boeing 747 jumbo jet got its first public preview as 191 people flew from Seattle, WA, to New York City, NY. Most of the passengers were reporters and photographers.
1969 --- Cindy Birdsong (Supremes) was kidnapped. She later managed to escape her captor.

1970 --- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began operations. William Ruckelhaus was the first director.

1972 --- Motown’s Temptations reached the #1 spot on the top 40 charts with Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone. It was the fourth #1 hit for the Temptations, joining My Girl (1965), I Can’t Get Next to You (1969) and Just My Imagination (1971).

1975 --- Ohio State University running back Archie Griffin becomes the first player in history to win the Heisman Trophy two years in a row.
1982 --- Barney B. Clark became the first recipient of an artificial heart. The 61-year-old retired dentist from Seattle underwent a 7½-hour operation at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City. The operation was performed by a surgical team headed by Dr. William C. DeVries. Clark survived with the artificial heart for over 3 months. He died on March 23, 1983.
1990 --- Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition easily won the first free all-German elections since 1932.

1993 --- Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot to death by security forces in Medellin.

1997 --- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno declined to seek an independent counsel investigation of telephone fund-raising by President Clinton and Vice President Gore. It was concluded that they had not violated election laws.

2001 --- Enron Corporation files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New York court, sparking one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history. In 2000, the company employed 21,000 people and posted revenue of $111 billion. Over the next year, however, Enron's stock price began a dramatic slide, dropping from $90.75 in August 2000 to $0.26 by closing on November 30, 2001. As prices fell, CEO Kenneth Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock, while simultaneously encouraging Enron employees to buy more shares and assuring them that the company was on the rebound. Employees saw their retirement savings accounts wiped out as Enron's stock price continued to plummet. After another energy company, Dynegy, canceled a planned $8.4 billion buy-out in late November, Enron filed for bankruptcy. By the end of the year, Enron's collapse had cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out some 5,600 jobs and liquidated almost $2.1 billion in pension plans.

Birthdays
Maria Callas
Georges Seurat
Sen Harry reid
Aaron Rodgers
Julie Harris
Cathy Lee Crosby
Stone Phillips
Lucy Liu
Monica Seles
Nelly Furtado
Britney Spears
Charles Ringling
Gianni Versace
Ray Walston
Alexander Haig