- 140th Day of 2014 225 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 32 Days
- Sunrise 5:55
- Sunset 8:17
- 14 Hours 22 Minutes
- Moon Rise 12:53am
- Moon Set 12:06pm
- Phase 59%
- Next Full Moon June 12 @ 9:13pm
- Full Strawberry Moon
- This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!
- High Tide 3:24am/5:22pm
- Low Tide 10:11am/11:07pm
- Rainfall
- This Year 12.65
- Last Year 16.32
- Avg YTD 23.42
- Holidays
- Eliza Doolittle Day
- National Defense Transportation Day
- Weights and Measures Day
- Teacher's Day-Florida
- National Quiche Lorraine Day
- Independence Day-East Timor
- International Virtual Assistants Day
- Simbi Blanc-Haiti
- On This Day In …
- 0325 --- The Ecumenical council was inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea, Asia Minor.
- 1498 --- Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama becomes the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrives at Calicut on the Malabar Coast.
- 1810 --- Dolly Madison, wife of president James Madison, supposedly served the first ice cream at the White House, for a reception.
- 1830 --- The first timetables of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad were published in the Baltimore American newspaper.
- 1873 --- Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world's most famous garments: blue jeans. Loeb Strauss immigrated to New York with his family in 1847 after the death of his father. By 1850, Loeb had changed his name to Levi and was working in the family dry goods business, J. Strauss Brother & Co. In early 1853, Levi Strauss went west to seek his fortune during the heady days of the Gold Rush. In San Francisco, Strauss established a wholesale dry goods business under his own name and worked as the West Coast representative of his family's firm. His new business imported clothing, fabric and other dry goods to sell in the small stores opening all over California and other Western states to supply the rapidly expanding communities of gold miners and other settlers. By 1866, Strauss had moved his company to expanded headquarters and was a well-known businessman and supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco. Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, Nevada, was one of Levi Strauss' regular customers. In 1872, he wrote a letter to Strauss about his method of making work pants with metal rivets on the stress points--at the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly--to make them stronger. As Davis didn't have the money for the necessary paperwork, he suggested that Strauss provide the funds and that the two men get the patent together. Strauss agreed enthusiastically, and the patent for "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings"--the innovation that would produce blue jeans as we know them--was granted to both men on May 20, 1873. Strauss brought Davis to San Francisco to oversee the first manufacturing facility for "waist overalls," as the original jeans were known. At first they employed seamstresses working out of their homes, but by the 1880s, Strauss had opened his own factory. The famous 501 brand jean--known until 1890 as "XX"--was soon a bestseller, and the company grew quickly. By the 1920s, Levi's denim waist overalls were the top-selling men's work pant in the United States. As decades passed, the craze only grew, and now blue jeans are worn by men and women, young and old, around the world.
- 1892 --- George Sampson received a patent for a clothes dryer.
- 1899 --- Jacob German of New York City became the first driver to be arrested for speeding. Mr. German was whipping his taxicab all over Lexington Avenue and being a pain in the neck by going over the posted 12 mile-per-hour speed limit!
- 1916 --- Norman Rockwell’s first cover on The Saturday Evening Post appeared. The illustration was of a young boy having to care for his baby sibling while his little buddies left him and went off to play ball. The forlorn child pushing a baby carriage tugged at the heart strings of all who saw it. Norman Rockwell drew over 300 covers for The Saturday Evening Post plus covers for Collier’s, American Boy, The Literary Digest, LIFE and others.
- 1927 --- At 7:52 a.m., American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. Lindbergh, a daring young airmail pilot, was a dark horse when he entered a competition with a $25,000 payoff to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. He ordered a small monoplane, configured it to his own design, and christened it the Spirit of St. Louis in tribute to his sponsor--the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. On May 20, 1927, a rainy morning, he took off from Roosevelt Field, but his monoplane was so loaded down with fuel that it barely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway. He flew northeast up the East Coast and as night fell left Newfoundland and headed across the North Atlantic. His greatest challenge was staying awake; he had to hold his eyelids open with his fingers and hallucinated ghosts passing through the cockpit. The next afternoon, after flying 3,610 miles in 33 1/2 hours, Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget field in Paris, becoming the first pilot to accomplish the solo, nonstop transatlantic crossing. Lindbergh's achievement made him an international celebrity and won widespread public acceptance of the airplane and commercial aviation.
- 1932 --- Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland for Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1939 --- The Yankee Clipper took off from Port Washington, NY, bound for Europe. The plane, the flagship of Pan American Airways, established the first regular air-passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1939 --- The first telecast over telephone wires was sent from Madison Square Garden to the NBC-TV studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The event was a bicycle race.
- 1942 --- "I've Got A Gal in Kalamazoo" was recorded by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra.
- 1954 --- Bill Haley & the Comets "Rock Around the Clock" was released. It was not successful until it was released in 1955 on the soundtrack to "Blackboard Jungle."
- 1960 --- Alan Freed, a disc jockey, was indicted for income tax evasion stemming from payola.
- 1961 --- A white mob attacked a busload of "Freedom Riders" in Montgomery, Ala., prompting the federal government to send in United States marshals to restore order.
- 1965 --- A Pakistan Airways Boeing 707 arriving from Pakistan crashes upon landing at the airport in Cairo, Egypt, killing 124 people on this day in 1965. The accident came just as pilots were complaining about poor conditions at the Cairo airport.
- 1970 --- "Let It Be," the film by The Beatles, premiered worldwide.
- 1971 --- The album "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye was released.
- 1978 --- Mavis Hutchinson, 53, made it to New York City to become the first woman to run across America. The 3,000-mile trek took her 69 days. She ran an average of 45 miles each day.
- 1982 --- TV’s Barney Miller was seen for the last time in its original network run on ABC-TV.
- 1989 --- Actress/comedienne Gilda Radner died in a Los Angeles hospital after a two-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 42. The Emmy Award-winning entertainer was known for her characters Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, and Baba Wawa on "Saturday Night Live".
- 1990 --- The Hubble Space Telescope sent back its first photographs.
- 1993 --- The last episode of 'Cheers' aired on TV.
- 1996 --- The U.S. Supreme Court votes six to three to strike down an amendment to Colorados state constitution that would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of homosexuals.
- 2006 --- San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth for second place on the career list with his 714th home run, hit off of Brad Halsey of the Oakland A’s.
- 2010 --- Five paintings worth 100 million Euro were stolen from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
- Birthdays
- Jimmy Stewart
- Dolly Madison
- Cher
- Honore de Balzac
- Joe Cocker
- Jane Wiedlin
- Dave Thomas
- Ron Reagan
- Bronson Pinchot
- Mindy Cohn
- Busta Rhymes
- William Fargo
- Madeline Breckinridge
- John Jacob Astor
- Moshe Dayan
- Henri Rousseau
- Anthony Zerbe