- 168th Day of 2014 / 197 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 4 Days
- Sunrise:5:47
- Sunset:8:34
- 14 Hours 47 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:12:12am(Wednesday)
- Moon Set:11:03am
- Moon’s Phase: %
- The Next Full Moon
- July 12 @ 4:26 am
- 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 named for the thunderstorms that are most common during this time. And in some areas it was called the Full Hay Moon.
- Tides
- High:2:10am/3:55pm
- Low:8:53am/9:36pm
- Holidays
- Watergate Day
- Work@Home Father's Day
- Bunker Hill Day
- Eat Your Vegetables Day
- National Apple Streudel Day
- Independence Day-Iceland
- World Day To Combat Desertification and Drought
- Father’s Day-El Salvador / Guatemala
- On This Day In …
- 1579 --- During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchors in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco and claims the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. Calling the land "Nova Albion," Drake remained on the California coast for a month to make repairs to his ship, the Golden Hind, and prepare for his westward crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
- 1775 --- British General William Howe lands his troops on the Charlestown Peninsula overlooking Boston, Massachusetts, and leads them against Breed's Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill. As the British advanced in columns against the Americans, American General William Prescott reportedly told his men, "Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" When the Redcoats were within 40 yards, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, throwing the British into retreat. After reforming his lines, Howe attacked again, with much the same result. Prescott's men were now low on ammunition, though, and when Howe led his men up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat. The outnumbered Americans were forced to retreat. However, by the end of the engagement, the Patriots' gunfire had cut down nearly 1,000 enemy troops, including 92 officers. Of the 370 Patriots who fell, most were struck while in retreat. The British had won the so-called Battle of Bunker Hill, and Breed's Hill and the Charlestown Peninsula fell firmly under British control. Despite losing their strategic positions, the battle was a morale-builder for the Americans, convincing them that patriotic dedication could overcome superior British military might.
- 1856 --- The first national convention of the Republican Party was held in Philadelphia, PA.
- 1885 --- The dismantled State of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America, arrives in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces packed in more than 200 cases. The copper and iron statue, which was reassembled and dedicated the following year in a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy.
- 1913 --- A Chicago Cubs pitcher set a baseball record for the longest appearance by a reliever in a game. George ‘Zip’ Zabel came in from the bull pen with two outs in the first inning of a game at Ebbets Field in New York. George kept pitching until the 19th inning when the Cubs finally beat the Dodgers 4-3.
- 1928 --- Amelia Earhart began the flight that made her the first woman to successfully fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1941 --- WNBT-TV, channel 4 in New York City, was granted the first construction permit to operate a commercial TV station in the United States. (WNBT signed on the air on July 1, 1941 at 1:29 p.m.)
- 1944 --- The republic of Iceland was established.
- 1947 --- Pan Am inaugurated the first round-the-world passenger service when the Lockheed Constellation 'Clipper America' with 21 passengers, 9 crew members and 400 pounds of food, departed from LaGuardia Airport in New York bound for San Francisco, the long way around. The trip covered more than 20,000 miles in 13 days, with 92 hours 43 minutes of flight time, landing in 17 cities and 10 countries.
- 1950 --- Dr. Richard H. Lawler performed the first kidney transplant in a 45-minute operation in Chicago, IL.
- 1953 --- The Soviet Union orders an entire armored division of its troops into East Berlin to crush a rebellion by East German workers and antigovernment protesters. The riots in East Berlin began among construction workers, who took to the streets on June 16, 1953, to protest an increase in work schedules by the communist government of East Germany. By the next day, the crowd of disgruntled workers and other antigovernment dissidents had grown to between 30,000 and 50,000. Leaders of the protest issued a call for a general strike, the resignation of the communist East German government, and free elections. Soviet forces struck quickly and without warning. Troops, supported by tanks and other armored vehicles, crashed through the crowd of protesters. Some protesters tried to fight back, but most fled before the onslaught. Red Cross officials in West Berlin (where many of the wounded protesters fled) estimated the death toll at between 15 and 20, and the number of wounded at more than 100.
- 1958 --- A bridge being built to connect eastern and northern Vancouver in western Canada collapses, killing 59 workers. The bridge, known as the Second Narrows Bridge, was finally completed in 1960 and, in 1996, it was renamed Ironworkers Memorial Bridge to commemorate the people who lost their lives during its construction. The disaster was the worst involving a bridge in Canada's history.
- 1963 --- The Supreme Court struck down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or the reading of Biblical verses in public schools.
- 1964 --- The Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" was released. It became their first song to get to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart.
- 1969 --- Boris Spasky became chess champion of the world after checkmating former champion Tigran Petrosian in Moscow.
- 1972 --- Five burglars are arrested in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office and apartment complex in Washington D.C. James McCord, Frank Sturgis, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, and Eugenio Martinez were apprehended in the early morning after a security guard at the Watergate noticed that several doors leading from the stairwell to various hallways had been taped to prevent them from locking. The intruders were wearing surgical gloves and carrying walkie-talkies, cameras, and almost $2,300 in sequential $100 bills. A subsequent search of their rooms at the Watergate turned up an additional $4,200, burglary tools, and electronic bugging equipment. The story of the break-in, which seemed like a minor event, was handed to two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, by
their Washington Post editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee. The reporters pursued the story tirelessly and broke the scoop of White House involvement in a pattern of unethical practices against political enemies. The pair later wrote the bestselling book All the President's Men (1974), about the journalistic process of exposing the Watergate scandal.
- 1985 --- Judy Norton-Taylor, who played the role of Mary Ellen on The Waltons, saw her good-girl image tarnished as she was photographed nude for Playboy magazine.
- 1991 --- The Parliament of South Africa repealed the Population Registration Act. The law, the basis of all apartheid laws in South Africa, required all South Africans to be classified at birth. It was first implemented in 1950, and placed South Africans in separate categories of race: Caucasian, mixed, Asian and black. Other apartheid laws were enforced according to those categories. The Population Registration Act was the final apartheid law to be repealed, except for the one that prevented blacks from voting.
- 1994 --- After a dramatic flight from justice witnessed by millions on live television, former football star and actor O.J. Simpson surrenders outside his Rockingham estate to Los Angeles police. The police charged him with the June 12 double-murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman. Earlier in the day, after learning he was to be arraigned on the charges, Simpson attempted to escape Los Angeles, but the police located him in a vehicle being driven by his friend, former professional football player Al Cowlings. Simpson, speaking on a cellular phone to the police, explained that he had a gun and was suicidal, and the police agreed not to stop his vehicle by force. Los Angeles news helicopters soon learned of the event unfolding on their freeways, and live television coverage of Simpson's attempted flight began. As millions watched, Cowlings drove Simpson's white Ford Bronco, escorted by a phalanx of police cars, across Los Angeles while Simpson cowered in the back seat, allegedly with a gun to his head. Finally, after nearly nine hours on the road, the Bronco returned to the Rockingham estate, and a tense 90-minute
standoff in the driveway ensued before Simpson finally surrendered. In the vehicle and on his person were discovered the gun, a mustache and goatee disguise, and his passport.
- Birthdays
- Venus Williams
- Igor Stravinski
- Ruth Graves Wakefield
- Barry Manilow
- Newt Gingrich
- MC Escher
- Sammy Fain
- Joe Piscopo
- Bobby Farrelly
- Greg Kinnear