- 183rd Day of 2014 / 182 Remaining
- Autumn Begins in 82 Days
- Sunrise:5:52
- Sunset:8:35
- 14 Hours 40 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:10:54am
- Moon Set:11:37pm
- Moon Phase: 25%
- 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:1:56am/3:43pm
- Low:8:42am/9:33pm
- Holidays
- National Anisette Day
- Halfway Point of 2011
- International Day of Cooperatives
- Palio-Italy
- Flag Day-Curacao
- On This Day In …
- 1776 --- Richard Henry Lee’s resolution that the American colonies "are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States" was adopted by the Continental Congress.
- 1850 --- B.J. Lane patented the gas mask.
- 1863 --- During the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia attacks General George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac at both Culp's Hill and Little Round Top, but fails to move the Yankees from their positions. On the north end of the line, or the Union's right flank, Confederates from General Richard Ewell's corps struggled up Culp's Hill, which was steep and heavily wooded, before being turned back by heavy Union fire. But the most significant action was on the south end of the Union line. General James Longstreet’s corps launched an attack against the Yankees, but only after a delay that allowed additional Union troops to arrive and position themselves along Cemetery Ridge. Many people later blamed Longstreet for the Confederates' eventual defeat. Still, the Confederates had a chance to destroy
the Union left flank when General Daniel Sickles moved his corps, against Meade's orders, from their position on the ridge to open ground around the Peach Orchard. This move separated Sickles' force from the rest of the Union army, and Longstreet attacked. Although the Confederates were able to take the Peach Orchard, they were repulsed by Yankee opposition at Little Round Top. Some of the fiercest fighting took place on this day, and both armies suffered heavy casualties. Lee's army regrouped that evening and planned for one last assault against the Union center on July 3: the infamous Pickett's Charge.
- 1867 --- New York City’s first elevated railroad officially opened for business. Commuters soon called the mode of transportation the El.
- 1881 --- Only four months into his administration, President James A. Garfield is shot as he walks through a railroad waiting room in Washington, D.C. His assailant, Charles J. Guiteau, was a disgruntled and perhaps insane office seeker who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the U.S. consul in Paris. The president was shot in the back and the arm, and Guiteau was arrested. Garfield, mortally ill, was treated in Washington and then taken to the seashore at Elberon, New Jersey, where he attempted to recuperate with his family. During this time, Vice President Chester A. Arthur served as acting president. On September 19, 1881, after 80 days, President Garfield died of blood poisoning.
- 1900 --- In the sky over Germany's Lake Constance, Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, a retired Prussian army officer, successfully demonstrates the world's first rigid airship. The 420-foot, cigar-shaped craft was lifted by hydrogen gas and powered by a 16-horsepower engine.
- 1933 --- Baseball great Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants hurled 18 innings of shutout ball to lead the Giants to a 1-0 win over St. Louis in the first half of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds in New York. The Giants took the nightcap, as well, by an identical 1-0 score.
- 1937 --- The Lockheed aircraft carrying American aviator Amelia Earhardt and navigator Frederick Noonan is reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The pair were attempting to fly around the world when they lost their bearings during the most challenging leg of the global journey: Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, a tiny island 2,227 nautical miles away, in the center of the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was in sporadic radio contact with Earhart as she approached Howland Island and received messages that she was lost and running low on fuel. Soon after, she probably tried to ditch the Lockheed in the ocean. No trace of Earhart or Noonan was ever found.
- 1938 --- Helen Wills Moody (below left) defeats a hobbled Helen Jacobs 6-4, 6-0 to win her eighth Wimbledon singles title. The victory was the final major championship for Moody, who had been the dominant player in women’s tennis for the better part of two decades.
- 1947 --- An object crashed near Roswell, the Army Air Force insisted it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts led to speculation that it might have been an alien spacecraft.
- 1951 --- NBC radio presented Bob and Ray (Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding) on a network radio show.
- 1955 --- ABC Television premiered "The Lawrence Welk Show."
- 1961 --- Author Ernest Hemingway, 61, shot himself to death at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
- 1962 --- The first Walmart store (called Wal-Mart Discount City) was opened in Rogers, Ark., by Sam Walton and his brother, James.
- 1964 --- U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.The Civil Rights Act fought tough opposition in the House and a lengthy, heated debate in the Senate before being approved in July 1964. For the signing of the historic legislation, Johnson invited hundreds of guests to a televised ceremony in the White House's East Room. After using more than 75 pens to sign the bill, he gave them away as mementoes of the historic occasion, according to tradition. One of the first pens went to King, leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), who called it one of his most cherished possessions. Johnson gave two more to Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen, the Democratic and Republican managers of the bill in the Senate.
- 1976 --- The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual.
- 1976 --- For the first time in 12 years, Brian Wilson joined the Beach Boys on stage. The next night the show was recorded for an NBC Beach Boys special.
- 1982 --- Larry Walters used 45 helium filled weather ballons tied to an aluminum lawn chair to ascend to 16,000 feet above Long Beach. Several very perplexed commercial airline pilots reported seeing Larry sitting in his lawn chair in the sky, heading to the Long Beach airport.
- 1990 --- A stampede of religious pilgrims in a pedestrian tunnel in Mecca leaves more than 1,400 people dead on this day in 1990. This was the most deadly of a series of incidents over 20 years affecting Muslims making the trip to Mecca.
- 1991 --- Axl Rose of Guns 'n' Roses sparked a riot during a concert outside of St. Louis when he jumped off the stage and attacked a fan who was videotaping the concert. 60 people were hurt.
- 1992 --- Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking breaks British publishing record. His book A Brief History of Time was on the nonfiction bestseller list for three and a half years, selling more than 3 million copies in 22 languages.
- 2005 --- The original members of Pink Floyd performed at the Live 8 concerts in London. It was the first time the group had played together in more than 24 years.
- 2007 --- President George W. Bush commuted the sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, sparing him from a two-and-half-year prison term in the CIA leak case.
- Birthdays
- Thurgood Marshall
- Polly Holliday
- Richard Petty
- Dave Thomas
- Jose Canseco
- Larry David
- Johnny Weir
- Lindsay Lohan
- Herman Hesse
- Medgar Evars
- Jean Rene Lacoste
- Dan Rowan
- Brock Peters
- Imelda Marcos
