Monday AUgust 18, 2014

• 230^th Day of the Year / 135 Remaining
• Autumn Begins in 35 Days

• Sunrise:6:28
• Sunset:7:58
• 13 Hours 30 Minutes

• Moon Rise:12:41am
• Moon Set:3:05pm
• Moon’s Phase 37%
• Full Moon August 10 @ 11:10am
• Full Sturgeon Moon

The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

• Tides
• High Tide:6:59am/6:04pm
• Low Tide:12:19am/11:56am

• Holidays
• Bad Poetry Day
• National Cupcake Day
• Mail Order Catalog Day
• Ice Cream Pie Day
• Soft Ice Cream Day
• Serendipity Day

• On This Day
• 1227 --- Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who forged an empire stretching from the east coast of China west to the Aral Sea, dies in camp during a campaign against the Chinese kingdom of Xi Xia.

  

• 1587 --- Virginia Dare became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil, on what is now Roanoke Island, N.C. Ellinor and Ananias Dare were Baby Virginia’s parents; her grandfather, 

  

  John White, was the governor of the Roanoke Colony. As far as anyone knows, all was well with the little colony. That is, until four years later when. John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence. Among the missing were Ellinor Dare, White's daughter; and Virginia Dare, White's granddaughter and the first English child born in America. August 18 was to have been Virginia's third birthday. The only clue to their mysterious disappearance was the word "CROATOAN" carved into the palisade 

  

  that had been built around the settlement. White took the letters to mean that the colonists had moved to Croatoan Island, some 50 miles away, but a later search of the island found none of the settlers.

• 1872 --- Montgomery Ward published the first mail order catalog. It consisted of one page and listed more than 150 items for sale.

• 1896 --- Carr Baker Neel and Samuel Neel won the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association’s outdoor men’s-doubles title at Newport, Rhode Island. It was the first time that two brothers had taken the title.

  

• 1899 --- The Chicago Anti-Cigarette League was formed by Lucy Payne Gaston.

• 1920 --- The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 

  

  years of struggle by woman suffragists. Its two sections read simply: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" and "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

• 1931 --- The Yangtze River in China peaks during a horrible flood that kills 3.7 million people directly and indirectly over the next several months. This was perhaps the worst natural disaster of the 20th century.

  

• 1938 --- The Thousand Islands Bridge was dedicated by U.S.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The bridge connects the U.S. and Canada.

  

• 1958 --- Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita" was published. The novel, about a man's obsession with a 12-year-old girl, had been rejected by four publishers before G.P. Putnam's Sons accepted it. The novel became a bestseller that allowed Nabokov to retire from his career as college professor.

  

• 1962 --- Ringo Starr made his first appearance as a Beatle.

  

• 1963 --- James Meredith, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, graduates with a degree in political science. His enrollment in the university a year earlier was met with 

  

  deadly riots, and he subsequently attended class under heavily armed guard. Meredith applied and was accepted to the University of Mississippi in 1962, but his admission was revoked when the registrar learned of his race. A federal court ordered "Ole Miss" to admit him, but when he tried to register on September 20, 1962, he found the entrance to the office blocked by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. On September 28, the governor was found guilty of civil contempt and was ordered to cease his interference with desegregation at the university or face arrest and a fine of $10,000 a day. Two days later, Meredith was escorted onto the Ole Miss campus by U.S. Marshals, setting off riots that resulted in the deaths of two students. He returned the next day and began classes. Meredith, who was a transfer student from all-black Jackson State College, graduated the next year.

• 1969 --- The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, N.Y., concluded with a mid-morning set by Jimi Hendrix. During the sometimes rainy weekend, 32 acts performed outdoors before an audience of 400,000 young people.  It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history. Rolling Stone listed it as one of 

  

  the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll. The festival is also widely considered to be the definitive nexus for the larger counter culture generation. The event was captured in the 1970 documentary movie Woodstock, an accompanying soundtrack album, and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", which commemorated the event and became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

• 1977 --- Funeral services for Elvis Presley were held at Graceland.

  

• 1982 --- The longest baseball game played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL went 22 innings before the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Cubs 2-1. The game had started the previous day and had been postponed, after 17 innings, because of darkness.

• 1983 --- Hurricane Alicia slammed into the Texas coast, leaving 22 dead and causing more than a billion dollars in damage.

  

• 1998 --- The Honorable Gary M. Little shoots himself just hours before the Seattle Post-Intelligencer releases an article accusing him of abusing his power by sexually exploiting juvenile defendants who appeared before him. The front-page article also suggested that he had exploited his teenage students as a teacher in the 1960s and1970s. The scandal raised questions about the judicial system, because Little had been investigated and disciplined, but the investigations had been kept a secret. In 1981, Little's first year as a judge, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer received a tip about Little's unusual relations with juvenile defendants. When the reporter investigated the matter, he found that Little, who was working as a volunteer counselor in juvenile court at the time, had been charged with third-degree assault in 1964. He was accused of assaulting a 16-year-old defendant in his apartment, but the charges had been dismissed. The paper never published the story, but it sparked an investigation by deputies working for King County prosecuting attorney Norm Maleng.

• 1991 --- Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces. Since becoming secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the Union of Soviet 

  

  Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1988, Gorbachev had pursued comprehensive reforms of the Soviet system. Combining perestroika ("restructuring") of the economy--including a greater emphasis on free-market policies--and glasnost ("openness") in diplomacy, he greatly improved Soviet relations with Western democracies, particularly the United States. Meanwhile, though, within the USSR, Gorbachev faced powerful critics, including conservative, hard-line politicians and military officials who thought he was driving the Soviet Union toward its downfall and making it a second-rate power. On the other side were even more radical reformers--particularly Boris Yeltsin, president of the most powerful socialist republic, Russia--who complained that Gorbachev was just not working fast enough. The August 1991 coup was carried out by the hard-line elements within Gorbachev's own administration, as well as the heads of the Soviet army and the KGB, or secret police. Detained at his vacation villa in the Crimea, he was placed under house arrest and pressured to give his resignation, which he refused to do.

  

  Claiming Gorbachev was ill, the coup leaders, headed by former vice president Gennady Yanayev, declared a state of emergency and attempted to take control of the government.

• 2004 --- Donald Trump unveiled his board game (TRUMP the Game) where players bid on real estate, buy big ticket items and make billion-dollar business deals.

  

• 2010 --- The USDA expanded a recall of eggs from two Iowa producers to 380 million eggs nationwide after they were linked to an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. (A much smaller initial recall was issued on August 13). The massive recall was expanded to more than half-billion eggs by August 20.  More than 1,000 people had been sickened.

  

• Birthdays
• Roberto Clemente
• Elayne Boosler
• Madeline Stowe
• Denis Leary
• Malcolm Jamal Warner
• Andy Samberg
• Shelley Winters
• Rosalynn Carter
• Nona Hendryx
• Roman Polanski
• Edward Norton
• Robert Redford
• Martin Mull
• Meriwether Lewis
• Antonio Salieri