- 99th Day of 2015 266 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 73 Days
- Sunrise:6:41
- Sunset:7:40
- 12 Hours 59 Minutes
- Moon Rise:12:44am(Friday)
- Moon Set:10:16am
- Phase:74%
- Full Moon May 3 @ 8:44pm
- Full Flower Moon In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.
- Tides
- High:2:07am/3:58pm
- Low:8:57am/8:51pm
- Rainfall:
- This Year to Date:17.97
- Last Year:12.30
- Avg YTD:22.00
- Annual Avg:23.80
- Holidays
- National Alcohol Screening Day
- Name Yourself Day
- Winston Churchill Day
- National Cherish An Antique Day
- National Chinese Almond Cookie Day
- Former Prisoner Of War Recognition Day
- Jenkin’s Ear Day
- International Gin & Tonic Day
- Martyr’s Day-Tunisia
- Memorial/Independence Day-Georgia
- Mikael Agricola Day-Finland
- On This Day
- 1241 --- In the Battle of Liegnitz, Mongol armies defeated the Poles and the Germans.
- 1667 --- In Paris, The first public art exhibition was held at the Palais-Royale.
- 1770 --- Capt. James Cook discovered Botany Bay on the Australian continent.
- 1859 --- A 23-year-old Missouri youth named Samuel Langhorne Clemens receives his steamboat pilot’s license. Clemens had signed on as a pilot’s apprentice in 1857 while on his way to Mississippi. He had been commissioned to write a series of comic travel letters for the Keokuk Daily Post, but after writing five, decided he’d rather be a pilot than a writer.
- 1865 --- At Appomattox, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, and harassed constantly by Union cavalry, Lee had no other option. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had actually outrun Lee’s army, blocking their retreat and taking 6,000 prisoners at Sayler’s Creek. Desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Confederates were surrounded with no possibility of escape. On April 9, Lee sent a message to Grant announcing his willingness to surrender. Characteristically, Grant arrived in his muddy field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword. Lee asked for the terms, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. All officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property–most important, the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee’s starving men would be given Union rations. Shushing a band that had begun to play in celebration, General Grant told his officers, “The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again.”
- 1867 --- The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty with Russia that purchased the territory of Alaska by one vote.
- 1912 --- The first exhibition baseball game was held at Fenway Park in Boston. The game was between Red Sox and Harvard.
- 1913 --- The Brooklyn Dodgers' Ebbets Field opened.
- 1928 --- Mae West made her debut on Broadway in the production of "Diamond Lil."
- 1939 --- On Easter Sunday more than 75,000 people come to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to hear famed African-American contralto Marian Anderson give a free open-air concert. Anderson had been scheduled to sing at Washington’s Constitution Hall, but the Daughters of the American Revolution, a political organization that helped manage the concert hall, denied her the right to perform because of her race. The first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned her membership from the organization in protest, and Anderson’s alternate performance at the Lincoln Memorial served greatly to raise awareness of the problem of racial discrimination in America.
- 1940 --- Germany invaded Denmark and Norway during World War II.
- 1942 --- Major General Edward P. King Jr. surrenders at Bataan, Philippines–against General Douglas MacArthur’s orders–and 78,000 troops (66,000 Filipinos and 12,000 Americans), the largest contingent of U.S. soldiers ever to surrender, are taken captive by the Japanese.
- 1947 --- The town of Woodward, Oklahoma, is nearly wiped off the map by a powerful tornado on this day in 1947. More than 100 people died in Woodward, and 80 more lost their lives elsewhere in the series of twisters that hit the U.S. heartland that day.
- 1959 --- NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.
- 1962 --- The 34th annual Academy Awards ceremony is held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. In addition to the overwhelming triumph of the musical West Side Story, which won 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, one of the big victors of the night was the Italian actress Sophia Loren, who took home the Best Actress statuette for her star turn in Two Women (La ciociara in Italian).
- 1962 --- President John F. Kennedy throws out the ceremonial first pitch in Washington D.C.’s new stadium, called simply “D.C. Stadium.”
- 1963 --- Winston Churchill became the first honorary U.S. citizen.
- 1965 --- The entire cast of the comic strip 'Peanuts' was featured on the cover of TIME magazine
- 1965 --- The Houston Astrodome held its first baseball game.
- 1965 --- The Rolling Stones made their first live appearance on British TV's "Ready Steady Go!"
- 1969 --- The album "Nashville Skyline" by Bob Dylan was released.
- 1969 --- The Chicago Eight, indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, plead not guilty.
- 1970 --- Paul McCartney quit the Beatles.
- 1976 --- Phil Ochs committed suicide at the age of 35.
- 1989 --- Hundreds of thousands marched past the White House in support of the right to abortion.
- 1992 --- Former Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega was convicted in Miami of eight drug and racketeering charges.
- 1998 --- The National Prisoner of War Museum opened in Andersonville, GA, at the site of an infamous Civil War camp.
- 2009 -- The Honda FCX Clarity, a four-door sedan billed as the planet’s first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production, wins the World Green Car award at the New York Auto Show.
- Birthdays
- Emily Hobhouse
- Gregory Pincus
- Sol Hurok
- Paul Robeson
- Ward Bond
- Tom Lehrer
- Jim Fowler
- Carl Perkins
- Avery Schriber
- Dennis Quaid
- Seve Ballesteros
- Lisa Guerrero
- Paulina Porizkova
- Cynthia Nixon
Thursday April 9, 2015
