167th day of 2015, 198 remaining
- Sunrise: 5:47am
- Sunset: 8:34pm
- Moonrise: 6:10am, 0% visible, New Moon
- Moonset: 8:40pm
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 1:57pm
- Low: 6:07am/5:53pm
Special Celebrations today…
Youth Day - South Africa
International Day of the African Child
Blooms Day - Ireland
National Fudge Day
Feast of St. Benno, patron of anglers, fishermen.
On this day in…
0455 - Rome was sacked by the Vandal army.
1487 - The War of the Roses ended with the Battle of Stoke.
1567 - Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland.
1815 - Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny, Netherlands.
1858 - In a speech in Springfield,IL,U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved. He declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
1884 - At Coney Island, in Brooklyn, NY, the first roller coaster in America opened.
1890 - The second Madison Square Gardens opened.
1883 - The New York Giantsbaseball team admitted all ladies for free to the ballpark. It was the first Ladies Day.
1897 - TheU.S. government signed a treaty of annexation withHawaii.
1903 - Ford Motor Company was incorporated.
1904 - The novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce took place. The main character of the book was Leopold Bloom.
1907 - The Russian czar dissolved the Duma in St. Petersburg.
1909 - Glenn Hammond Curtiss sold his first airplane, the "Gold Bug" to the New York Aeronautical Society for $5,000.
1922 - Henry Berliner accomplished the first helicopter flight at College Park,MD.
1925 - France accepted a German proposal for a security pact.
1932 - The ban on Nazi storm troopers was lifted by the von Papen government in Germany.
1940 - Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain became the prime minister of the Vichy government of occupied France.
1941 -U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the closure of all German consulates in theUnited States. The deadline was set as July 10.
1952 - "My Little Margie" debuted on CBS-TV.
1952 - "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl" was published in theUnited States.
1955 - TheU.S. House of Representatives voted to extend Selective Service until 1959.
1955 - Pope Pius XII excommunicated Argentine President Juan Peron. The ban was lifted eight years later.
1955 - Argentine naval officers launched an attack on President Juan Peron's headquarters. The revolt was suppressed by the army.
1961 - Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union while in Paris, traveling with the Leningrad Kirov Ballet.
1963 - 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova went into orbit aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft for three days. She was the first female space traveler.
1972 - Ulrike Meinhof was captured by West German police in Hanover. She was co-founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group and the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion).
1975 - The Simonstown agreement on naval cooperation between Britain and South Africa ended. The agreement was formally ended by mutual agreement after 169 years.
1976 - In Soweto, thousands of school children revolted against the South African government's plan to enforce Afrikaans as the language for instruction in black schools.
1977 - Leonid Brezhnev was named the first Soviet president of the USSR. He was the first person to hold the post of president and Communist Party General Secretary. He replaced Nikolai Podgorny.
1978 -U.S. President Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos ratified the Panama Canal treaties.
1978 - The film adaptation of "Grease" premiered in New York City.
1980 - The movie "The Blues Brothers" opened in Chicago,IL.
1981 - The "Chicago Tribune" purchased the Chicago Cubs baseball team from the P.K. Wrigley Chewing Gum Company for $20.5 million.
1983 - Yuri Andropov was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The position was the equivalent of president.
1984 - Wilson Ferreira Aldunate was arrested upon his return from an eleven year exile. Aldunate had been a popular Uruguayan opposition leader.
1985 - Willie Banks broke the world record for the triple jump with a leap of 58 feet, 11-1/2 inches in the U.S.A. championships in Indianapolis, IN.
1992 -U.S. President George H.W. Bush welcomed Russian President Boris Yeltsin to a meeting in Washington, DC. The two agreed in principle to reduce strategic weapon arsenals by about two-thirds by the year 2003.
1993 - TheU.S. Postal Service released a set of seven stamps that featured Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Clyde McPhatter, Otis Redding, Ritchie Valens, Dinah Washington and Elvis Presley.
1996 - Russian voters had their first independent presidential election. Boris Yeltsin was the winner after a run-off.
1999 - TheU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a 1992 federal music piracy law does not prohibit a palm-sized device that can download high-quality digital music files from the Internet and play them at home.
2000 -U.S. federal regulators approved the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE Corp. The merger created the nation's largest local phone company.
2000 - U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson reported that an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had discovered that two computer hard drives were missing.
2008 - California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Birthday celebrants today include (or included)...
Stan Laurel 1890
Helen Traubel 1899
Jack Albertson 1910
Hank Lusetti 1916
Katherine Graham 1917
John Howard Griffin 1920
Erich Segal 1937
Joyce Carol Oates 1938 - Author
Corin Redgrave 1939
Billy 'Crash' Craddock 1939 - Country singer
Lamont Dozier 1941 - Songwriter
Eddie Levert 1942 - Musician (The O'Jays)
Joan Van Ark 1943 - Actress ("Knot's Landing")
Ian Matthews 1945 - Musician (Fairport Convention)
Derek Sanderson 1946
James Smith 1950 - Musician (The Stylistics)
Roberto Duran 1951 - Boxer
Gino Vannelli 1952 - Singer
Laurie Metcalf 1955 - Actress
Jenny Smimizu 1967
Phil Mickelson 1970 - Golf player
Tupac Shakur 1971 - Rapper
Eddie Cibrian 1973
Frederick Koehler 1975
China Shavers 1977
Kerry Wood 1977 - Baseball player
Missy Peregrym 1982 - Actress
Olivia Hack 1983