56th day of 2016, 310 days remaining in the year, on this, Pierre Auguste Renoir's birthday
Sunrise 6:47am
Sunset: 5:59pm
Moonrise: 8:59pm, 96% of the now-waning moon is visible.
Tides at the Golden Gate:
High: 1:13am/12:59pm
Low: 6:52am/7:00pm
Special Celebrations today…
National Day - Kuwait
Revolution Day - Suriname
Special Holiday Choiseul Province - Solomon Islands
Introduce A Girl to Engineering Day
National Chili Day
On this day in…
1570 - England's Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.
1751 - Edward Willet displayed the first trained monkey act in the U.S.
1791 - First Bank of the United States (The President, Directors and Company, of the Bank of the United States) was chartered by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Washington.
1793 - The department heads of the U.S. government met with U.S. President Washington for the first Cabinet meeting on U.S. record.
1836 - Samuel Colt received U.S. Patent No. 138 (later 9430X) for a "revolving-cylinder pistol." It was his first patent.
1901 - The United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.
1913 - The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.
1919 - The state of Oregon became the first state to place a tax on gasoline. The tax was 1 cent per gallon.
1928 - The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, DC.
1930 - The bank check photographing device was patented.
1933 - The aircraft carrier Ranger was launched. It was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.
1837 - Thomas Davenport patented the first commercial electrical motor. There was no practical electical distribution system available and Davenport went bankrupt.
1940 - The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens played in the first hockey game to be televised in the U.S. The game was aired on W2WBS in New York with one camera in a fixed position. The Rangers beat the Canadiens 6-2.Nhl
1948 - Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.
1956 - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.
1972 - Germany gave a $5 million ransom to Arab terrorist who had hijacked a jumbo jet.
1986 - Filippino President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule after a tainted election.
1999 - William King was sentenced to death for the racial murder of James Byrd Jr in Jasper, TX. Two other men charged were later convicted for their involvement.
1999 - In Moscow, China's Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Russia's President Boris Yeltsin discussed trade and other issues.y2000
2000 - In Albany, NY, a jury acquitted four New York City police officers of second-degree murder and lesser charges in the February 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo.
Birthday celebrants today include (or included)…
Pierre Auguste Renoir 1841
Zeppo Marx 1901
Jim Backus 1913
Ralph Baldwin 1916
Anthony Burgess 1917
Bobby Riggs 1918
Bert Remsen 1925
Ralph Stanley 1927
René Thomas 1927
Larry Gelbart 1928
Tommy Newsom 1929
Sally Jessy Raphael (Sally Lowenthal) 1935
Tom Courtenay 1937
Bob Schieffer 1937
George Harrison 1943
Karen Grassle 1944
Jack Handey 1961
Cesar Cedeno 1951
Lee Evans 1947
Carrot Top 1967
Sean Astin 1971
Julio Iglesias Jr. 1973
Chelsea Handler 1975
Rashida Jones 1976
