It's Bat Appreciation Day! Today is Monday, April 17, 2017 the 106 day of the year with 258 days remaining.
- Sunrise: 6:31am
- Sunset: 7:48pm
...giving us 13 hours and 16 minutes of daylight. 74% of the waning moon will be visible, rising at 12:48am.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 3:41am/6:13pm
- Low: 10:34am/10:58pm
Special international celebrations today…
FAO Day - Iraq
Independence Day - Cambodia, Syria
It’s also…
Egg Salad Week
National Animal Crackers Day
Bat Appreciation Day
Blah! Blah! Blah! Day
Dyngus Day
Ellis Island Family History Day
Ford Mustang Day
Malbec World Day
Nothing Like A Dame Day
Haiku Poetry Day
On this day in…
1492 - Christopher Columbus signed a contract with Spain to find a passage to Asia and the Indies.
1521 - Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1524 - New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.
1535 - Antonio Mendoza was appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
1629 - Horses were first imported into the colonies by the American Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1704 - John Campbell published what would eventually become the first successful American newspaper. It was known as the Boston "News-Letter."
1758 - Frances Williams published a collection of Latin poems. He was the first African-American to graduate from a college in the western hemisphere.
1808 - Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships.
1810 - Pineapple cheese was patented by Lewis M. Norton.
1824 - Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54' 40'.
1860 - New Yorkers learned of a new law that required fire escapes to be provided for tenement houses.
1861 - Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union.
1864 - U.S. Civil War General Grant banned the trading of prisoners.
1865 - Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
1875 - The game "snooker" was invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
1895 - China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki. It was the end of the first Sino-Japanese War. In the treaty China ceded Taiwan to Japan.
1916 - The American Academy of Arts and Letters obtained a charter from the U.S. Congress.
1917 - A bill in Congress to establish Daylight Saving Time was defeated. It was passed a couple of months later.
1935 - "Lights Out" debuted on NBC Radio. It ran until 1952.
1941 - Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter lift-off from water near Stratford, CT.
1941 - The office of Price Administration was established in the U.S. to handle rationing.
1946 - The last French troops left Syria.
1947 - Jackie Robinson (Brooklyn Dodgers) performed a bunt for his first major league hit.
1961 - About 1,400 U.S.-supported Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. It was an unsuccessful attack.
1964 - Jerrie Mock became first woman to fly an airplane solo around the world.
1964 - The Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model.
1967 - "The Joey Bishop Show" debuted on ABC-TV.
1967 - The U.S. Supreme Court barred Muhammad Ali's request to be blocked from induction into the U.S. Army.
1969 - In Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1969 - Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek was deposed.
1970 - Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after an on-board accident with an oxygen tank.
1975 - Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was the end of the five-year war.
1983 - In Warsaw, police routed 1,000 Solidarity supporters.
1983 - In New York, a transit strike that began on March 7 ended.
19840 - In London, demonstrators outside the Libyan Embassy were fired upon from someone inside. Eleven people were injured and an English Police woman was killed.
1985 - The U.S. Postal Service unveiled its new 22-cent, "LOVE" stamp.
1985 - In Lebanon, the cabinet resigned as Shiites took W. Beirut.
1987 - In Sri Lanka, Tamil guerrillas killed 122 people in a road ambush.
1989 - In Poland, courts gave Solidarity legal status.
1993 - A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King. Two other officers were acquitted.
1996 - Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing their parents.
1999 - In India, the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee collapsed after losing a vote of confidence.
2002 - At the National Maritime Museum in London, the exhibit "Skin Deep - A History of Tattooing" opened.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
Henry Vaughan 1622 - Author, physician, poet
Mifflin Gibbs 1823 - Abolitionist, judge
J.P. (John Pierpoint) Morgan 1837 - Financier
Thornton Wilder 1897 - Novelist, playwright
Gregor Piatigorsky 1903 - Cellist
Arthur Lake 1905 - Actor ("Blondie" series)
Sirimavo Bandaranaike 1916 - Ceylon Prime Minister, the world's first woman prime minister
William Holden (Beedle Jr.) 1918 - Actor ("Stalag 17 [1953]", "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Towering Inferno")
Harry Reasoner 1923 - Newsman ("Sixty Minutes")
Lon McCallister 1923
Solly (Solomon Joseph) Hemus 1923 - Baseball player
Lindsay Anderson 1923 - Director
Roy Gallant 1924 - Author
Chris Barber 1930 - Musician, bandleader
Don Kirshner 1934 - Music publisher, created The Monkees
Warren Chiasson 1934 - Jazz musician (Warren Chiasson Duo)
Lamar Lundy 1935 - Football player
Dennis Hextall 1943 - Hockey player
Bobby Curtola 1944 - Singer
Jan Hammer 1948 - Composer, musician
Pedro (Modesto Delfi) Garcia 1950 - Baseball player
Olivia Hussey 1951 - Actress ("Ice Cream Man", "Psycho 4: The Beginning")
Pete Shelley (Peter Campbell McNeish) 1955 - Musician (The Buzzcocks)
Sean Bean 1958 - Actor ("Goldeneye", "The Lord of the Rings" series)
Teri Austin 1959
Stephen Singleton 1959 - Musician (ABC)
Boomer (Norman) Esiason 1961 - Football player, TV commentator
Lela Rochon 1964
William Mapother 1965 - Actor ("Lost)
Henry Cusick 1967 - Actor ("Lost") - Lost Merchandise
Marquis Grissom 1967 - Baseball player
Liz Phair 1967 - Singer, songwriter
Redman 1970 - Rapper, actor
Jennifer Anne Garner 1972 - Actress ("Daredevil", "Electra", "Alias")
Victoria Beckham (Victoria Caroline Adams) 1974 - Singer (Posh Spice of the Spice Girls)
