Jazz great Herbie Mann (1930-2003) born this day in 1930.
Today is Monday, April 16, 2018, the 106th day of the year with 59 days remaining.
Sunrise: 6:33am
Sunset: 7:47pm
...giving us 13 hours and 13 minutes of daylight. None of the now new moon will be visible, more visible in the days ahead.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 12:18am/1:05pm
- Low: 6:25am/6:26pm
Special international celebrations today…
- De Diego's Birthday - Puerto Rico
- Militia Day - Cuba
- Qana Memorial Day - Lebanon
- Queen Margrethe’s birthday - Denmark
- Queen's Birthday - Greenland
It’s also…
- Emancipation Day - US
- Librarian Day - US
- Boston Marathon Day "Patriot Day"
- Foursquare Day
- National Bean Counter Day
- National Health Care Decisions Day
- National Orchid Day
- Save The Elephant Day
- National Eggs Benedict Day
- Feast of St. Drogo, patron of coffee house owners and keepers
- Feast of St. Magnus of Orkney, patron of fishmongers
- Feast of St. Bernadette's Day, patron of shepherds
On this day in…
0069 - Otho committed suicide after being defeated by Vitellius' troops at Bedriacum.
0556 - Pelagius I began his reign as Catholic Pope.
1065 - The Norman Robert Guiscard took Bari. Five centuries of Byzantine rule in southern Italy ended.
1175 - Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, signed the Treaty of Montebello with the Lombard League.
1705 - Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton.
1746 - The Duke of Cumberland defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie (and his Jacobites) at the battle of Culloden.
1818 - The U.S. Senate ratified Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border.
1851 - A lighthouse was swept away in a gale at Minot’s Ledge, MA.
1854 - San Salvador was destroyed by an earthquake.
1862 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.
1862 - In the U.S., slavery was abolished by law in the District of Columbia.
1883 - Paul Kruger became president of the South African Republic.
1900 - The first book of postage stamps was issued. The two-cent stamps were available in books of 12, 24 and 48 stamps.
1905 - Andrew Carnegie donated $10,000,000 of personal money to set up the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
1912 - Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
1917 - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia to start Bolshevik Revolution after years of exile.
1922 - Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, to set a women's record.
1922 - The Soviet Union and Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo under which Germany recognized the Soviet Union and diplomatic and trade relations were restored.
1935 - "Fibber McGee and Molly" premiered.
1940 - The first no-hit, no-run game to be thrown on an opening day of the major league baseball season was earned by Bob Feller. The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox 1-0.
1942 - The Island of Malta was awarded the George Cross in recognition for heroism under constant German air attack.
1943 - In Basel, Switzerland, chemist Albert Hoffman accidently discovered the the hallucinogenic effects of LSD-25 while working on the medicinal value of lysergic acid.
1944 - The destroyer USS Laffey survived immense damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.
1945 - American troops entered Nuremberg, Germany.
1947 - The Zoomar lens, invented by Dr. Frank Back, was demonstrated in New York City. It was the first lens to exhibit zooming effects.
1947 - In Texas City, TX, the French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew up. The explosions and resulting fires killed 576 people.
1948 - In Paris, the Organization for European Economic Co-operation was set up.
1951 - 75 people were killed when the British submarine Affray sank in the English Channel.
1953 - The British royal yacht Britannia was launched.
1962 - Walter Cronkite began anchoring "The CBS Evening News".
1967 - At the Western Open in El Monte, CA, Ken Barnes Jr. became the first skeet shooter to break a perfect 400 x 400 in all four guns (.410, 28, 20, and 12 gauges). He is also the only shooter to do this with pump action guns.
1968 - The Pentagon announced that troops would begin coming home from Vietnam.
1968 - Major league baseball's longest night game was played when the Houston Astros defeated the New York Mets 1-0. The 24 innings took six hours, six minutes to play.
1972 - Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon. It was the fifth manned moon landing.
1972 - Two giants pandas arrived in the U.S. from China.
1975 - The Khmer Rouge Rebels won control of Cambodia after a five years of civil war. They renamed the country Kampuchea and began a reign of terror.
1978 - In Orissa, India, 180 people died when a tornado hit.
1982 - Queen Elizabeth proclaimed Canada's new constitution in effect. The act severed the last colonial links with Britain.
1983 - China shelled the Vietnam border in retaliation for raids.
1983 - Brazil detained four Libyan planes en route to Nicaragua after finding weapons, explosives and ammunition on the planes.
1985 - Mickey Mantle was reinstated after being banned from baseball for several years.
1987 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sternly warned U.S. radio stations to watch the use of indecent language on the airwaves.
1987 - The U.S. Patent Office began allowing the patenting of new animals created by genetic engineering.
1992 - Italian financier Carlo de Benedetti and 32 others were convicted of fraud in connection with the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano.
1992 - The House ethics committee listed 303 current and former lawmakers who had overdrawn their House bank accounts.
1995 - The European Union and Canada agreed to protect threatened fish stocks in the north Atlantic.
1996 - Britain's Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, announced that they were in the process of getting a divorce.
1996 - An Italian court found former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi guilty on charges of corruption. He was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison.
1999 - Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement from the National Hockey League (NHL).
2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court overturned major parts of a 1996 child pornography law based on rights to free speech.
2007 - In Blacksburg, VA, a student killed 33 people at Virginia Tech before killing himself.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Hans Sloane 1660 - Doctor, naturalist, instrumental in founding of the British Museum
- Sir John Franklin 1786
- Flora Batson 1864
- Jose de Diego 1866 - Patriot and political leader of Puerto Rico
- Wilbur Wright 1867 - Aviator, one of the Wright Brothers
- John Millington Synge 1871 - Poet, playwright
- Charlie Chaplin 1889 - Actor, comedian
- Les Tremayne (Henning) 1913 - Actor ("The War of the Worlds", "The Slime People")
- John Hodiak 1914 - Actor
- Spike Milligan 1918
- Merce Cunningham 1919 - Dancer, choreographer
- Sir Peter Ustinov 1921 - Actor
- Kingsly Amis 1922 - Novelist
- Bennie Green 1923 - Musician, lyricist
- Barry Nelson 1920 - Actor ("Airport", "The Shining"), first actor to portray Ian Fleming's James Bond.
- Henry Mancini (Enrico Nicola Mancini) 1924 - Composer (themes for "The Pink Panther", "Peter Gunn")
- Joseph Alois Ratzinger 1927 - Pope Benedict XVI
- Edie Adams 1929 - Actress
- Ed Townshend 1929
- Roy Hamilton 1929 - Singer
- Herbie Mann (Soloman) 1930 - Jazz musician
- Ike Pappas 1933 - Singer
- Bobby Vinton 1935 - Singer
- Dusty Springfield (Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien) 1939 - Singer
- Queen Margrethe II 1940 - Queen of Denmark
- Jim (James Reynold) Lonborg 1942 - Baseball player
- Dave Peverett (Lonesome Dave) 1943 - Musician (Foghat)
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) 1947 - Basketball player
- Gerry Rafferty 1947 - Singer, songwriter
- Bill Spooner 1949 - Musician (The Tubes)
- Peter Garrett 1953 - Singer (Midnight Oil)
- Jay O. Sanders 1953 - Actor
- Ellen Barkin 1954 - Actress ("Eddie and the Cruisers")
- Jimmy Osmond 1963 - Singer (The Osmonds), the youngest Osmond
- David Pirner 1964 - Musician (Soul Asylum)
- John Cryer 1965 - Actor ("Superman 4: The Quest for Peace", "Pretty in Pink", "Two and a Half Men")
- Martin Lawrence 1965 - Actor, comedian
- Dan Rieser 1966 - Musician (Marcy Playground)
- Selena Quintanilla 1971 - Singer
- Peter Billingsley 1972 - Actor ("A Christmas Story")
- Lukas Haas 1976 - Actor
- Samantha Char 1995
