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Almanac - Thursday 1/31/19

Brussel Sprouts (This is what happens when you get a new camera...) by flickr user Giles Alexander

Today is Thursday, the 31st of January of 2019 is the 31st day of the year.  There are 334 days remaining until the end of the year.  48 days until spring begins.

642 day until Presidential Elections on Tuesday November 3, 2020

(1 year 9 months and 3 days from today)

The sun rises at 7:14 am 

and sunset will be at 5:34 pm.

Today we will have 10 hours and 20 minutes of daylight.

Solar noon will be at 12:24 pm.

The first low tide was at 1:51 am

and the next low tide will be at 3:07 pm.

The first high tide will be at 8:02 am 

and the next high tide at 10:15 pm.

The Moon is 16.3% visible; a Waning Crescent

Moon Direction: 122.95° ESE↑

Moon Altitude: 6.48°

Moon Distance: 247846 mi

Next New Moon: Sunday February 4, 2019 at 1:03 pm

Lunar New Year is the following day, Monday the 5th.

It will be the Year Of The Pig, or the Boar.

Next Full Moon: Monday February 19, 2019 at 7:53 am

Next Moonset: Today at 2:11 pm

Today is…

Appreciate Your Social Security Check Day

Backwards Day

Brandy Alexander Day

Eat Brussel Sprouts Day

Hell is Freezing Over Day

Hug an Economist Day

Inspire Your Heart with Art Day

National Hot Chocolate Day

Scotch Tape Day

Today is also…

Amartithi (MeherabadIndia, followers of Meher Baba)

Independence Day (Nauru), celebrates independence from Australia in 1968.

Street Children's Day (Austria)

If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You!  You share this special day with…

1797 – Franz Schubert, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1828)

1872 – Zane Grey, American author (d. 1939)

1892 – Eddie Cantor, American singer-songwriter, actor, and dancer (d. 1964)

1902 – Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (d. 1968)

1915 – Alan Lomax, American historian, author, and scholar (d. 2002)

1915 – Thomas Merton, American monk and author (d. 1968)

1919 – Jackie Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1972)

1921 – Carol Channing, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2019)

1921 – Mario Lanza, American tenor and actor (d. 1959)

1923 – Norman Mailer, American journalist and author (d. 2007)

1925 – Benjamin Hooks, American minister, lawyer, and activist (d. 2010)

1927 – Norm Prescott, American animator, producer, and composer, co-founded Filmation Studios (d. 2005)

1935 – Kenzaburō Ōe, Japanese author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate

1937 – Philip Glass, American composer

1937 – Suzanne Pleshette, American actress (d. 2008)

1938 – James G. Watt, American lawyer and politician, 43rd United States Secretary of the Interior

1941 – Dick Gephardt, American lawyer and politician

1947 – Nolan Ryan, American baseball player

1949 – Ken Wilber, American sociologist, philosopher, and author

1956 – John Lydon, English singer-songwriter

1965 – Peter Sagal, American author and radio host

1970 – Minnie Driver, English singer-songwriter and actress

1981 – Justin Timberlake, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor

…and on this day in history…

1747 – The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.

1862 – Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch (47 cm) telescope now located at Northwestern University.

1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch Tape.

1945 – US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.

1949 – These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago.

1961 – Project MercuryMercury-Redstone 2Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.

1971 – The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, begins in Detroit.

2012 – The Toyota Corolla is known as the best-selling car of all time. Selling over 37.5 million units.

2018 – Both a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse occur.