Almanac - Wednesday 2/20/19

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 20, the 51st day of 2019. There are 314 days left in the year.

28 days until spring begins.  622 days until presidential elections Tuesday November 3, 2020...

(1 year 8 months and 14 days from today)

The sun rises at 6:53 am 

and sunset will be at 5:56 pm.

We will have 11 hours and 3 minutes of daylight.

Solar noon will be at 12:24 pm.

The first high tide was at 12:17 am and

the next high tide at 11:39 am.

The first low tide was at 5:25 am 

and the final low tide at 6:03 pm.

The Moon is 98.7% visible; a Waning Gibbous

Moon Direction:258.38° WSW↑

Moon Altitude:29.23°

Moon Distance:222539 mi

Next New Moon:Mar 6, 20198:03 am

Next Full Moon:Mar 20, 20196:42 pm

Next Moonset:Today7:50 am

Today is…

International Tug-of-War Day

Iwo Jima Day

National Chocolate Mint Day

National Lash Day

National Vet Girls ROCK Day

Prevent Plagiarism Day

Today is also…

Day of Heavenly Hundred Heroes in Ukraine

World Day of Social Justice

On this day in Black History…

Samuel “Sambo” Anderson died on this day in 1845. He was one of the enslaved people on George Washington’s Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon. The early history of Anderson is unclear but what is known is Anderson was from what is now the west African nation of Guinea. Anderson claimed to have been part of a royal family.

Feb 20, 1869 Tennessee Governor W.C. Brownlow declared martial law in nine countries in Ku Klux Klan crisis.

Walter Moses Burton holds the distinction of being the first black elected sheriff in the United States. Burton began his term as a State Senator in Texas, on this day in 1874

1895: Abolitionist Frederick Douglass died. Besides his big engagement in the civil rights movement, Douglass was an orator, journalist, writer and political figure. He was the first African-American to hold a high government rank in the United States.

1929: Wallace Henry Thurman’s play, "Harlem" debuted on Broadway. Thurman was known as a true writer who rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance; he was an editor, wrote essays and novels, and was a publisher of newspapers and literary journals.

1952 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.

IN 1968, State troopers used tear gas to stop demonstrations at Alcorn A & M

1991: Eight African-Americans won Grammys at the 33rd Grammy Awards. Pictured below, R&B singer Natalie Cole won three Grammys in 1991, including Record Of The Year for "Unforgettable."

On Feb. 20, 1992, John Singleton made history as the first African-American to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director for his film Boyz in the Hood. At the age of 24, he was also the youngest to receive the honor.

Black History Month Birthdays today include:

1927 – Ibrahim Ferrer, Cuban singer and musician (d. 2005)

1927 – Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, director, and diplomat

Army Lt. Gen. Emmett Paige, Jr. born in Jacksonville, Florida on this day in 1931.

Jazz singer, actress, Nancy Wilson born on this day in 1936 in Chillicothe, Ohio.

1963: NBA legend Charles Barkley was born.

1984 – Trevor Noah, South African comedian, actor, and television host

1988 – Rihanna, Barbadian-American singer-songwriter and actress

Also on this date:

In 1792, President George Washington signed an act creating the United States Post Office Department.

1816 – Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.

In 1862, William Wallace Lincoln, the 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln and first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, died at the White House, apparently of typhoid fever.

1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.

1877 – Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, upheld, 7-2, compulsory vaccination laws intended to protect the public's health.

In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded "idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons" from being admitted to the United States.

1909 – Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro.

1931 – The Congress of the United States approves the construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.

In 1938, Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary following Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's decision to negotiate with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

1935 – Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1943 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

1943 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms...

In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Rabinowitz, ruled 5-3 that authorities making a lawful arrest did not need a warrant to search and seize evidence in an area that was in the "immediate and complete control" of the suspect.

In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Project Mercury's Friendship 7 spacecraft, which circled the globe three times in a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds before splashing down safely in the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda.

In 1971, the National Emergency Warning Center in Colorado erroneously ordered U.S. radio and TV stations off the air; some stations heeded the alert, which was not lifted for about 40 minutes.

One year ago in 2018:

Students who survived the Florida school shooting traveled to Tallahassee to urge state lawmakers to prevent another massacre, but procedural moves in the legislature effectively halted any effort to ban assault-style rifles like the one used in the attack.

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

1902 – Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist (d. 1984)

1904 – Alexei Kosygin, Russian soldier and politician, 8th Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1980)

1906 – Gale Gordon, American actor (d. 1995)

1924 – Gloria Vanderbilt, American actress and fashion designer

1925 – Robert Altman, American director and screenwriter (d. 2006)

1927 – Roy Cohn, American lawyer and political activist (d. 1986)

1935 – Ellen Gilchrist, American novelist, short story writer, and poet

1936 – Larry Hovis, American actor and singer (d. 2003)

1938 – Richard Beymer, American actor, director, and cinematographer

1941 – Buffy Sainte-Marie, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer

1942 – Mitch McConnell, American lawyer, and politician

1946 – Sandy Duncan, American actress, singer, and dancer

1946 – J. Geils, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017)

1949 – Ivana Trump, Czech-American socialite and model

1950 – Walter Becker, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2017)

1950 – Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

1954 – Patty Hearst, American actress and author

1960 – Joel Hodgson, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter

1966 – Cindy Crawford, American model and businesswoman

1967 – Kurt Cobain, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1994)

1970 – Singer-musician Chris Thile (THEE'-lee) is 38