Today is Wednesday, the 20th of March of 2019. It is the 79th day of the year. There are 286 days remaining until the end of the year. 594 days until presidential elections Tuesday November 3, 2020...
(1 year 7 months and 14 days from today)
Typically the March equinox falls on this date, marking the vernal point in the Northern Hemisphere and the autumnal point in the Southern Hemisphere.
The sun will rise in San Francisco at 7:12 am
and sunset will be at 7:23 pm.
Today we will have 12 hours and 11 minutes of daylight.
Solar noon will be at 1:17 pm.
The first high tide was at 12:01am
and the next high tide will be at 11:42 am.
The first low tide was at 5:25 am a
and the final low tide will be at 5:52 pm.
Today is the Full Moon
20th of March of 2019 at 6:43 pm
Today is the Full Worm Moon. The ground begins to soften and earthworm casts reappear, inviting the return of robins. This has also been called the Sap Moon, as it marks the time when maple sap begins to flow and the annual tapping of maple trees begins. |
Last Quarter Moon in 8 days, on Wednesday the 27th of March of 2019 at 9:10 pm
New Moon in 16 days on a Friday, the 5th of April of 2019 at 1:50 am
First Quarter Moon in 23 days on a Friday the 12th of April of 2019 at 12:06 pm
Today is…
National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
as today is the birthday of Fred Rogers, American television host and producer, born on this day in 1928 – (d. 2003)
World Day of Theater for Children and Young People
Today is also…
Earliest date for the vernal equinox in the Northern hemisphere:
Bahá'í Naw-Rúz, started at sunset on March 20. The end of the 19-day sunrise-to-sunset fast. (Bahá'í Faith)
Nowruz (Persian, Gilaki, Kurdish, Zoroastrians, and other Iranian people and countries with an Iranian influence)
Ostara in the northern hemisphere, Mabon in the southern hemisphere. (Neo-Druidic Wheel of the Year)
Vernal Equinox Day/Kōreisai (Japan)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Tunisia from France in 1956.
International Day of Happiness (United Nations)
International Francophonie Day (Organisation internationale de la Francophonie),
National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (United States)
On this day in Women’s Herstory…
March 20, 1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published and becomes the best-selling book of the 19th century
1985 – Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Born On This Day:
1900 – Amelia Chopitea Villa, Bolivia's first female physician (d. 1942)
1915 – Sister Rosetta Tharpe, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1973)
March 20, 1920 (1997) – Pamela Harriman, devoted herself to Democratic Party politics and fund raising after death of husband Averell, first woman to be named Ambassador to France (1993) where she used her social skills to be a facilitator and build good relationships with the media and local power structure
March 20, 1925 (2018) – Romana Acosta Bañuelos, the thirty-fourth Treasurer of the United States, where she served from 1971 to 1974 as the first Hispanic in that role, owner of a multimillion-dollar business, Ramona’s Mexican Food Products, Inc.
If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share this day with…
43 BC – Ovid, Roman poet (d. 17)
1469 – Cecily of York (d. 1507)
1612 – Anne Bradstreet, Puritan American poet (d. 1672)
1828 – Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian poet, playwright, and director (d. 1906)
1879 – Maud Menten, Canadian physician and biochemist (d. 1960)
1888 – Amanda Clement, American baseball player, umpire, and educator (d. 1971)
1894 – Amalie Sara Colquhoun, Australian landscape and portrait painter (d. 1974)
1904 – B. F. Skinner, American psychologist and author (d. 1990)
1906 – Ozzie Nelson, American actor and bandleader (d. 1975)
1908 – Michael Redgrave, English actor and director (d. 1985)
1915 – Sviatoslav Richter, Ukrainian pianist and composer (d. 1997)
1917 – Vera Lynn, English singer
1917 – Yigael Yadin, Israeli archaeologist, general, and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1984)
1918 – Jack Barry, American game show host and producer, co-founded Barry & Enright Productions (d. 1984)
1918 – Marian McPartland, English-American pianist and composer (d. 2013)
1920 – Pamela Harriman, English-American diplomat, 58th United States Ambassador to France (d. 1997)
1920 – Rosemary Timperley, English author and screenwriter (d. 1988)
1922 – Ray Goulding, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1990)
1922 – Carl Reiner, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1925 – John Ehrlichman, American lawyer, 12th White House Counsel (d. 1999)
1928 – Fred Rogers, American television host and producer (d. 2003)
1931 – Hal Linden, American actor, singer, and director
1934 – Willie Brown, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 41st Mayor of San Francisco
1934 – David Malouf, Australian author and playwright
1935 – Bettye Washington Greene, American chemist (d. 1995)
1936 – Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jamaican singer, songwriter, music producer, and inventor
1937 – Lois Lowry, American author
1937 – Jerry Reed, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2008)
1939 – Brian Mulroney, Canadian lawyer and politician, 18th Prime Minister of Canada
1940 – Mary Ellen Mark, American photographer and journalist (d. 2015)
1944 – Camille Cosby, American author, producer, and philanthropist
1949 – Marcia Ball, American blues singer-songwriter and pianist
1954 – Liana Kanelli, Greek journalist and politician
1955 – Nina Kiriki Hoffman, American author
1957 – Spike Lee, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1957 – Theresa Russell, American actress
1958 – Holly Hunter, American actress and producer
1959 – Mary Roach, American author
1961 – Ingrid Arndt-Brauer, German politician
1961 – Sara Wheeler, English author and journalist
1963 – Kathy Ireland, American model, actress, and furniture designer
1963 – Yelena Romanova, Russian runner (d. 2007)
1964 – Natacha Atlas, Belgian singer-songwriter
1965 – William Dalrymple, Scottish historian and author
1968 – Ultra Naté, American singer, songwriter, record producer, DJ, and promoter
1969 – Yvette Cooper, English economist and politician, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
1970 – Josephine Medina, Filipino Paralympic table tennis player
1970 – Michael Rapaport, American actor, podcast host, and director
1972 – Cristel Vahtra, Estonian skier
1973 – Nicky Boje, South African cricketer
1973 – Natalya Khrushcheleva, Russian runner
1975 – Isolde Kostner, Italian skier
1979 – Freema Agyeman, English actress
1983 – Carolina Padrón, Venezuelan journalist
1984 – Christy Carlson Romano, American actress and singer
1986 – Ruby Rose, Australian actress and model
1993 – Sloane Stephens, American tennis player
…and on this day in history...
1602 – The Dutch East India Company is established.
1616 – Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.
1848 – German revolutions of 1848–49: King Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicates.
1854 – The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
1888 – The premiere of the very first Romani language operetta is staged in Moscow, Russia.
1915 – Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
1923 – The Arts Club of Chicago hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the United States.
1942 – World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return".
1948 – With a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecasts of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, are given on CBS and NBC.
1956 – Tunisia gains independence from France.
In 1969, John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
In 1976, kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank holdup carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison; she was released after serving 22 months, and was pardoned in 2001 by President Bill Clinton.)
In 1977, voters in Paris chose former French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac to be the French capital's first mayor in more than a century.
1985 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.
1987 – The Food and Drug Administration approves the anti-AIDS drug, AZT.
1990 – Ferdinand Marcos's widow, Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering.
In 1990, singer Gloria Estefan suffered a broken back when a truck rear-ended her tour bus on a snow-covered highway in Pennsylvania. (Surgeons implanted titanium rods to stabilize her spine, and Estefan was able to make a comeback after months of intensive physical therapy.)
1995 – The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo carries out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and wounding over 6,200 people.
1999 – Legoland California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.
2000 – Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after murdering Georgia sheriff's deputy Ricky Kinchen and critically wounding Deputy Aldranon English.
2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries (the UK, Australia and Poland) begin military operations in Iraq.
In 2004, Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide rallied against the U.S.-led war in Iraq on the first anniversary of the start of the conflict. The U.S. military charged six soldiers with abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison.
Ten years ago, in 2009:
President Barack Obama reached out to the Iranian people in a video with Farsi subtitles, saying the U.S. was prepared to end years of strained relations if Tehran toned down its bellicose rhetoric; Iranian officials dismissed the overture, saying they wanted concrete change from Washington before they were ready to enter a dialogue.
Pope Benedict XVI, visiting Angola, condemned sexual violence against women in Africa and chided those countries on the continent that approved abortion.
Five years ago, in 2014:
President Barack Obama ordered economic sanctions against nearly two dozen members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle and a major bank that provided them support, raising the stakes in an East-West showdown over Ukraine.
2015 – A Solar eclipse, equinox, and a Supermoon all occur on the same day.
One year ago, in 2018: Investigators pursuing a suspected serial bombing in Austin, Texas, shifted attention to a FedEx shipping center near San Antonio, where a package had exploded.
In a phone call to Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump offered congratulations on Putin's re-election victory; a senior official said Trump had been warned in briefing materials that he should not congratulate Putin.
2019 – The Walt Disney Company completes its acquisition of 21st Century Fox.