Happy 79th Birthday to jazz great Herbie Hancock!
Today is Friday, April 12, 2019, the 102nd day of the year, and a mere 571 days until the next presidential election.
- Sunrise: 6:39am
- Sunset: 7:43pm ...giving us 13 hours and 4 minutes of daylight. 38% of the waxing crescent moon visible, rising at 12:15pm.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 5:00am/7:53pm
- Low: 12:04pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- Cosmonaut's Day - Russia
- National Redemption Day - Liberia
- International Day of Human Space Flight
- International Day for Street Children
- American Immigration Lawyers Association Day of Action
- National Day of Silence
- National Donate Life (Blue and Green) Day
- National Day of Silence
- National Licorice Day
- National Teach Children to Save Day
- Walk on Your Wild Side Day
- Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
- Feast of St. Zeno of Verona, patron of fishermen
- Corn Festival - Cochumatan Indians, Guatemala
On this day in…
1096 - Peter the Hermit gathered his army in Cologne.
1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople.
1606 - England adopted the original Union Jack as its flag.
1770 - The British Parliament repealed the Townsend Acts.
1782 - The British navy won its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica.
1799 - Phineas Pratt patented the comb cutting machine.
1811 - The first colonists arrived at Cape Disappointment, Washington.
1833 - Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe.
1861 - Fort Sumter was shelled by Confederacy, starting America's Civil War.
1864 - Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee and slaughters the black Union troops there.
1877 - A catcher's mask was used in a baseball game for the first time by James Alexander Tyng.
1892 - Voters in Lockport, New York, became the first in the U.S. to use voting machines.
1905 - The Hippodrome opened in New York City.
1911 - Pierre Prier completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.
1916 - American cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clashed at Parrel, Mexico.
1927 - The British Cabinet came out in favor of women voting rights.
1938 - The first U.S. law requiring a medical test for a marriage license was enacted in New York.
1944 - The U.S. Twentieth Air Force was activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan.
1945 - In New York, the organization of the first eye bank, the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration, was announced.
1945 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, GA. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. Harry S Truman became president.
1955 - The University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center announced that the polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was "safe, effective and potent."
1961 - Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first man to orbit the Earth.
1963 - Police used dogs and cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, AL.
1969 - Lucy and Snoopy of the comic strip "Peanuts" made the cover of "Saturday Review."
1981 - The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL, on its first test flight.
1982 - The British Navy began enforcing a blockade around the Falkland Islands.
1983 - Harold Washington was elected the first black mayor of Chicago.
1984 - Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning the Solar Max satellite to space.
1984 - Israeli troops stormed a bus that had been hijacked the previous evening by four Arab terrorists. All the passengers were rescued and 2 of the hijackers were killed.
1985 - U.S. Senator Jake Garn of Utah became the first senator to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral, FL.
1985 - In Spain, an explosion in a restaurant near a U.S. base killed 17 people.
1985 - Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. They were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.
1987 - Texaco filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it failed to settle a legal dispute with Pennzoil Co.
1988 - Harvard University won a patent for a genetically altered mouse. It was the first patent for a life form.
1988 - The Chinese government named a new array of younger leaders to ensure economic reform.
1989 - In the U.S.S.R, ration cards were issued for the first time since World War II. The ration was prompted by a sugar shortage.
1992 - Disneyland Paris opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France.
1993 - NATO began enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2000 - More than 1,500 anti-drug agents raided four cities in Colombia and arrested 46 members of the "most powerful" heroin ring.
2002 - It was announced that the South African version of "Sesame Street" would be introducing a character that was HIV-positive.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Henry Clay 1777 - "The Great Pacificator", US Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams
- Lily (Alice) Pons 1895 - Singer, actress
- Sally Rand 1903
- Ann Miller (Lucille Ann Collier) 1923 - Actress ("Sugar Babies", "Hit the Deck"), dancer
- Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury) 1930 - Ukulele playing, falsetto singer ("Tiptoe Through the Tulips")
- Montserrat Caballe 1933 - Opera singer
- Herbie Hancock 1940 - Jazz/fusion musician, composer
- Frank Bank 1942 - Actor ("Leave it to Beaver")
- Terry (Walter) Harmon 1944 - Baseball player
- John Kay 1944 - Musician (Steppenwolf)
- Ed O'Neill 1946 - Actor ("Married....with Children", "Wayne’s World")
- Tom Clancy 1947 - Author
- David Letterman 1947 - TV host, comedian
- David Cassidy 1950 - Singer, actor ("The Partridge Family")
- Pat Travers 1954 - Singer
- Andy Garcia 1956 - Actor ("When a Man Loves a Woman", "The Untouchables")
- Alex Briley 1956 - Singer (The Village People)
- Vince Gill 1957 - Musician, singer (Bluegrass Alliance, Sundance, The Cherry Bombs, Pure Prairie League)
- Suzzanne Douglas 1957 - Actress
- Amy Ray 1964 - Singer, musician (Indigo Girls)
- Shannen Doherty 1971 - Actress ("Beverly Hills 90210", "Little House on the Prairie")
- Nicholas Brendon 1971 - Actress ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer")
- Guy Berryman 1978 - Musician (Coldplay), Coldplay Merchandise
- Claire Danes 1979 - Actress ("Little Women", "Law & Order", “Homeland”)
