It's Monday, August 5, 2019...
It is the 217th day of the year.
148 days remain until the end of the year.
456 days until presidential elections Tuesday November 03 2020
(1 year 2 months and 29 days from today)
The sun rises at 6:17 am
and sunset will be at 8:13 pm.
Today we will have 13 hours and 56 minutes of daylight.
Solar noon will be at 1:15 pm.
The first high tide was at 3:08 am
and the next high tide will be at 4:17 pm.
The first low tide will be at 9:19 am
and the next low tide at 10:11 pm.
The Moon is 25.8% visible; a Waxing Crescent
Moon Direction: 349.34° N↑
Moon Altitude: -52.87°
Moon Distance: 228167 mi
Next Full Moon: Thursday August 15, 2019 at 5:29 am
Next New Moon: Friday August 30, 2019 At 3:37 am
Next Moonrise: Today 11:33 am
Today is…
International Traffic Light Day
Today is also…
Independence Day (Burkina Faso)
Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian defenders (Croatia)
If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday to you! You share this day with…
1850 – Guy de Maupassant, French short story writer, novelist, and poet (d. 1893)
1930 – Neil Armstrong, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut (d. 2012)
1934 – Wendell Berry, American novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist
1941 – Airto Moreira, Brazilian-American drummer and composer
1942 – Joe Boyd, American record producer, founded Hannibal Records
1945 – Loni Anderson, American actress
1947 – Rick Derringer, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1960 – David Baldacci, American lawyer and author
Country musician Mark O'Connor is 58.
1968 – Marine Le Pen, French lawyer and politician
…And on this day in history…
1735 – Freedom of the press: New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true.
1858 – Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It will operate for less than a month.
1861 – The United States Army abolishes flogging.
1874 – Japan launches its postal savings system, modeled after a similar system in the United Kingdom.
1884 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) in New York Harbor.
1888 – Bertha Benz drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance automobile trip, commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Routesince 2008
1914 – In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.
1925 – Plaid Cymru is formed with the aim of disseminating knowledge of the Welsh language that is at the time in danger of dying out.
1926 – Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Labor Board, which was later replaced with the National Labor Relations Board.
In 1936, Jesse Owens of the United States won the 200-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics, collecting the third of his four gold medals.
1957 – American Bandstand, a show dedicated to the teenage "baby-boomers" by playing the songs and showing popular dances of the time, debuts on the ABC television network.
On August 5, 1962, actress Marilyn Monroe, 36, was found dead in her Los Angeles home; her death was ruled a probable suicide from "acute barbiturate poisoning."
In 1962, South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela was arrested on charges of leaving the country without a passport and inciting workers to strike; it was the beginning of 27 years of imprisonment.
In 1974, the White House released transcripts of subpoenaed tape recordings showing that President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, had discussed a plan in June 1972 to use the CIA to thwart the FBI's Watergate investigation; revelation of the tape sparked Nixon's resignation.
1981 – President Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.
1989 – General elections are held in Nicaragua with the Sandinista National Liberation Front winning a majority.
In 1991, Democratic congressional leaders formally launched an investigation into whether the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign had secretly conspired with Iran to delay release of American hostages until after the presidential election, thereby preventing an "October surprise" that supposedly would have benefited President Jimmy Carter. (A task force later concluded there was "no credible evidence" of such a deal.)
Ten years ago in 2009: Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee arrived in Burbank, California, for a tearful reunion with their families after a flight from North Korea, where they'd been held for 4 1/2 months until former President Bill Clinton helped secure their release.
2012 – The Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting took place in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six victims; the perpetrator committed suicide after being wounded by police.
One year ago in 2018: President Donald Trump tweeted that a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower involving his son and a lawyer with Kremlin connections had been aimed at collecting information about his opponent, an apparent change from an earlier assertion that the meeting "primarily" dealt with adoption of Russian children.