Happy Birthday, Zora Neale Hurston!
Today is Tuesday, the 7th of January of 2020.
It is the seventh day of the year.
359 days remain until the end of the year
56 days until primaries
Tuesday March 3, 2020
(1 month and 25 days from today)
301 days until presidential elections
Tuesday November 3, 2020
(9 months and 27 days from today)
The sun rises at 7:26 am
and the sun sets at 5:08 pm.
We will have 9 hours and 42 minutes of daylight.
Solar noon will be at 12:17 pm.
The first low tide was at 2:01 am
and the next low tide at 3:22 pm.
The first high tide will be at 8:18 am
and the final high tide at the Golden Gate rolls in tonight at 10:34 pm.
The Moon is 87.7% visible; a Waxing Gibbous
Next Moonrise: Today 2:37 pm
We will have a Full Moon and a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
in 3 days on Friday the 10th of January of 2020 at 11:21 am
Moon Direction: 296.69° WNW↑
Moon Altitude: -4.53°
Moon Distance: 240628 mi
The Last Quarter Moon occurs in 10 days on Friday the 17th of January of 2020 at 4:58 am
The New Moon arrives in 17 days on Friday the 24th of January of 2020 at 1:42 pm
and the First Quarter Moon of the new month shows in 25 days on Saturday the 1st of February of 2020 at 5:42 pm
Today is…
I'm Not Going to Take it Anymore Day
International Programmers' Day
Today is also…
Remembrance Day of the Dead in Armenia
Tricolour day or Festa del Tricolore in Italy
Victory from Genocide Day in Cambodia
On this day in history…
1608 – Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia.
1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following day.
1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.
1904 – The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS".
1920 – The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York City to London.
1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.
1954 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM.
1955 – Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.
1959 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
1968 – Surveyor Program: Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off from launch complex 36A, Cape Canaveral.
1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.
2015 – Two gunmen commit mass murder at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, shooting twelve people execution style, and wounding eleven others.
…and if today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share this special day with…
1800 – Millard Fillmore, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 13th President of the United States (d. 1874)
1891 – Zora Neale Hurston, American novelist, short story writer, and folklorist (d. 1960)
1899 – Al Bowlly, Mozambican-English singer-songwriter (d. 1941)
1899 – Francis Poulenc, French pianist and composer (d. 1963)
1910 – Orval Faubus, American soldier and politician, 36th Governor of Arkansas (d. 1994)
1911 – Butterfly McQueen, American actress and dancer (d. 1995)
1912 – Charles Addams, American cartoonist, created The Addams Family (d. 1988)
1922 – Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flute player (d. 2000)
1925 – Gerald Durrell, Indian-English zookeeper, conservationist and author, founded Durrell Wildlife Park (d. 1995)
1928 – William Peter Blatty, American author and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1946 – Jann Wenner, American publisher, co-founded Rolling Stone
1948 – Kenny Loggins, American singer-songwriter
1950 – Juan Gabriel, Mexican singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
1957 – Katie Couric, American television journalist, anchor, and author
1963 – Rand Paul, American ophthalmologist and politician
1964 – Nicolas Cage, American actor
1967 – Nick Clegg, English academic and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom