Raise a glass! It's World Malbec Day!
Today is Friday, April 17, 2020, the 107th day of the year. 65 days until summer, and only 200 days until presidential elections (if civilization survives).
- Sunrise: 6:31am
- Sunset: 7:48pm ...giving us 13 hours 15min of daylight. 32% of the waning moon will be visible, rising at 4:20am.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 8:30am/10:09pm
- Low: 2:53am/3:00pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- FAO Day - Iraq
- Independence Day - Cambodia, Syria
- Bat Appreciation Day
- Blah! Blah! Blah! Day
- Ellis Island Family History Day
- Ford Mustang Day
- Herbalist Day
- International Haiku Poetry Day
- Malbec World Day
- National Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet Day
- National Crawfish Day
- National Donate Life (Blue and Green) Day
- Nothing Like A Dame Day
- World Hemophilia Day
On this day in…
1492 - Christopher Columbus signed a contract with Spain to find a passage to Asia and the Indies.
1521 - Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1524 - New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.
1535 - Antonio Mendoza was appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
1629 - Horses were first imported into the colonies by the American Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1704 - John Campbell published what would eventually become the first successful American newspaper. It was known as the Boston "News-Letter."
1758 - Frances Williams published a collection of Latin poems. He was the first African-American to graduate from a college in the western hemisphere.
1808 - Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships.
1860 - New Yorkers learned of a new law that required fire escapes to be provided for tenement houses.
1861 - Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union.
1864 - U.S. Civil War General Grant banned the trading of prisoners.
1865 - Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
1875 - The game "snooker" was invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
1895 - China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki. It was the end of the first Sino-Japanese War. In the treaty China ceded Taiwan to Japan.
1916 - The American Academy of Arts and Letters obtained a charter from the U.S. Congress.
1917 - A bill in Congress to establish Daylight Saving Time was defeated. It was passed a couple of months later.
1941 - Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter lift-off from water near Stratford, CT.
1941 - The office of Price Administration was established in the U.S. to handle rationing.
1961 - About 1,400 U.S.-supported Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. It was an unsuccessful attack.
1964 - Jerrie Mock became the first woman to fly an airplane solo around the world.
1964 - The Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model.
1967 - The U.S. Supreme Court barred Muhammad Ali's request to be blocked from induction into the U.S. Army.
1969 - In Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1970 - Apollo 13 returned to Earth safely after an on-board accident with an oxygen tank.
1975 - Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was the end of the five-year war.
1985 - The U.S. Postal Service unveiled its new 22-cent, "LOVE" stamp.
1993 - A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King. Two other officers were acquitted.
1996 - Erik and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing their parents.
If today’s your birthday, you share it with…
- Henry Vaughan 1622 - Author, physician, poet
- J.P. (John Pierpoint) Morgan 1837 - Financier
- Thornton Wilder 1897 - Novelist, playwright
- Gregor Piatigorsky 1903 - Cellist
- Arthur Lake 1905 - Actor ("Blondie" series)
- Sirimavo Bandaranaike 1916 - Ceylon Prime Minister, the world's first woman prime minister
- William Holden (Beedle Jr.) 1918 - Actor
- Harry Reasoner 1923 - Newsman ("Sixty Minutes")
- Don Kirshner 1934 - Music publisher, created The Monkees
- Olivia Hussey 1951 - Actress ("Ice Cream Man", "Psycho 4: The Beginning")
- Sean Bean 1958 - Actor ("Goldeneye", "The Lord of the Rings" series)
- Henry Cusick 1967 - Actor ("Lost")
- Jennifer Anne Garner 1972 - Actress ("Daredevil", "Electra", "Alias")
- Victoria Beckham (Victoria Caroline Adams) 1974 - Singer
