Today is the 12th day of 2016, 354 days remain
Sunrise: 7:25am
Sunset: 5:11pm
Moonrise: 9:07am (3% visible, waxing)
Moonset: 8:29pm
Tides at the Golden Gate
High: 1:36am/12:37pm
Low: 6:30am/7:07pm
International Celebrations today include...
Arbor Day - Jordan
Commemoration or Remembrance Day - Turkmenistan
National Pharmacist Day- USA
Stephen Foster Memorial Day - USA (died this day in 1864 at 37)
Youth Day - India
Zanzibar Revolution Day- Tanzania
It's also...
Bean Day
Kiss A Ginger Day
National Poetry at Work Day
On this day in…
49 BC - Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River signaling a war between Rome and Gaul.
1519 - Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died.
1773 - The first public museum in America was established in Charleston, SC.
1866 - The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in London.
1875 - Kwang-su was made emperor of China.
1879 - The British-Zulu War began when the British invaded Zululand.
1882 - Thomas Edison's central station on Holborn Viaduct in London began operation.
1895 - The first performance of King Arthur took place at the Lyceum Theatre.
1896 - At Davidson College, several students took x-ray photographs. They created the first X-ray photographs to be made in America.
1904 - Henry Ford set a new land speed record when he reached 91.37 miles per hour.
1908 - A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1915 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
1915 - The U.S. Congress established the Rocky Mountain National Park.
1926 - "Sam ‘n’ Henry" debuted on WGN Radio in Chicago, IL.
1932 - Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1938 - Austria recognized the Franco government in Spain.
1940 - Soviet bombers raided cities in Finland.
1942 - U.S. President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board.
1943 - The Office of Price Administration announced that standard frankfurters/hot dogs/wieners would be replaced by 'Victory Sausages.'
1945 - During World War II, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe.
1948 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.
1949 - "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" was debuted on CBS-TV. The show stayed on the network for seven years.
1949 - "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", the Chicago-based children’s show, made its national debut on NBC-TV.
1960 - Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals became the first pro basketball player in the NBA to score more than 15,000 points in his career.
1964 - Leftist rebels in Zanzibar began their successful revolt against the government and a republic was proclaimed.
1966 - U.S. President Johnson said in his State of the Union address that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there was ended.
1966 - "Batman" debuted on ABC-TV.
1970 - The breakaway state of Biafra capitulated and the Nigerian civil war came to an end.
1970 - Nigeria's civil war ended.
1971 - "All In the Family" debuted on CBS-TV.
1973 - Yassar Arafat was re-elected as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
1986 - Space shuttle Columbia blasted off with a crew that included the first Hispanic-American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz.
1991 - The U.S. Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military power to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1995 - Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew announced that as of January 16 British troops would no longer carry out daylight street patrols in Belfast.
1998 - Tyson Foods Inc. pled guilty to giving $12,000 to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Tyson was fined $6 million.
1998 - 19 European nations agreed to prohibit human cloning.
1998 - Linda Tripp provided Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office with taped conversations between herself and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
1999 - Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball was sold at auction in New York for $3 million to an anonymous bidder.
2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
2005 - NASA launched "Deep Impact". The spacecraft was planned to impact on Comet Tempel 1 after a six-month, 268 million-mile journey.
2006 - The U.S. Mint began shipping new 5-cent coins to the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. The coin has an image of Thomas Jefferson taken from a 1800 Rembrandt Peale portrait in which the president is looking forward. Since 1909, when presidents were first depicted on circulating coins, all presidents had been shown in profile.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)…
Edmund Burke 1729
Johann Pestalozzi 1746
Jack London 1876
John Singer Sargent 1856
Herman Goering 1893
Joe E. Lewis (Klewan) 1902
Tex (Woodward) Ritter 1905
Martin Agronsky 1915
P.W. Botha 1916
Ray Price 1926
Ruth Brown 1928
Lloyd Ruby 1928
Tim Horton 1930
Glenn Yarbrough (The Limeliters) 1930
James Fergason 1934
The "Amazing Kreskin" 1935
Ron Harper 1936
William Lee Golden (The Oak Ridge Boys) 1939
Joe Frazier 1944
Maggie Bell (Stone the Crows) 1945
Cynthia Robinson (Sly and the Family Stone) 1946
Anthony Andrews 1948
Wayne Wang 1949
Drew Pearson 1951
Rush Limbaugh 1951
Ricky Van Shelton 1952
Howard Stern 1954
Kirstie Alley 1955
George Duke 1956
Charlie Gillingham (Counting Crows) 1960
Jeffrey Bezos 1964
Raekwon 1970 (Wu Tang Clan)
Melanie Chisholm (Spice Girls) 1975