It's World Emoji Day! Today is Friday, July 17, 2020, the 198th day of the year. 167 days remain until the end of the year, and a mere 109 days until presidential elections (if civilization survives).
- Sunrise: 6:02am
- Sunset: 8:30pm ...giving us 14 hours and 29 minutes of daylight. 16% of the waning moon will be visible, setting at 6:08pm.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 11:30am/9:45pm
- Low: 4:14am/3:35pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- Constitution Day - South Korea
- Hurricane Supplication Day - US Virgin Islands
- Munoz Rivera Day - Puerto Rico
- Celebration of The Horse Day
- Disneyland Day
- World Day for International Criminal Justice
- World Emoji Day
- Wrong Way Corrigan Day
- Yellow Pig Day
- National Peach Ice Cream Day
On this day in…
1212 - The Moslems were crushed in the Spanish crusade.
1453 - France defeated England at Castillon, France, which ended the 100 Years' War.
1785 - France limited the importation of goods from Britain.
1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to the British at Rochefort, France.
1821 - Spain ceded Florida to the U.S.
1862 - National cemeteries were authorized by the U.S. government.
1866 - Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The three-year project cost $512,709.
1867 - Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, MA. It was the first dental school in the U.S.
1898 - U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter took Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
1917 - The British royal family adopted the Windsor name.
1920 - Sinclair Lewis finished his novel "Main Street."
1941 - The longest hitting streak in baseball history ended when the Cleveland Indians pitchers held New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio hitless for the first time in 57 games.
1945 - U.S. President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. During the meeting Stalin made the comment that "Hitler had escaped."
1946 - Chinese communists opened a drive against the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River.
1950 - The television show "The Colgate Comedy Hour" debuted featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
1954 - The Brooklyn Dodgers made history as the first team with a majority of black players.
1955 - Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA.
1960 - Francis Gary Powers pled guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.
1966 - Ho Chi Minh ordered a partial mobilization of North Vietnam forces to defend against American air strikes.
1975 - An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. It was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
1979 - Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled to Miami in exile. (Florida)
1987 - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and rear Admiral John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress at the "Iran-Contra" hearings.
1997 - After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 stores.
1998 - Biologists reported that they had deciphered the genome (genetic map) of the syphilis bacterium.
2008 - In China, construction of the Shanghai World Financial Center was completed.
If today’s your birthday, you share it with…
- John Astor 1762
- Luis Munoz-Rivera 1859
- Erle Stanley Gardner 1889
- Berenice Abbott 1898
- James Cagney 1899
- Christina E. Stead 1902
- William Gargan 1905
- Art Linkletter 1912
- Eleanor Steber 1916
- Lou Boudreau 1917
- Phyllis Diller 1917 - Comedian
- Pat McCormick 1934
- Donald Sutherland 1934 - Actor
- Diahann Carroll 1935 - Actress, singer
- Peter Schickele 1935 - Musician (P. D. Q. Bach)
- Spencer Davis 1939 - Musician, singer (Spencer Davis Group)
- Camilla 1947 - Duchess of Cornwall, wife of Britain's Prince Charles
- Cathy Ferguson 1948
- Mick Tucker 1949 - Musician (Sweet)
- Terence 'Geezer' Butler 1949 - Musician (Black Sabbath)
- Mike Vale 1949 - Musician (Tommy James and the Shondells)
- Lucie Arnaz 1951 - Actress
- Phoebe Snow 1952 - Singer
- David Hasselhoff 1952 Actor
- Angela Merkel 1954 - German Chancellor
- Nancy Giles 1960
- Regina Belle 1963
- Alex Winter 1965
- Guru (Keith Elam) 1966 - Rapper (Gang Starr)
- Stockley (David "Stokley" Williams) 1967 - Singer (Mint Condition)
- JC (Jarret Cordes, J.C. the Eternal) 1971 - (PM Dawn)
- Kitten Jones 1982
