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Almanac - Wednesday 5/1/19

credit: flickr user Serendigity
Morris Dancers Photographed at the Folklorica Venue during the 2013-14 Woodford Folk Festival.

Today is Wednesday, May 1, the 121st day of 2019.  There are 244 days left in the year.  51 days until summer begins and 552 days until presidential elections Tuesday November 03 2020...

(1 year 6 months and 2 days from today)

The sun rises at 6:13 am 

and the sun will set will be at 8:01 pm.

We will have 13 hours and 48 minutes of daylight.

Solar noon will be at 1:07 pm.

The first high tide will be at 10:17 am 

and the next low tide at 4:03 pm.

and the next high tide at 10:41 pm.

The Moon is 11.9% visible; a Waning Crescent

Moon Direction: 94.95° E

Moon Altitude: -0.46°

Moon Distance: 248834 mi

Next Moonrise: Today 4:56 am

New Moon in 3 days Saturday 4th of May of 2019 at 3:45 pm

First Quarter Moon in 10 days on Saturday the 11th of May of 2019 at 6:12 pm

Full Moon in 17 days on Saturday the 18th of May of 2019 at 2:11 pm

Last Quarter Moon in 24 days on Sunday the 26th of May of 2019 at 9:33 am

Today is…

Couple Appreciation Day

CSS Reboot Day

Executive Coaching Day

Frequent Flyer Day

Global Love Day

Great American Grump Out

International Workers' Day

Keep Kids Alive Drive 25 Day

Law Day

Lei Day

Loyalty Day

May Day

Mother Goose Day

National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day

National Chocolate Parfait Day

National Purebred Dog Day

New Homeowners Day

Phone in Sick Day

Save the Rhino Day

School Principals' Day

Silver Star Service Banner Day

Worthy Wage Day

Today is also…

Armed Forces Day in Mauritania

Constitution Day in ArgentinaLatvia, and the Marshall Islands

Commemoration of the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat following the foundation of Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti in India

Gujarat Day

Maharashtra Day

International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day

International Workers' Day or Labour Day (International), and its related observances:

May Day (beginning of Summer) observances in the Northern hemisphere (see April 30):

Beltane in IrelandScotlandIsle of ManCeltic neopagans and Wiccans in the Northern hemisphere

Calan Mai in Wales

If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You!  You share this day with…

1852 – Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and professional scout (d. 1903)

1857 – Theo van Gogh, Dutch art dealer (d. 1891)

1862 – Marcel Prévost, French novelist and playwright (d. 1941)

1864 – Anna Jarvis, American founder of Mother's Day (d. 1948)

1907 – Kate Smith, American singer and actress (d. 1986)

1910 – Raya Dunayevskaya, Ukrainian-American philosopher and activist (d. 1987)

1918 – Jack Paar, American comedian, author and talk show host (d. 2004)

1923 – Joseph Heller, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1999)

1924 – Terry Southern, American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter (d. 1995)

1925 – Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2013)

1928 – Sonny James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2016)

1934 – Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Mexican politician

1939 – Judy Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

1945 – Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter

1946 – John Woo, Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter

1951 – Sally Mann, American photographer

…and on this day in history…

1707 – The Act of Union joining the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect.

1753 – Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

1759 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain.

1776 – Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.

1786 – In Vienna, Austria, Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.

1840 – The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.

1869 – The Folies Bergère opens in Paris.

1884 – Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.

1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.

1886 – Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.

1930 – The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.

1931 – The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.

1950 – Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.

1956 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.

1967 – Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu are married in Las Vegas.

1970 – Vietnam War: Protests erupt following the announcement by Richard Nixon that the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces would attack Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.

1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.

1978 – Japan's Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.

1989 – Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.

1999 – SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards.

2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".

2009 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.

2011 – War on TerrorAl-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is shot and killed by U.S. Navy seals.

Today's Highlight in History:

On May 1, 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was created as a treaty merging England and Scotland took effect.

On this date:

In 1786, Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro" premiered in Vienna.

In 1931, New York's 102-story Empire State Building was dedicated. Singer Kate Smith made her debut on CBS Radio on her 24th birthday.

In 1941, the Orson Welles motion picture "Citizen Kane" premiered in New York.

In 1964, the computer programming language BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was created by Dartmouth College professors John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz.

In 1967, Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. (They divorced in 1973.)

In 1975, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Brewers broke baseball's all-time RBI record previously held by Babe Ruth during a game against the Detroit Tigers (Milwaukee won, 17-3).

In 1992, on the third day of the Los Angeles riots, a visibly shaken Rodney King appeared in public to appeal for calm, pleading, "Can we all get along?"

In 2011, President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden during a U.S. commando operation (because of the time difference, it was early May 2 in Pakistan, where the al-Qaida leader met his end).