It's World Otter Day! (we thought you otter know)...
Today is Wednesday, May 29, 2019, the 149th day of the year, 216 days remaining and a mere 524 days until the next presidential election.
- Sunrise: 5:51am
- Sunset: 8:24pm
...giving us 14 hours and 32 minutes of daylight. 30% of the waning crescent moon visible, rising at 3:25am.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 9:01am/9:21pm
- Low: 3:11am/2:35pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- Reconciliation Week - Australia
- International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers
- Learn About Composting Day
- National Senior Health & Fitness Day
- Put A Pillow On Your Fridge Day
- World Otter Day
- National Coq Au Vin Day
On this day in…
1453 - Constantinople fell to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, ending the Byzantine Empire.
1660 - Charles II was restored to the English throne after the Puritan Commonwealth.
1721 -South Carolina was formally incorporated as a royal colony.
1765 - Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act beforeVirginia's House of Burgesses.
1790 - Rhode Island became the last of the original thirteen colonies to ratify theU.S. Constitution.
1827 - The first nautical school opened in Nantucket,MA, under the name Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin’s Lancasterian School.
1848 -WIsconsin became the 30th state to join the United States.
1849 - A patent for lifting vessels was granted toAbraham Lincoln.
1910 - An airplane raced a train from Albany,NY, to New York City. The airplane pilot Glenn Curtiss won the $10,000 prize.
1912 - Fifteen women were dismissed from their jobs at the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia,PA, for dancing the Turkey Trot while on the job.
1916 - The official flag of the president of theUnited States was adopted.
1916 -U.S. forces invaded Dominican Republic and remained until 1924.
1922 - Ecuador became independent.
1922 - TheU.S. Supreme Court ruled that organized baseball was a sport, not subject to antitrust laws.
1932 - World War I veterans began arriving in Washington,DC. to demand cash bonuses they were not scheduled to receive for another 13 years.
1951 - C.F. Blair became the first man to fly over the North Pole in single engine plane.
1953 - Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became first men to reach the top of Mount Everest.
1962 - Buck (John) O’Neil became the first black coach inmajor league baseball when he accepted the job with the Chicago Cubs.
1965 - Ralph Boston set a world record in the broad jump at 27-feet, 4-3/4 inches, at a meet held in Modesto,CA.
1973 - Tom Bradley was elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles.
1974 -U.S. President Nixon agreed to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.
1978 - In theU.S., postage stamps were raised from 13 cents to 15 cents.
1981 - The U.S. performed a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
1985 - Thirty-nine people were killed and 400 were injured in a riot at a European Cup soccer match in Brussels, Belgium.
1986 - Colonel Oliver North told National Security Advisor William McFarlane that profits from weapons sold to Iran were being diverted to the Contras.
1988 -U.S. President Reagan began his first visit to the Soviet Union in Moscow.
1990 - Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian republic by the Russian parliament.
1997 - The ruling party in Indonesia, Golkar, won the Parliament election by a record margin. There was a boycott movement and rioting that killed 200 people.
1999 - Space shuttle Discovery completed the first docking with the International Space Station.
2000 - Fiji's military took control of the nation and declared martial law following a coup attempt by indigenous Fijians in mid-May.
2001 - In New York, four followers of Osama bin Laden were convicted of a global conspiracy to murder Americans. The crimes included the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.
2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin could use a cart to ride in tournaments.
2015 - The Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. terrorism blacklist. The two countries had severed diplomatic relations in January of 1961
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Charles II 1630 - Monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland
- Patrick Henry 1736
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 - Writer of philosophy, ontolory, poetry
- Oswald Spengler 1880 - German historian and philosopher
- Bob Hope 1903 - Comedian, actor
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (U.S.) 1917 - 35th President of the US
- Al Unser, Sr. 1939 - Automobile racer
- Stacy Keach, Sr. 1941 - Actor, narrator
- Roy Crewdson 1941 - Musician (Freddie and the Dreamers)
- Bob Simon 1941 - Broadcast journalist
- Kevin Conway 1942 - Actor
- Helmut Berger (Helmut Steinberger) 1944 - Actor
- Gary Brooker 1945 - Musician (Procol Harum)
- Anthony Geary 1948 - Actor ("General Hospital")
- Francis Rossi 1949 - Musician (Status Quo)
- Rebbie Jackson (Maureen Reillette Brown) 1950 - Singer (The Jacksons)
- Danny Elfman 1953 - Musician
- John Hinckley Jr. 1955
- Michael Porcaro 1955 - Musician (Toto)
- LaToya Jackson 1956 - Singer, songwriter, musician, actress
- Annette Bening 1958 - Actress
- Rupert Everett (Rupert James Hector Everett) 1959 - Actor
- Adrian Paul (Adrian Paul Hewett) 1959 - Actor (TV's "Highlander")
- Melissa Etheridge 1961 - Singer, musician
- Lisa Whelchel 1963 - Actress ("The Facts of Life"), singer, writer
- Melanie Janine Brown 1975 - Scary Spice ofSpice Girls
