- 24th Day of 2012 / 342 Remaining
- 56 Days Until Spring Begins
- Sunrise:7:20
- Sunset:5:25
- 10 Hr 5 Min
- Moon Rise:7:55am
- Moon Set:7:19pm
- Moon’s Phase: 3 %
- The Next Full Moon
- February 7 @ 1:56pm
- Full Snow Moon
- Full Hunger Moon
Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
- Tides
- High:5:05am/5:36pm
- Low:10:55am
- Rainfall
- This Year:6.06
- Last Year:12.35
- Normal To Date:11.69
- Annual Average: 22.28
- Holidays
- National Peanut Butter Day
- Belly Laugh Day
- National Compliment Day
- Eskimo Pie Day
- Beer Can Day
- Economic Liberation Day-Togo
- On This Day In …
- 1848 --- James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California. The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 sparked the Gold Rush, arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century. As news spread of the discovery, thousands of prospective gold miners traveled by sea or over land to San Francisco and the surrounding area; by the end of 1849, the non-native population of the California territory was some 100,000 (compared with the pre-1848 figure of less than 1,000). A total of $2 billion worth of precious metal was extracted from the area during the Gold Rush, which peaked in 1852.
- 1899 --- Humphrey O’Sullivan, a nice Irish gent, patented the rubber heel on this day and, of course, nothing has ever been quite the same since. Please don’t leave black heel marks on the floor today!
- 1908 --- The Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. The name Baden-Powell was already well known to many English boys, and thousands of them eagerly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and scores of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain.
- 1920 --- Christian K. Nelson of Onawa, IA patented something quite sweet: It was an ice cream confection that we commonly know as an Eskimo Pie.
- 1924 --- The Russian city of St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad. The name has since been changed back to St. Petersburg.
- 1935 --- Canned beer makes its debut. In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production. By the late 19th century, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, but it wasn't until 1909 that the American Can Company made its first attempt to can beer. This was unsuccessful, and the American Can Company would have to wait for the end of Prohibition in the United States before it tried again. Finally in 1933, after two years of research, American Can developed a can that was pressurized and had a special coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin.
- 1936 --- Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded one of the all-time greats, Stompin’ at the Savoy, on Victor Records. The song became such a standard, that, literally, hundreds of artists have recorded it, including a vocal version by Barry Manilow; believe it or not. The ‘King of Swing’ recorded the song in a session at the Congress Hotel in Chicago.
- 1982 --- Super Bowl XVI (at Pontiac): San Francisco 49ers 26, Cincinnati Bengals 21. The first cold-weather Super Bowl, the game was played in the Pontiac, Michigan Silverdome. The 49ers led 20-0 at the half, but the Bengals chased and almost caught them in the second half. MVP: 49ers QB Joe Montana. Tickets: $40.00. The CBS telecast was viewed by 110.2 million fans and CBS radio counted 14 million listeners to its broadcast of the game.
- 1986 --- The Voyager 2 space probe swept past Uranus, coming within 50,679 miles of the seventh planet from the sun.
- 1996 --- The fat substitute Olestra was approved for sale by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
- 2004 --- A hiking magazine apologized after it published a route plan that would have sent hikers striding into thin air off the north face of Scotland's largest mountain, Ben Nevis.
- 2004 --- NASA's Opportunity rover landed on Mars three weeks after its identical twin, Spirit.
- Birthdays
- Edith Wharton
- Ernest Borgnine
- Neil Diamond
- Aaron Neville
- Yakov Smirnoff
- Jools Holland
- Nastassia Kinski
- Mary Lou Retton
- Ed Helms
- Ray Stevens
- Oral Roberts
- Marvin Kaplan
- Warren Zevon
- John Belushi
- Doug Kershaw
- Sharon Tate
- Alan Farley