- 355th Day of 2011 / 10 Remaining
- 1 Day Until Winter Begins
- Sunrise:7:21
- Sunset:4:55
- 9 Hr 34 Min
- Moon Rise:4:02am
- Moon Set:2:17pm
- Moon’s Phase: 11 %
- The Next Full Moon
- January 8 @ 11:32pm
- Full Wolf Moon
- Full Old 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:7:02am/9:07pm
- Low:12:41am/2:13pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:3.35
- Last Year:8.59
- Year To Date Average:6.99
- Annual Average: 22.28
- Holidays
- Forefather’s Day
- National French Fried Shrimp Day
- Humbug Day
- Look at the Bright Side Day
- Hannukah / Feast Of Lights-Judaism
- Las Posadas-Mexico
- Soviet Dissolution Day-Russia
- Saturnalia-Roman Festival
- Yalda-Iran ---The longest night of the year is celebrated tonight. Friends and family will stay up all night to help the sun in its battle against darkness.
- On This Day In History
- 1849 --- The first ice-skating club in America was formed in Philadelphia.
- 1879 --- Ibsen's "A Doll's House" was first performed in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a revised happy ending.
- 1898 --- Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the radioactive element radium.
- 1913 --- The "New York World" Sunday edition included a crossword puzzle as an added feature of the "Fun" supplement. It was the first crossword puzzle to be published.
- 1914 --- Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Mack Swain appeared in the first six-reel, feature-length comedy. The film was entitled "Tillie’s Punctured Romance".
- 1937 --- Walt Disney presented the first full-length, animated feature. It debuted on this day at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Hollywood, CA. The cost to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was $1.5 million. Disney got his total investment back in the first year of the film’s showing. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is 83 minutes in length and is the work of 750 artists. Nearly one million drawings were made, of which 250,000 were used in the final print of the classic film. The wicked queen’s voice was that of Lucille LaVerne and Adriana Caselotti spoke for Snow White; Margery Belcher Champion was the model for the cartoon star. Disney won a special Oscar in 1938 (presented to him by Shirley Temple). The film is said to have been Disney’s finest moment and certainly the turning point of his career. Critics said that the adaptation of Grimm’s fairy tale would be Disney’s folly.
- 1948 --- Ireland became an independent republic
- 1958 --- Charles de Gaulle was elected the first president of France's Fifth Republic.
- 1970 --- Elvis Presley is greeted at the White House by President Richard M. Nixon. Presley's visit was not just a social call: He wanted to meet Nixon in order to offer his services in the government's war on drugs. Three weeks earlier, Presley, who wanted to distance himself from rock-and-roll's unseemly association with drug use and the counterculture, had met Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, in Palm Springs, California and offered to use his celebrity status to help promote the administration's anti-drug campaign. Presley then flew to Washington, checking into a hotel under an alias on December 20. The next day, he and two of his bodyguards proceeded to the White House gates, where Presley handed the guard a handwritten letter. In the letter, Presley told Nixon he did not associate or agree with the "Drug Culture, hippie elements," student protestors and "Black Panthers," whom he believed hated America. He declared that he wanted nothing but to "help the country out" and asked to be designated a "federal agent-at-large." The guard immediately recognized Presley, but followed protocol and asked for permission to send him on to the White House. He apparently was not searched before being granted admission: Upon meeting Nixon he presented the president with a gift--a World War II-era Colt .45 pistol. The two were photographed shaking hands, Nixon in a conservative suit and tie and Elvis wearing tight purple velvet pants and an open-collared shirt with jeweled chains, a purple velvet cape slung over his shoulders and an enormous belt buckle. Nixon and "The King" exchanged pleasantries and agreed that "those who use drugs are in the vanguard of American protest." Presley again reiterated his desire to do whatever he could to help influence young people and fellow musicians to reject drugs and anti-Americanism. At the conclusion of the brief meeting, Presley surprised Nixon with a hug.
- 1988 --- Pan Am World Airways Flight 103 was the target of a terrorist attack this day. The jet exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 259 passengers and crew, plus eleven people who were on the ground at the site of the crash. (In Jan 2001 Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi was found guilty of planting the bomb that blew up the plane.)
- 1991 --- The Soviet Union formally ceased to exist and was dissolved into Russia and fourteen other independent countries. The U.S. supported the change and pledged to extend as much help as possible to the new Russian state under Boris Yeltsin.
- 1993 --- TV Guide reported that early "Gilligan's Island" press releases gave Gilligan's first name as "Willy." The name never was used on the TV show.
- 2002 --- Larry Mayes was released after spending 21 years in prison for a rape that maintained that he never committed. He was the 100th person in the U.S. to be released after DNA tests were performed.
- 2003 --- A man who wanted to share his stock market winnings with the public tossed $9,350 in small bills from the observation deck of a tower in Nagoya, Japan, causing a scramble for the money in the streets below. The man told police he had too much money, didn't need it, and wanted to give some back to the world. Police said the man did not break any laws.
- 2004 -- U.S. President George Bush's approval rating slipped 6 percent to 49 percent, making Bush the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election.
- 2012 --- ‘Y12’ - The end of the Long Count Maya Calendar Cycle (5,125.37 years). The End of the World; the beginning of a new enlightened age; or just another Friday afternoon? Take your pick.
- Birthdays
- Josh Gibson
- Frank Zappa
- Samuel Jackson
- Joe Paterno
- Phil Donahue
- Jane Fonda
- Albert Lee
- Michael Tilson Thomas
- Chris Evert
- Keifer Sutherland
- Benjamin Disraeli
- Dame Rebecca West
- Walter Hagen
- Kurt Waldheim
- Paul Winchell
- Carla Thomas
- Carl Wilson (Beach Boys)
- Ray Romano
- Florence Griffith Joyner
- Andy Dick
- Joseph Stalin