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Almanac - Thursday 8-4-22

Today is Thursday, August 4, 2022, the 216th day of the year; 149 days remain until the end of the year.

  • Sunrise: 6:15am
  • Sunset: 8:14pm

The waxing crescent moon is 42.8% illuminated, with the moon rising at 1:05pm.
San Francisco Bay Tides

  • High: 5:20am/6:00pm
  • Low: 11:09am

Water Temp in Aquatic Park – around 57 degrees
Today’s special holidays and celebrations:

  • Coast Guard Day
  • National Chocolate Chip Day
  • Raisin Bran Day
  • Single Working Women's Day

On this day in…

1753 - George Washington became a Master Mason. 1821 - "The Saturday Evening Post" was published for the first time as a weekly.

1922 - The death of Alexander Graham Bell, two days earlier, was recognized by AT&T and the Bell Systems by shutting down all of its switchboards and switching stations. The shutdown affected 13 million phones.

1944 - Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her diary would be published after her death.

1958 - The first potato flake plant was completed in Grand Forks, ND.

1958 - Billboard Magazine introduced its "Hot 100" chart, which was part popularity and a barometer of the movement of potential hits. The first number one song was Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool."

1983 - New York Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield threw a baseball during warm-ups and accidentally killed a seagull. After the game, Toronto police arrested him for "causing unnecessary suffering to an animal."

1984 - Carl Lewis won a gold medal in the Los Angeles Olympics.

1987 - The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the Federal Communications Commission. The doctrine had required that radio and TV stations present controversial issues in a balanced fashion.

1987 - A new 22-cent U.S. stamp honoring noted author William Faulkner, went on sale in Oxford, MS. Faulkner had been fired as postmaster of that same post office in 1924.

1989 - Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani offered to assist end the hostage crisis in Lebanon.

1994 - Yugoslavia withdrew its support for Bosnian Serbs. The border between Yugoslavia and Serb-held Bosnia was sealed.

2007 - NASA's Phoenix spacecraft was launched on a space exploration mission of Mars. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25, 2008. 2009 - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pardoned two American journalists, who had been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry earlier in the year.

In addition to, perhaps…you, today’s birthday celebrants include or included…

  • Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 - Poet
  • Louis Armstrong 1901 - Musician, singer
  • William Howard Schuman 1910 – Composer
  • Betty Ford 1918
  • Helen Thomas 1920 - Journalist
  • Richard Belzer 1944 - Actor, comedian
  • Billy Bob Thornton 1955 - Actor
  • Kym Karath 1958 - Actress ("The Sound of Music")
  • Barack Hussein Obama 1961 - 44th President of the United States
  • Roger Clemens 1962 - Baseball player
  • Dennis Lehane 1965 – Author