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Almanac - Friday December 1, 2023

Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King jr. (ca. 1955) Photo credit: USIA, National Arxhives
GPA Photo Archive
/
Flickr Creative Commons

Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King jr. (ca. 1955) Photo credit: USIA, National Arxhives

Today is Friday, the 1st of December of 2023,

December 1 is the 335th day of the year

30 days remain until the end of the year.

20 days until winter begins

The sun will rise in a few minutes at 7:06:32 am

and the sun will set this afternoon at 4:51:05 pm.

Water temperature in San Francisco Bay today is 55.9°F.

The first high tide will be at 3:19 am

and the next high tide at 1:06 pm.

The first low tide will be at 7:35 am

and the next low tide at 8:18 pm.

We will have 9 hours and 44 minutes of daylight today

The solar transit will be at 11:58:48 am.

The Moon is currently 82.2% visible

Waning Gibbous

Last Quarter Moon in 3 days Monday the 4th of December of 2023 at 9:49 pm

Moonset this morning at 11:11 am this morning

and Moonrise at 8:49 pm tonight

Today is…

Rosa Parks Day

Also known as Day of Courage and National Day of Courage

On this day in 1955 –In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city's bus boycott.

Bartender Appreciation Day

Bifocals at the Monitor Liberation Day

Civil Air Patrol Day

Day With(out) Art

Eat a Red Apple Day

Faux Fur Friday

International Sweater Vestival

National Christmas Lights Day

National Cookie Cutter Day

National Fried Pie Day

National Peppermint Bark Day

National Pie Day

Wear a Dress Day

World AIDS Day

Today is also….

Battle of the Sinop Day in Russia

Damrong Rajanubhab Day in Thailand

Farmer's Day in Ghana

First President Day in Kazakhstan

Freedom and Democracy Day in Chad

Great Union Day, celebrates the Union of Transylvania with Romania in 1918 in Romania

Military Abolition Day in Costa Rica

National Day in Myanmar

Republic Day in the Central African Republic

Restoration of Independence Day in Portugal

Self-governance Day or Fullveldisdagurinn in Iceland

Teachers' Day in Panama

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

1761Marie Tussaud, French-English sculptor, founded Madame Tussauds Wax Museum (d. 1850)

1792Nikolai Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician and geometer (d. 1856)

1886Rex Stout, American detective novelist (d. 1975)

1886 – Zhu De, Chinese general and politician, 1st Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China (d. 1976)

1896Georgy Zhukov, Russian general and politician, 2nd Minister of Defence for the Soviet Union (d. 1974)

1913Mary Martin, American actress and singer (d. 1990)

1923Dick Shawn, American actor (d. 1987)

1923 – Stansfield Turner, American admiral and academic, 12th Director of Central Intelligence (d. 2018)

1933Lou Rawls, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (d. 2006)

1934Billy Paul, American soul singer (d. 2016)

1939Lee Trevino, American golfer and sportscaster

1940 – Richard Pryor, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2005)

1945Bette Midler, American singer-songwriter, actress and producer

1946Jonathan Katz, American comedian and actor

1946 – Gilbert O'Sullivan, Irish singer-songwriter and pianist

1949 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist (d. 1993)

1951 – Jaco Pastorius, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (d. 1987)

1958 – Candace Bushnell, American journalist and author

1970 – Sarah Silverman, American comedian, actress, and singer

1976 – Laura Ling, American journalist and author

1976 – Matthew Shepard, American hate crime victim (d. 1998)

1985 – Janelle Monáe, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress

1988 – Zoë Kravitz, American actress, singer, and model

….and on this day in history….

1662 – Diarist John Evelyn records skating on the frozen lake in St James's Park, London, watched by Charles II and Queen Catherine.

1824United States presidential election: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1834 – Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony (in Modern Day South Africa) in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1878 – President Rutherford B. Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House.

1918Transylvania unites with Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28) and thus concluding the Great Union.

1918 – Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.

1919Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament (MP) to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. (She had been elected to that position on November 28.)

1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery.

1955American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city's bus boycott.

1959Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.

1973Papua New Guinea gains self-government from Australia.

1988World AIDS Day is proclaimed worldwide by the UN member states.

1988 – Benazir Bhutto, is named as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first female leader to lead a muslim nation.

1990Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet beneath the seabed.

1991 – Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.

2000Vicente Fox Quesada is inaugurated as the president of Mexico, marking the first peaceful transfer of executive federal power to an opposing political party following a free and democratic election in Mexico's history.

2006 – The law on same-sex marriage came into force in South Africa for the first time on the African continent.

Kevin Vance created a program of folk music for KALW, A Patchwork Quilt, in October 1991. He grew up in Berkeley during the 1960s and '70s and spent his years learning in public schools, community colleges, bookstores, libraries, and non-commercial radio stations, as well as from the people around him. When he's not on the radio, then he's selling books, taking care of his family, listening to music, entering stuff into a computer, or taking a class.