Today is Thursday, 4th of July of 2024,
July 4 is the 186th day of the year
180 days remain until the end of the year.
80 days until autumn begins
the sun rose this morning at 5:53:31 am
and sunset will be at 8:35:11 pm.
We will have 14 hours and 41 minutes of daylight
The solar transit will be at 1:14:21 pm.
Water temperature in San Francisco Bay today is 63.5°F
The first low tide was at 4:37 am at -1.08 feet
The first high tide will be at 11:45 am at 4.85 feet
The next low tide at 4:03 pm at 3.23 feet
and the final high tide at Ocean Beach tonight will be at 9:56pm at 6.8 feet
The Moon is currently 2.2% visible
It’s still a Waning Crescent moon
We’ll have the New Moon 3:57 pm
Today is….
National Barbecued Spareribs Day
Today is also….
The first evening of Dree Festival, celebrated until July 7 (Apatani people, Arunachal Pradesh, India)
Liberation Day (Northern Mariana Islands)
If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share your special day with….
1804 – Nathaniel Hawthorne, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1864)
1826 – Stephen Foster, American songwriter and composer (d. 1864)
1872 – Calvin Coolidge, American lawyer and politician, 30th President of the United States (d. 1933)
1883 – Rube Goldberg, American sculptor, cartoonist, and engineer (d. 1970)
1898 – Gertrude Lawrence, British actress, singer, and dancer (d. 1952)
1902 – Meyer Lansky, American gangster (d. 1983)
1902 – George Murphy, American actor and politician (d. 1992)
1905 – Lionel Trilling, American critic, essayist, short story writer, and educator (d. 1975)
1916 – Iva Toguri D'Aquino, American typist and broadcaster (d. 2006)
1920 – Leona Helmsley, American businesswoman (d. 2007)
1927 – Gina Lollobrigida, Italian actress and photographer (d. 2023)
1927 – Neil Simon, American playwright and screenwriter (d. 2018)
1929 – Al Davis, American football player, coach, and manager (d. 2011)
1930 – George Steinbrenner, American businessman (d. 2010)
1938 – Bill Withers, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2020)
1942 – Peter Rowan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1946 – Ron Kovic, American author and activist
1946 – Michael Milken, American businessman and philanthropist
….and on this day in history…
1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.
1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress.
1827 – Slavery is abolished in the State of New York
1832 – John Neal delivers the first public lecture in the US to advocate the rights of women.
1845 – Henry David Thoreau moves into a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's account of his two years there, Walden, will become a touchstone of the environmental movement.
1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published in Brooklyn.
1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.
1881 – In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens.
1939 – Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball.
1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States.
1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists.
1994 – Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city.
2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN.