Today Monday, 17th of August of 2026
August 17 is the 229th day of the year
136 days remain until the end of the year.
36 days until autumn begins
The sun will rise in San Francisco at 6:27:25 am
and sunset will be at 7:59:00 pm.
Today we will have 13 hours and 31 minutes of daylight
The solar transit will be at 1:13:12 pm.
Water temperature in San Francisco Bay today is 66°F
The first high tide was at 2:34 am at 4.79 feet
The first low tide will be at 8:23 am at 1.54 feet
The next high tide will be at 2:53 pm t 5.91 feet
and the final low tide at Ocean Beach tonight will be at 9:34 pm at 1.19 feet
The Moon is currently 25.5% visible
It's a Waxing Crescent
We'll have the First Quarter Moon in 3 days on Wednesday the 19th of August of 2026 at 7:46 pm
Today is....
Baby Boomers Recognition Day
Balloon Airmail Day
Cupcake Day (Australia)
Massachusetts Day
National #2 Pencil Day
National Black Cat Appreciation Day
National I LOVE My Feet Day
National Meaning of "Is" Day
National Nonprofit Day
National Pineapple Juice Day
National Thrift Shop Day
National Vanilla Custard Day
Stay Home with Your Kids Day
World Eggplant Day
Today is also....
Engineer's Day (Colombia)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence proclamation of Indonesia from Japan in 1945.
If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share your special day with....
1786 – Davy Crockett, American soldier and politician (died 1836)
1887 – Marcus Garvey, Jamaican journalist and activist, founded Black Star Line (died 1940)
1888 – Monty Woolley, American actor, raconteur, and pundit (died 1963)
1893 - Mae West, American stage and screen actress, writer (She Done Him Wrong; I'm No Angel), and singer (Way Out West), born in Brooklyn, New York City (died 1980)
1918 - Ike Quebec, American jazz tenor saxophone player, and pianist, born in Newark. New Jersey (d. 1963)
1919 – Georgia Gibbs, American singer (died 2006)[52]
1920 – Maureen O'Hara, Irish-American actress and singer (Miracle on 34th Street; The Quiet Man; Only The Lonely), and singer, born in Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland (died 2015)
1926 – Jiang Zemin, Chinese engineer and politician, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (paramount leader) and President of China (died 2022)
1929 – Francis Gary Powers, American captain and pilot (died 1977)
1930 – Ted Hughes, English poet and playwright (died 1998)
1932 – V. S. Naipaul, Trinidadian-English novelist and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2018)
1936 - Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Native American (Dakota Sioux) country music singer-songwriter, actor (Walker, Texas Ranger; Northern Exposure), and political activist, born on Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, South Dakota (d. 2007)
1939 – Luther Allison, American blues guitarist and singer (died 1997)
1943 – Robert De Niro, American actor, entrepreneur, director, and producer
1943 – Dave "Snaker" Ray, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2002)
1944 – Larry Ellison, American businessman, co-founded the Oracle Corporation
1949 – Sue Draheim, American fiddler and composer (died 2013)
1958 – Belinda Carlisle, American singer-songwriter (The Go-Go's - "Vacation"; solo - "Heaven On Earth"), born in Hollywood, California
1959 – Jonathan Franzen, American novelist and essayist
1959 – Jacek Kazimierski, Polish footballer
1959 – Eric Schlosser, American journalist and author
1959 – David Koresh, American cult leader (died 1993)
1960 – Sean Penn, American actor, director, and political activist
1965 – Steve Gorman, American drummer
1989 – Lil B, American rapper
....and on this day in history....
1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1876 – Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung, the last opera in his Ring cycle, premieres at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
1907 – Pike Place Market, one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the U.S. and a popular tourist attraction, opens in Seattle, Washington.
1945 – The novella Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published.
1953 – First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous takes place, in Southern California.
1970 – Soviet Union Venera program: Venera 7 launched. It will become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
1977 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.
2008 – American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.
