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Almanac - Tuesday 5/22/18

Harvey Milk in front of Castro Camera, June 1977. Photo courtesy of flickr user San Francisco Public Library

Today is Tuesday, the 22nd of May of 2018. 

It is the 142nd day of the year. 

There are 223 days remaining until the end of the year.

30 days until summer begins

168 days until mid-term elections Tuesday November 6, 2018

(5 months and 15 days from today)

896 days until presidential elections Tuesday November 3, 2020

(2 years 5 months and 12 days from today)

The sun will rise in San Francisco at 5:54 am 

and sunset will be at 8:20 pm.

Today we will have 14 hours and 26 minutes of daylight.

Solar noon will be at 1:07 pm.

The first low tide was at 12:17am

and the next low tide will be at 12:23 pm.

The first high tide will be at 5:48 am 

and the next high tide at 7:43 pm.

Pollen count today is 6.3, considered a medium day.

The Moon is 53.8% visible; a Waxing Gibbous moon

Moon Direction: ↑ 310.90° NW

Moon Altitude: -26.51°

Moon Distance: 232596 mi

Next Full Moon: Tuesday May 29, 2018 at 7:19 am

Next New Moon: Jun 13, 2018 at 12:43 pm

Next Moonrise: Today at 1:29 pm

Today is…

Bitcoin Pizza Day

Canadian Immigrants Day

Harvey Milk Day

International Day for Biological Diversity

National Buy a Musical Instrument Day

National Maritime Day

National Solitaire Day

National Vanilla Pudding Day

Sherlock Holmes Day

World Goth Day

It’s also…

Abolition Day in Martinique

National Sovereignty Day in Haiti

Republic Day in Sri Lanka

Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra to Bari in Ukraine

Unity Day in Yemen, celebrating the unification of North and South Yemen into the Republic of Yemen in 1990.

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

1813 – Richard Wagner, German composer (d. 1883)

1844 – Mary Cassatt, American painter and educator (d. 1926)

1859 – Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer (d. 1930)

1907 – Hergé, Belgian author and illustrator (d. 1983)

1907 – Laurence Olivier, English actor, director, and producer (d. 1989)

1914 – Sun Ra, American pianist, composer, bandleader, poet (d. 1993)

1922 – Quinn Martin, American screenwriter and producer (d. 1987)

1924 – Charles Aznavour, French-Armenian singer-songwriter and actor

1927 – Michael Constantine, American actor

1927 – Peter Matthiessen, American novelist, short story writer, editor, co-founded The Paris Review (d. 2014)

1928 – T. Boone Pickens, American businessman

1930 – Harvey Milk, American lieutenant and politician (d. 1978)

1937 – Facundo Cabral, Argentinian singer-songwriter (d. 2011)

1938 – Susan Strasberg, American actress (d. 1999)

1940 – Bernard Shaw, American journalist

1942 – Ted Kaczynski, American academic and mathematician turned anarchist and serial murderer (Unabomber)

1950 – Bernie Taupin, English singer-songwriter and poet

1950 – Bill Whelan, Irish composer and musician

1959 – Morrissey, English singer-songwriter and performer

…and on this day in history…

1176 – The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to assassinate Saladin near Aleppo.

1848 – Slavery is abolished in Martinique.

1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.

1900 – The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative.

1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".

1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, the only volcano besides Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous U.S. during the 20th century.

1972 – Ceylon adopts a new constitution, becoming a republic and changing its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.

1990 – North and South Yemen are unified to create the Republic of Yemen.

2002 – Civil rights movement: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murder of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

2012 – Tokyo Skytree opens to the public. It is the tallest tower in the world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m).

2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.

2017 – Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.