216 day of 2014 / 149 to go
Tides at the Golden Gate:
High: 6:52am/6:30pm Low: 12:21am/11:38pm
Sunrise: 6:16 Sunset: 8:15pm
Moonset: 12:25am Moonrise: 2:33pm 48% visible
Special Celebrations today include...
- Anniversary of Huancavelica - Peru
- Coast Guard Day - United States of America
- Constitution Day - Cook Islands
- Revolution Day - Burkina Faso
- Transfiguration Bank Holiday - El Salvador
- Coast Guard Day
- National Psychic Day
- National Chocolate Chip Day
- Single Working Women’s Day
- Social Security Day
- Assistance Dog Day
On this day in...
1735 - Freedom of the press was established with an acquittal of John Peter Zenger. The writer of the New York Weekly Journal had been charged with seditious libel by the royal governor of New York. The jury said that "the truth is not libelous."
1790 - The Revenue Cutter Service was formed. This U.S. naval task force was the beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard.
1821 - "The Saturday Evening Post" was published for the first time as a weekly.
1914 - Britain declared war on Germany in World War I. The U.S. proclaimed its neutrality.
1921 - The first radio broadcast of a tennis match occurred. It was in Pittsburgh, PA.
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.
1954 - The uranium rush began in Saskatchewan, Canada.
1956 - William Herz became the first person to race a motorcycle over 200 miles per hour. He was clocked at 210 mph.
1957 - Florence Chadwick set a world record by swimming the English Channel in 6 hours and 7 minutes.
1957 - Juan Fangio won his final auto race and captured the world auto driving championship. It was his the fifth consecutive year to win.
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."
1972 - Arthur Bremer was found guilty of shooting George Wallace, the governor of Alabama. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison.
1977 - U.S. President Carter signed the measure that established the Department of Energy.
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 - Upper Volta, an African republic, changed its name to Burkina Faso.
1986 - The United States Football League called off its 1986 season. This was after winning only token damages in its antitrust lawsuit against the National Football League.
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.
1990 - The European Community imposed an embargo on oil from Iraq and Kuwait. This was done to protest the Iraqi invasion of the oil-rich Kuwait.
1991 - The Oceanos, a Greek luxury liner, sank off of South Africa's southeast coast. All of the 402 passengers and 179 crewmembers survived.
1994 - Yugoslavia withdrew its support for Bosnian Serbs. The border between Yugoslavia and Serb-held Bosnia was sealed.
1996 - Josia Thugwane won a gold medal after finishing first in the marathon. He became the first black South African to win a gold medal.
1997 - Teamsters began a 15-day strike against UPS (United Parcel Service). The strikers eventually won an increase in full-time positions and defeated a proposed reorganization of the company's pension plan.
2009 - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pardoned two American journalists, who had been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry earlier in the year.
Birthday celebrants today include (or included)...
- Joseph Scaliger 1540
- Percy Shelley 1792
- Louis Armstrong 1901
- Glenn Cunningham 1909
- William Howard Schuman 1910
- Raoul Wallenberg 1912
- Wesley Addy 1913
- Helen Thomas 1920
- Herb Ellis 1921
- Dallas Green 1934
- Joe Leonard 1934
- Elsbeary Hobbs 1936
- Frankie Ford 1939
- Timi Yuro 1940
- Richard Belzer 1944
- Klaus Schultze 1947
- John Riggins 1949
- Kristoffer Tabori 1952
- Maire Ni Bhraaonion 1952
- Billy Bob Thornton 1955
- Kym Karath 1958
- Ian Broudie 1958
- Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
- Robbin Crosby 1959
- Barack Hussein Obama 1961
- Roger Clemens 1962
- Dennis Lehane 1965
- Rob Cieka 1968
- Daniel Dae Kim 1968
- Michael DeLuise 1969
- Jeff Gordon 1971
- Marques Houston 1981
