- 244th Day of 2012 /122 Remaining
- 22 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:39
- Sunset:7:40
- 13 Hours 1 Minute of Daylight
- Moon Rise:7:30pm
- Moon Set:6:50am
- Full Moon
- August 31st @ 6:57am
- Blue Moon
But it’s Blue in name only. That’s because a Blue Moon is sometimes defined as the second full moon in a calendar month. The first full moon was August 1. The second full moon is August 31, 2012. There are two more definitions for Blue Moon. It can be the third of four full moons in a single season. Or, someday, you might see an actual blue-colored moon.
- Tides
- High:11:45am/11:32pm
- Low:5:11am/5:28pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:0.03
- Last Year:0.11
- Normal To Date:0.00
- Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
- Holidays
- Love Litigating Lawyers Day
- National Trial Mix Day
- National Eat Outside Day
- Invent A New Sandwich Day
- Constitution Day-Kazakhstan
- Freedom Day-Malaysia
- Independence Day-Kyrgyzstan
- Independence Day-Trinidad,Tobago
- La Tomatina-Spain
- National Language Day-Moldova
- Hero’s Day-Philippines
- White Rose Day-Australia
- Grape Blessing Day-Armenia
- On This Day In …
- 1887 --- The kinetoscope was patented by Thomas Edison. The device was used to produce moving pictures.
- 1928 --- “Die Dreigroschenoper” (The Threepenny Opera) receives its world premiere in Berlin on August 31, 1928. "I think I've written a good piece and that several numbers in it, at least musically, have the best prospects for becoming popular very quickly." This was the assessment offered by the German composer Kurt Weill in a letter to his publisher 10 days before the premiere of his latest work. Created in partnership with the revolutionary dramatist Bertolt Brecht, that work would, in fact, prove to be the most significant and successful of Weill's career and one of the most important works in the history of musical theater: “Die Dreigroschenoper” (The Threepenny Opera). In addition to running for 400-plus performances in its original German production, Brecht and Weill's masterpiece would go on to be translated into 18 languages and receive more than 10,000 performances internationally. The premiere of “The Threepenny Opera” on this day in 1928 came almost exactly 200 years after the premiere of the work on which it was based: John Gay's “The Beggar's Opera”. In Gay's satirical original, the thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes of London's Newgate Prison competed for power and position in the accents and manners of the English upper classes. It was Bertolt Brecht's idea to adapt The Beggar's Opera into a new work that would serve as a sharp political critique of capitalism and as a showcase for his avant-garde approach to theater. Much of The Threepenny Opera's historical reputation rests on Brecht's experimental dramaturgical techniques—such as breaking "the fourth wall" between audience and performers—but the music of Kurt Weill was just as important in turning it into a triumph. The drama critic for The New York Times said of Weill in 1941, "He is not a song writer but a composer of organic music that can bind the separate elements of a production and turn the underlying motive into song." While this comment was intended as praise of Weill, who had by then fled his native Germany for the United States, it nevertheless sold Weill's songwriting somewhat short. By 1959, Weill's opening song from “The Threepenny Opera”, "The Ballad of Mackie Messer" would be one of the biggest pop hits of all time for Bobby Darin in a jazzy variation inspired by Louis Armstrong and renamed "Mack The Knife."
- 1939 --- At noon, despite threats of British and French intervention, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs an order to attack Poland, and German forces move to the frontier. That evening, Nazi S.S. troops wearing Polish uniforms staged a phony invasion of Germany, damaging several minor installations on the German side of the border. They also left behind a handful of dead German prisoners in Polish uniforms to serve as further evidence of the alleged Polish attack, which Nazi propagandists publicized as an unforgivable act of aggression. At dawn the next morning, 58 German army divisions invaded Poland all across the 1,750-mile frontier. Hitler expected appeasement from Britain and France--the same nations that had given Czechoslovakia away to German conquest in 1938 with their signing of the Munich Pact. However, neither country would allow Hitler's new violation of Europe's borders, and Germany was presented with an ultimatum: Withdraw by September 3 or face war with the Western democracies. At 11:15 a.m. on September 3, a few minutes after the expiration of the British ultimatum, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeared on national radio to announce solemnly that Britain was at war with Germany. Australia, New Zealand, and India immediately followed suit. Later that afternoon, the French ultimatum expired, and at 5:00 p.m. France declared war on Germany. The European phase of World War II began.
- 1942 --- “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!” Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound ... the caped crusader started on network radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Bud Collyer, later of TV’s Beat the Clock, played Clark Kent aka Superman on the radio series. His identity had been well guarded for years. Most people didn’t have a clue as to the identity of Superman until a TIME magazine article about Collyer appeared in 1946.
- 1946 --- Foghorn Leghorn debuted in the Warner Brothers cartoon "Walky Talky Hawk."
- 1959 --- Sandy Koufax set a National League record by striking out 18 hitters. Wally Moon connected for a three-run homer as the LA Dodgers downed the San Francisco Giants, 5-2.
- 1963 --- Walter Cronkite started showing up in living rooms during the dinner hour, as anchor of the CBS Evening News (a job he took over from Douglas Edwards on April 16, 1962). Previous to this night, CBS Evening News had been shown from 7:30-7:45 p.m. and 7:15-7:30 p.m. A familiar face to TV audiences, Walter Cronkite had been the host of You Are There, a CBS Sunday night program that ran from 1953 through 1957. A CBS news correspondent, Walter Cronkite served as reporter, host, and anchorman as major events in history were reenacted. Those who were viewers of You Are There can probably still recite Walter’s closing lines: “What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... and you were there.” Seven days after You Are There ended, the sincere face and friendly, yet authoritative voice of Walter Cronkite showed up in our living rooms again. This time he was narrator and host of The 20th Century, a program that presented filmed reports of major events and personalities that had shaped modern history. In January of 1967, the show changed its name and format. The 21st Century looked into the future rather than the past. Walter Cronkite remained at the helm. This was double duty for the consummate journalist as he continued to anchor the CBS Evening News. While Mr. Cronkite was busy narrating, and reporting and anchoring, he was also the moderator in 1951 for The Facts We Face (which became Open Hearing); for the interview show, Man of the Week (1952-53); of the quiz show, It’s News to Me in 1954; narrator of Air Power, a documentary series (1956-58); host of Pick the Winner, a series of political telecasts in 1952 and again in 1956; anchor of the 1960 presidential campaign conclusion, Presidential Countdown; the 1980 CBS wrap-up of political news, Campaign Countdown, and the CBS news analysis program, Eyewitness to History, from 1961 to 1962. Cronkite was also the anchor and chief correspondent for Universe, a CBS science magazine-type program, in the summers of 1980, 1981 and 1982. His “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” won a multitude of Emmy Awards. Walter, himself, took home several individual Emmys for Outstanding Achievement Within Regularly Scheduled News Programs; specifically, for The Watergate Affair and Coverage of the Shooting of Governor Wallace in 1972-1973; and Solzhenitsyn, a CBS News Special in 1974. When the Emmy Awards were presented on September 9, 1979, Walter Cronkite received the coveted ATAS Governor’s Award. Walter Cronkite, voted the ‘most trusted man in America’, left "CBS Evening News" on March 6, 1981.
- 1964 --- California officially became the most populated state in America.
- 1974 --- In federal court, John Lennon testified the Nixon administration tried to have him deported because of his involvement with the anti-war demonstrations at the 1972 Republican convention in Miami, FL.
- 1976 --- The TV show "Alice" premiered on CBS. Based on the 1975 film "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," the TV series starred Linda Lavin, Vic Tayback, Philip McKeon, Beth Howland, and Polly Holliday.
- 1981 --- The 30-year contract between ‘Mr. Television’, Milton Berle, and NBC-TV expired. Uncle Miltie had received $6 million for NOT being on the air since his show, The Texaco Star Theatre, went off the air in the mid-1950s. NBC held Berle to the contract to keep him from appearing on competing networks.
- 1990 --- Ken Griffey & Ken Griffey Jr were the first father-and-son teammate combo to play on same baseball team: the Seattle Mariners. Both men hit singles in the first inning. And, that September 14 they hit back-to-back home runs in a game at the California Angels.
- Birthdays
- Maria Montessori
- Van Morrison
- Frank Robinson
- Itzhak Perlman
- Richard Gere
- Arthur Godfrey
- Caligula (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus)
- Daniel Schorr
- Buddy Hackett
- James Coburn
- Edwin Moses
- Gina Shock(Go-Go’s)