- 11th Day of 2013 / 354 Remaining
- 68 Days Until The First Day of Spring
- Sunrise:7:24
- Sunset:5:11
- 9 Hours 47 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:7:03am
- Moon Set:5:35pm
- New Moon @ 11:45am
- The Next Full Moon
- January 26 @ 8:40pm
- Full Wolf Moon
- Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
- Tides
- High: 10:44am
- Low: 4:35am/5:29pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:13.36
- Last Year:3.34
- Normal To Date:10.71
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- Step In A Puddle And Splash Your Friend Day’
- Milk Day
- National Hot Toddy Day
- Independence Day-Morocco
- National Unity Day-Nepal
- On This Day In …
- 1770 --- The first shipment of rhubarb was sent to the United States from London. Benjamin Franklin sent the plant to his buddy, John Bartram in Philadelphia. So, get some rhubarb pie, or if you’re in the vicinity of Knott’s Berry Farm, and you’re going to have their famous chicken dinner, you’ll get stewed rhubarb whether you want it or not! Of course, you can just get into a rhubarb today to celebrate!
- 1815 --- U.S. General Andrew Jackson achieved victory at the Battle of New Orleans. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.
- 1878 --- For the first time, milk was delivered in glass bottles -- by one Alexander Campbell, in New York. Up to that time, it had been ladled out of a container by the milkman, right into the customer’s own container. Why, we remember, the milkman would ladle milk into our pockets so we’d have something to drink for lunch.
- 1908 --- Declaring that "The ages had been at work on it, and man can only mar it," President Theodore Roosevelt designates the mighty Grand Canyon a national monument. Home to Native Americans for centuries, the first European to see the vast brightly colored spectacle of the Grand Canyon was Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, who traveled through northern Arizona in 1540 with the Spanish explorer Coronado. Subsequent explorers also marveled at the amazing view from the rim, but few dared to attempt the treacherous descent into the 5,000-foot-deep canyon and explore the miles of maze-like twists and turns. Even as late as the 1860s, the Grand Canyon remained terra incognita to most non-natives. In 1869, though, the geologist John Wesley Powell made his first daring journey through the canyon via the Colorado River. Powell and nine men floated down Wyoming's Green River in small wooden boats to its confluence with the Colorado River (now in Canyonlands National Park), and then into the "Great Unknown" of the Grand Canyon. Astonishingly, Powell and his men managed to guide their fragile wooden boats through a punishing series of rapids, whirlpools, and rocks. They emerged humbled but alive at the end of the canyon in late August. No one died on the river, though Indians killed three men who had abandoned the expedition and attempted to walk back to civilization, convinced their chances were better in the desert than on the treacherous Colorado. By the late 19th century, the growing American fascination with nature and wilderness made the canyon an increasingly popular tourist destination. Entrepreneurs threw up several shoddily constructed hotels on the south rim in order to profit from the stunning view. The arrival of a spur line of the Santa Fe railroad in 1901 provided a far quicker and more comfortable means of reaching the canyon than the previous stagecoach route. By 1915, more than 100,000 visitors were arriving every year. Convinced it should be forever preserved for the benefit of the people, the conservation-minded President Theodore Roosevelt designated a large part of the canyon a national monument in 1908. Congress increased the protection of the canyon in 1932 by making it a national park, ensuring that private development would never despoil the Grand Canyon. Visitors today see a vista little changed from the one Lopez de Cardenas saw nearly 500 years ago.
- 1913 --- The first sedan-type car was unveiled at the National Automobile Show in New York City. The car was manufactured by the Hudson Motor Company.
- 1917 --- The French government regulated the price of Gruyere cheese as a war rationing method.
- 1928 --- Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik revolution and early architect of the Soviet state, is deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia. He lived there in internal exile for a year before being banished from the USSR forever by Stalin.
- 1935 --- In the first flight of its kind, American aviator Amelia Earhart departs Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, on a solo flight to North America. Hawaiian commercial interests offered a $10,000 award to whoever accomplished the flight first. The next day, after traveling 2,400 miles in 18 hours, she safely landed at Oakland Airport in Oakland.
- 1937 --- Two weeks into a sit-down strike by General Motors (GM) auto workers at the Fisher Body Plant No. 2 in Flint, Michigan, a riot breaks out when police try to prevent the strikers from receiving food deliveries from supporters on the outside. Strikers and police officers alike were injured in the melee, which was later nicknamed the "Battle of the Running Bulls." After the January 11 riot, Michigan governor Frank Murphy called in the National Guard to surround the plant. However, the governor, who wanted to preserve his reputation as a friend to the workingman, decided against ordering troops into the plant. The strike was organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which wanted GM--then the world's largest automaker--to recognize it as the sole bargaining authority for employees at the company's factories. The fledgling UAW, which was founded in 1935, also demanded improved working conditions and job security for GM's employees. (In addition to the Fisher Body Plant No. 2, workers at other GM plants in Michigan and around the country went on strike during late 1936-early 1937.) Many Americans sympathized with the strikers, and President Franklin Roosevelt was involved with negotiations to end the conflict.
- 1947 --- Baseball great Honus Wagner signed his 36th professional contract by agreeing to coach the Pittsburgh Pirates. His claim to the Baseball Hall of Fame was a .329 21-year career batting average. He also wore the title of ‘The Flying Dutchman’, earned by stealing bases.
- 1963 --- Whiskey-A-Go-Go opened this night on Sunset Boulevard in Boss Angeles, and what an opening it was! Bright lights and mini-skirted dancers in cages were the prominent features of America’s first discotheque.
- 1964 --- "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash became the first country album to top the U.S. pop album chart.
- 1968 -- The Daily Mirror of London reported that Jimi Hendrix had moved into the London townhouse where George Frederick Handel was believed to have composed "Water Music" and "Messiah."
- 1973 --- The owners of America's 24 major league baseball teams vote to allow teams in the American League (AL) to use a "designated pinch-hitter" that could bat for the pitcher, while still allowing the pitcher to stay in the game. On April 6, 1973--Opening Day--Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees became the league’s first ever designated hitter. In his first plate appearance, he was walked on a full count by the Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant. From the beginning, baseball purists decried the designated hitter in bitter, moralistic terms, arguing that it took away from baseball’s integrity. The rift between pro- and anti-designated hitter fans has continued into the present day. At first, the designated hitter rule did not apply to any games in the World Series, in which the AL and NL winners met for the world championship. From 1976-1985, it applied only to Series held in even-numbered years, and in 1986 the current rule took effect, according to which the designated hitter rule is used or not used according to the practice of the home team.
- 1984 --- Thriller, the album by Michael Jackson, became the all-time best-selling LP. Thriller, with ten-million copies sold, surpassed the previous bestseller, the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever. Among its precedent-shattering achievements, Thriller spent 37 weeks at number one on the Billboard album chart (longer than any contemporary rock or pop album -- only the cast album of South Pacific at 69 weeks and the West Side Story soundtrack at 54 weeks had longer runs at the top). And Thriller produced seven top-10 singles, ahead of Fleetwood Mac, Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteen, who have each taken four top-10 singles off one LP. As of early 2002, Thriller was still the biggest-selling record ever, having sold more than 40-million copies.
- 1991 --- An auction of silver and paintings that had been acquired by the late Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, brought in a total of $20.29 million at Christie's in New York.
- 2003 --- Calling the death penalty process "arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral," Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state's death row two days before leaving office.
- Birthdays
- Jim Hightower
- Naomi Judd
- Alexander Hamilton
- Mary J Blige
- Amanda Peet
- Jean Chretien
- Rod Taylor
- Ezra Cornell
- Slim Harpo
- Clarence Clemmons
- Don Cherry
- Freddie Solomon