- 181st Day of 2012 / 185 Remaining
- 85 Days Until Autumn Begins
- Sunrise:5:51
- Sunset:8:36
- 14 Hours 45 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:4:29pm
- Moon Set:2:03am
- Moon’s Phase: 79 %
- The Next Full Moon
- July 3 @ 11:51am
- Full Buck Moon
- Full Thunder Moon
- Full Hay Moon
July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon.
- Tides
- High:8:22am/7:32pm
- Low:1:46am/1:04pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:15.80
- Last Year:28.51
- Normal To Date:23.80
- Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
- Holidays
- National Almond Butter Crunch Day
- Remote Control Day
- Elvis Presley Boulevard Day.(The City of Memphis voted to name a 12-mile portion of the street that passes Graceland in honor of Elvis. Street signs disappeared immediately.)
- Isra Al Mi'Raj/Ascent of the Prophet Muhammad-Islam)
- Peter & Paul Day-Christian
- Independence Day-Seychelles
- On This Day In …
- 1652 --- Massachusetts declared itself an independent commonwealth.
- 1767 --- The British Parliament approved the Townshend Revenue Acts. The acts imposed import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea shipped to America.
- 1860 --- The last stone was laid at Minot’s Ledge (Massachusetts) Lighthouse. The stone tower replaced an iron-pile lighthouse that had been destroyed by a storm in April 1851. The new lighthouse was built of 1,079 blocks (3,514 tons) of Quincy granite dovetailed together and reinforced with iron shafts. Minot’s Light has lasted through countless storms and hurricanes, a testament to its designer and builders. The first 40 feet is solid granite, topped by a storeroom, living quarters and work space.
- 1925 --- A patent for the frosted electric light bulb was filed by Marvin Pipkin. What a bright idea. The frosting inside the light bulb created less glare because it diffused the light emitted, spreading it over a wider area, providing a much softer glow.
- 1941 --- Joe DiMaggio got a base hit in his 42nd consecutive game. He broke George Sisler's record from 1922.
- 1956 --- Dressed in a tux and tails on Steve Allen’s TV variety show, Elvis Presley sang "Hound Dog" to a basset hound sitting on a stool.
- 1956 --- Actress Marilyn Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller in a civil ceremony in White Plains, N.Y.
- 1957 --- Buddy Holly recorded the song "Peggy Sue."
- 1958 --- Brazil defeats host nation Sweden 5-2 to win its first World Cup. Brazil came into the tournament as a favorite, and did not disappoint, thrilling the world with their spectacular play, which was often referred to as the "beautiful game." The star of the tournament was an undersized midfielder named Edson Arondes do Nascimento, known the world over as Pele. Edson, the son of a professional footballer called Dodhino, was named for the American inventor, Thomas Edison. His mother, having watched her husband struggle to earn money in the game, discouraged Pele from playing football. Pele’s will won out, and at 14 he was discovered by de Brito, a former Brazilian team member, who took the young scorer under his wing. Pele earned his first cap with the national team at 16, and made his debut on the international stage at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden at 17 years old. In that year’s Cup, Pele did not make an appearance until Brazil’s third group play match against the Soviet Union, in which he set up a goal for Vava. His first goal came in the quarterfinal against Wales; it was the only goal Brazil scored in a 1-0 win. It was in the semifinal against France, though, that Pele truly came into his own. As the crowd at Rasunda Stadium listened to the Sweden-West Germany game on their radios, Pele put on a show of offensive brilliance against the second best team in the tournament. He scored three goals from his left side, and left the French team dumbfounded at their inability to contain a 17 year old. Pele and Vava scored two goals each in the final. Upon receiving the Jules Rimet Cup as the best team in the world, the entire team wept. Brazil went on to win the World Cup again in 1966 and 1970, which gave them the right to retain the Jules Rimet Cup permanently as the first country to win three World Cups. In 1999, the International Olympic Committee honored Pele along with 10 others as one of the best athletes of the century.
- 1967 --- Keith Richards was found guilty of allowing his property to be used for the smoking of marijuana and was sentenced to one year in jail and was fined. Mick Jagger was found guilty of illegal possession of pep pills and was sentenced to three months in jail.
- 1972 --- In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as "cruel and unusual punishment," primarily because states employed execution in "arbitrary and capricious ways," especially in regard to race. It was the first time that the nation's highest court had ruled against capital punishment. However, because the Supreme Court suggested new legislation that could make death sentences constitutional again, such as the development of standardized guidelines for juries that decide sentences, it was not an outright victory for opponents of the death penalty. In 1976, with 66 percent of Americans still supporting capital punishment, the Supreme Court acknowledged progress made in jury guidelines and reinstated the death penalty under a "model of guided discretion." In 1977, Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who had murdered an elderly couple because they would not lend him their car, was the first person to be executed since the end of the ban. Defiantly facing a firing squad in Utah, Gilmore's last words to his executioners before they shot him through the heart were, "Let's do it."
- 1983 --- Prince Mongo of the uncharted planet of Zambodia, accused of tampering with an electric meter in Memphis, was sentenced to 10 days for contempt when he appeared in court wearing green body paint, a fur loincloth, gold goggles, and carrying a skull under one arm. Later that year Prince Mongo ran for mayor of Memphis and got 2,650 votes.
- 1983 --- Pitcher Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych of the Detroit Tigers retired from baseball, after several unsuccessful attempts to return to the major leagues. Fidrych had his greatest year as a rookie in 1976, when he had a record of 19-9, with a 2.34 earned-run average. Fidrych, a crowd pleaser throughout the American League, was the All-Star Game starter in Philadelphia in 1976. He also earned Rookie of the Year honors that year.
- 1995 --- The American space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth. This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was also the 100th human space mission in American history. At the time, Daniel Goldin, chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), called it the beginning of "a new era of friendship and cooperation" between the U.S. and Russia. With millions of viewers watching on television, Atlantis blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in eastern Florida on June 27, 1995. Just after 6 a.m. on June 29, Atlantis and its seven crew members approached Mir as both crafts orbited the Earth some 245 miles above Central Asia, near the Russian-Mongolian border. When they spotted the shuttle, the three cosmonauts on Mir broadcast Russian folk songs to Atlantis to welcome them. Over the next two hours, the shuttle's commander, Robert "Hoot" Gibson expertly maneuvered his craft towards the space station. To make the docking, Gibson had to steer the 100-ton shuttle to within three inches of Mir at a closing rate of no more than one foot every 10 seconds. The docking went perfectly and was completed at 8 a.m., just two seconds off the targeted arrival time and using 200 pounds less fuel than had been anticipated. Combined, Atlantis and the 123-ton Mir formed the largest spacecraft ever in orbit. It was only the second time ships from two countries had linked up in space; the first was in June 1975, when an American Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft briefly joined in orbit. Once the docking was completed, Gibson and Mir's commander, Vladimir Dezhurov, greeted each other by clasping hands in a victorious celebration of the historic moment. A formal exchange of gifts followed, with the Atlantis crew bringing chocolate, fruit and flowers and the Mir cosmonauts offering traditional Russian welcoming gifts of bread and salt. Atlantis remained docked with Mir for five days before returning to Earth, leaving two fresh Russian cosmonauts on the space station.
- 2005 --- The USDA confirmed today the first domestic case of mad cow disease. The 12 year old cow was born in Texas and spent its whole life on the same ranch.
- 2006 --- The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that President George W. Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law.
- Birthdays
- Gary Busey
- Fred grandy
- Maria Conchita Alonso
- Colin Hay
- Richard Lewis
- Dan Dierdorf
- Frank Loesser
- William Mayo
- Nelson Eddy
- Slim Pickens
- Stokeley Carmichael
- Little Eva Boyd
- George Washington Goethals-(chief engineer over thousands of the Panama Canal)