- 60th Day of 2013 / 305 Remaining
- 19 Days Until The First Day of Spring
- Sunrise:6:40
- Sunset:6:04
- 11 Hours 24 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:10:37pm
- Moon Set:8:37am
- Moon’s Phase:82 %
- The Next Full Moon
- March 27 @ 2:30am
- Full Worm Moon
- Full Crust Moon
- Full Lenten Moon
- Full Crow Moon
- Full Sap Moon
As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.
- Tides
- High:1:47am/2:25pm
- Low:7:53am/7:49pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:14.35
- Last Year:7.35
- Normal To Date:18.35
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Horse Protection Day
- National Pig Day
- Peace Corps Day
- Plan a Solo Vacation Day
- Refired, Not Retired Day
- Admission Day-Nebraska
- Admission Day-Ohio
- Town Meeting Day-Vermont
- National Peanut Butter Lovers Day
- National Fruit Compote Day
- Beer Day-Iceland
- Independence Day-Bosnia/Herzegovina
- Omizutori-Japan – (Water-Drawing Festival)
- St. David's Day-Wales
- Heroes Day-Paraguay
- International Women Of Color Day
- Labour Day-Australia
- On This Day In …
- 1498 --- Portugese explorer Vasco de Gama landed at what is now Mozambique on his way to India.
- 1692 -- In Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, are charged with the illegal practice of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba, possibly under coercion, confessed to the crime, encouraging the authorities to seek out more Salem witches. Trouble in the small Puritan community began the month before, when nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece, respectively, of the Reverend Samuel Parris, began experiencing fits and other mysterious maladies. A doctor concluded that the children were suffering from the effects of witchcraft, and the young girls corroborated the doctor's diagnosis. With encouragement from a number of adults in the community, the girls, who were soon joined by other "afflicted" Salem residents, accused a widening circle of local residents of witchcraft, mostly middle-aged women but also several men and even one four-year-old child. During the next few months, the afflicted area residents incriminated more than 150 women and men from Salem Village and the surrounding areas of Satanic practices.
- 1781 --- The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.
- 1803 --- Ohio (17th state) entered the United States of America. The Buckeye State (nicknamed because of the many buckeye trees, the state tree) with Columbus as its capital city seems to have a penchant for the color red. Its state bird is the cardinal; the scarlet carnation is its flower; the state insect is the ladybug; and the state drink is tomato juice. The state song is Beautiful Ohio, the word, Ohio, is derived from the Iroquois Indian word meaning ‘great river’. The Ohio River is not as great as the Mississippi, but it is pretty big! Ohio’s state motto: With God, all things are possible. So, maybe it is great!
- 1867 --- The Cornhusker State, aka the Beef State, aka the Tree Planter State, aka Nebraska (37th state), entered the United States of America. Nebraska means ‘flat water’ in Oto Indian speak. Lincoln is the official seat of Nebraska government. Nebraska’s motto: Equality before the law. The western meadowlark holds the honor of being the state bird; while the goldenrod takes its place as the state flower. Other state symbols include the cottonwood tree (state tree); the honeybee (state insect); blue agate (state gemstone); whitetail deer (state mammal); mammoth (state fossil); prairie agate (state rock); Beautiful Nebraska (state song) ... that’s original ... and, the state soil: typic arguistolls, Holrege Series. State soil?
- 1872 --- President Grant signs the bill creating the nation's first national park at Yellowstone. Native Americans had lived and hunted in the region that would become Yellowstone for hundreds of years before the first Anglo explorers arrived. Abundant game and mountain streams teaming with fish attracted the Indians to the region, though the awe-inspiring geysers, canyons, and gurgling mud pots also fascinated them. John Colter, the famous mountain man, was the first Anglo to travel through the area. After journeying with Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, Colter joined a party of fur trappers to explore the wilderness. In 1807, he explored part of the Yellowstone plateau and returned with fantastic stories of steaming geysers and bubbling cauldrons. Some doubters accused the mountain man of telling tall tales and jokingly dubbed the area "Colter's Hell." Before the Civil War, only a handful of trappers and hunters ventured into the area, and it remained largely a mystery. In 1869, the Folsom-Cook expedition made the first formal exploration, followed a year later by a much more thorough reconnaissance by the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition. The key to Yellowstone's future as a national park, though, was the 1871 exploration under the direction of the government geologist Ferdinand Hayden. Hayden brought along William Jackson, a pioneering photographer, and Thomas Moran, a brilliant landscape artist, to make a visual record of the expedition. Their images provided the first visual proof of Yellowstone's wonders and caught the attention of the U.S. Congress. Early in 1872, Congress moved to set aside 1,221,773 acres of public land straddling the future states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho as America's first national park. President Grant signed the bill into law on this day in 1872. The Yellowstone Act of 1872 designated the region as a public "pleasuring-ground," which would be preserved "from injury or spoilation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within."
- 1873 --- E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, NY began the manufacturing of the first practical typewriter. The strong as steel, heavy black clunkers became instant fixtures in offices across the country. It would be another half-century before electric typewriters made their appearance.
- 1941 --- Hey gang, crank up the FM stereo tuner and celebrate the reason why you listen to that hard rock/alternative music stuff in the first place. Commercial FM broadcasting began in the U.S. when station W47NV in Nashville, TN started operations. W47NV was the first commercial FM radio station to receive a license, some 20 years after its AM radio counterpart, KDKA in Pittsburgh. For those of you who don’t remember, FM stands for ‘frequency modulation’ as opposed to ‘amplitude modulation’. W47NV operated with 20,000 watts on a frequency of 44,700 kilocycles. FM stations don’t do that anymore. They operate in a different segment of the radio spectrum (88-108 MHz) and at power outputs not exceeding 100,000 watts, except in rare instances. (There are a few FM stations in the U.S. with power output up to 300,000 watts and antennas more than a thousand feet high.) In the beginning, FM radio was pretty much a graveyard for beautiful music that numbed us in doctor’s offices and in elevators. It became a primary source for educational programming; featuring classical music, opera and jazz. Today, more than 80 percent of radio listening in the United States is done by way of FM and one can hear just about everything, from oldies, rock and pop, country and blues to National Public Radio.
- 1961 --- Newly elected President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. It proved to be one of the most innovative and highly publicized Cold War programs set up by the United States. During the course of his campaign for the presidency in 1960, Kennedy floated the idea that a new "army" should be created by the United States. This force would be made up of civilians who would volunteer their time and skills to travel to underdeveloped nations to assist them in any way they could. To fulfill this plan, Kennedy issued an executive order on March 1, 1961 establishing the Peace Corps as a trial program. Kennedy sent a message to Congress asking for its support and made clear the significance of underdeveloped nations to the United States. The people of these nations were "struggling for economic and social progress." "Our own freedom," Kennedy continued, "and the future of freedom around the world, depend, in a very real sense, on their ability to build growing and independent nations where men can live in dignity, liberated from the bonds of hunger, ignorance, and poverty." Many in Congress, and the U.S. public, were skeptical about the program's costs and the effectiveness of American aid to what were perceived to be "backward" nations, but Kennedy's warning about the dangers in the underdeveloped world could not be ignored. Revolutions were breaking out around the globe and many of these conflicts—such as in Laos, the Congo, and elsewhere—were in danger of becoming Cold War battlefields. Several months later, Congress voted to make the Corps permanent.
- 1969 --- Jim Morrison of The Doors was arrested and officially charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent behavior, open profanity and public drunkenness in Miami. Morrison was later sentenced. Morrison died while the sentence was under appeal.
- 1971 -- A bomb exploded in a restroom in the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol. There were no injuries. A U.S. group protesting the Vietnam War claimed responsibility.
- 1974 --- Former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman and former Attorney General John Mitchell were indicted on obstruction of justice charges related to the Watergate break-in.
- 1981 --- Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands began a hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. (He died 65 days later.)
- 2002 --- McDonald's announced in a press release that it has agreed to pay 10 million dollars to Hindu and vegetarian groups to settle lawsuits over its use of beef flavoring in its French Fries.
- 2003 --- In New York, a $250,000 Salvador Dali sketch was stolen from a display case in the lobby at Rikers Island jail. On June 17, 2003, it was announced that four corrections officers had surrendered and pled innocent in connection to the theft. The mixed-media composition was a sketch of the crucifixion.
- 2003 --- Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured by CIA and Pakistani agents near Islamabad. He was the suspected mastermind behind the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
- Birthdays
- William Gaines
- Frederick Chopin
- Glenn Miller
- Robert Lowell
- Deke Slayton
- Harry Belafonte
- Ann Lee
- Yitzhak Rabin
- Justin Bieber
- Robert Conrad
- Roger Daltrey
- Alan Thicke
- Catherine Bach
- Ron Howard
- Harry Caray
- Michael Flanders