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Friday March 14, 2014

  • 73rd Day of 2014 / 292 Remaining
  • 6 Days Until The First Day of Spring

  • Sunrise:7:20
  • Sunset:7:16
  • 11 Hours 54 Minutes of Daylight

  • Moon Rise:5:44pm
  • Moon Set:6:04am
  • Moon’s Phase: 96 %

  • The Next Full Moon
  • March 16 @ 10:10am
  • Full Crow Moon
  • Full Crust Moon
  • Full Sap Moon
  • Full Lenten 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:10:09am/11:07pm
  • Low:4:20am/4:39pm

  • Rainfall
  • This Year:8.68
  • Last Year:14.59
  • Average Year to Date:19.89

  • Holidays
  • Pi Day
  • Moth-er Day
  • National Potato Chip Day

  • Commonwealth Day-United Kingdom
  • Constitution Day-Andorra
  • White Day-Japan
  • World Book Day
  • Sikh New Year

  • On This Day In …
  • 1489 --- Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, sold her kingdom to Venice. She was the last of the Lusignan dynasty.

  • 1743 --- The City of Boston conducted the first town meeting in Faneuil Hall. It became an idea that caught on quickly throughout New England.
  • 1776 --- Alexander Hamilton receives his commission as captain of a New York artillery company. Throughout the rest of 1776, Captain Hamilton established himself as a great military leader as he directed his artillery company in several battles in and around New York City. In March 1777, Hamilton's performance came to the attention of General George Washington and he was commissioned lieutenant colonel and personal aide to General Washington in the Continental Army.

  • 1794 --- Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin.
  • 1900 --- Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.

  • 1903 --- President Theodore Roosevelt established the first U.S. national bird sanctuary to protect pelicans and herons nesting on Pelican Island, near Sebastian, Florida.
  • 1903 --- The U.S. Senate ratified the Hay-Herran Treaty that guaranteed the U.S. the right to build a canal at Panama. The Columbian Senate rejected the treaty.

  • 1904 --- The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the governments claim that the Northern Securities Company was an illegal merger between the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway companies.

  • 1914 --- Henry Ford announced the new continuous motion method to assemble cars. The process decreased the time to make a car from 12½ hours to 93 minutes.

  • 1950 --- The Federal Bureau of Investigation institutes the "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list in an effort to publicize particularly dangerous fugitives. The creation of the program arose out of a wire service news story in 1949 about the "toughest guys" the FBI wanted to
    capture. The story drew so much public attention that the "Ten Most Wanted" list was given the okay by J. Edgar Hoover the following year. The criteria for selection is simple, the criminal must have a lengthy record and current pending charges that make him or her particularly dangerous.

  • 1956 --- The movie "Rock Around the Clock" (with Bill Haley) made its premier in Washington, DC.

  • 1958 --- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the first gold record. It was Perry Como’s “Catch a Falling Star” on RCA Victor Records. The tune became the first to win million-seller certification, though other songs dating as far back as the 1920s may have sold a million records or more. Due to lack of a certification organization like the RIAA, they weren’t awarded the golden platter. The next three gold records that were certified after Perry Como’s million seller were the 45 rpm recordings of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” by Laurie London, “Patricia”, an instrumental by the ‘Mambo King’, Perez Prado and “Hard Headed Woman” by Elvis Presley. The first gold-album certification went to the soundtrack of the motion picture, “Oklahoma!”, featuring Gordon MacRae.

  • 1964 --- Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed Lee Harvey Oswald--the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy--is found guilty of the "murder with malice" of Oswald and
    sentenced to die in the electric chair. It was the first courtroom verdict to be televised in U.S. history.

  • 1967 --- The body of President John F. Kennedy is moved to a spot just a few feet away from its original interment site at Arlington National Cemetery. The slain president had been assassinated more than three years earlier, on November 22, 1963. Although JFK never specified where he wanted to be buried, most of his family and friends assumed he would have chosen a plot in his home state of Massachusetts. Because JFK was a World War II veteran, he qualified for a plot at Arlington National Cemetery, but he also deserved a special site befitting his presidential status. The spring before he died, President Kennedy had made an unscheduled tour of Arlington and had remarked to a friend on the view of the Potomac from the Custis-Lee Mansion, reportedly saying it was so magnificent I could stay forever. After the assassination, the friend who accompanied JFK to Arlington that day relayed the comment to the president's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, who suggested the site to Jacqueline Kennedy, the president's widow.

  • 1968 --- After two seasons on television, ABC-TV showed the last episode of Batman, starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Robin. The first Batman episode was Hi Diddle Riddle, shown on January 12, 1966. The pilot program for Batman cost $300,000 -- quite expensive by 1966 standards. Through the two seasons, the ‘Dynamic Duo’ welcomed these stars to the cast: Art Carney (The Archer), Tallulah Bankhead (Black Widow), Eartha Kitt (Catwoman), Julie Newmar (Catwoman), Lee Meriwether (Catwoman), Liberace (Chandell), Vincent Price (Egghead), Cesar Romero (The Joker),
    Rudy Vallee (Lord Phogg), Milton Berle (Louie the Lilac), Shelley Winters (Ma Parker), David Wayne (The Mad Hatter), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Minerva), Van Johnson (The Minstrel), Otto Preminger (Mr. Freeze), Burgess Meredith (The Penguin), John Astin (The Riddler), Frank Gorshin (The Riddler), Cliff Robertson (Shame), Joan Collins (The Siren) and Anne Baxter (Zelda the Great).

  • 1980 --- A Polish Airlines flight, on a Soviet-built Ilyushin 62 jet, crashes while attempting to land in Warsaw, killing all 87 people on board, including 22 members of the United States boxing team.

  • 1989 --- Imported assault guns were banned in the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush.

  • 1990 --- The Congress of People's Deputies elects General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as the new president of the Soviet
    Union. While the election was a victory for Gorbachev, it also revealed serious weaknesses in his power base that would eventually lead to the collapse of his presidency in December 1991.

  • 1991 --- In the face of widespread questioning of their guilt, British authorities release the so-called "Birmingham Six," six Irish men
    who had been sent to prison 16 years earlier for the 1974 terrorist bombings of two Birmingham, England, pubs.

  • 2004 --- Russian President Vladimir Putin captured more than 70 percent of the vote to win a second term in an election that European observers said fell short of democratic standards.

  • 2005 --- A judge in San Francisco ruled that California's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

  • 2008 --- Protests led by Buddhist monks in Tibet turned violent, leading to an extensive crackdown by China's military.
  • Birthdays
  • Lucy Hobbs Taylor
  • Albert Einstein
  • Casey Jones (John Luther Jones)
  • Quincy Jones
  • Megan Follows
  • Billy Crystal
  • Sylvia Beach
  • Michael Caine
  • Rita Tushingham
  • Prince Albert of Monaco
  • Betsy Brandt
  • Johann Strauss
  • Les Brown
  • Hank Ketcham
  • Wes Unseld