Friday March 15, 2013

•   74^th Day of 2013 / 291 Remaining
• 5 Days Until The First Day of Spring

• Sunrise:7:30
• Sunset:7:17
• 11 Hours 47 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:9:18am
• Moon Set:11:31pm
• Moon’s Phase:16 %

• 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:1:29am/2:32pm
• Low:8:04am/7:59pm

• Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
• This Year:14.59
• Last Year:9.37
• Normal To Date:20.00
• Annual Seasonal Average:23.80

• Holidays
• Brutus Day
• Ides of March
• True Confessions Day
• Admission Day-Maine
• National Pears Helene Day

• Constitution Day-Belarus
• National Day-Hungary

• On This Day In …
• 44BC --- In the ancient Roman calendar, each of the 12 months had an ‘ides’ of the month. In March, May, July and October, the ides fell on the 15th day. In all other months, the ides fell on the 13th. The word ‘ides’ was derived from the Latin “to divide.” The ides were originally meant to mark the full moon, but since the solar calendar months and lunar months were of different lengths, the ides eventually lost their original intent and purpose. We only remember March as the month that has Ides because it was on this day that Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated. William Shakespeare helped to promote the Ides of March. "Beware the Ides of March," the soothsayer urges Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Julius Caesar (act I, scene ii). Despite the forewarning, Caesar is stabbed in the back by his friend Marcus Brutus. Caesar falls and utters his famous last words, "Et tu, Brute?" (And you, Brutus?)Shakespeare's source for the play was Thomas North's Lives of the Nobel Grecians and Romans, which detailed the murder of Caesar in 44 B.C. Caesar's friends and associates feared his growing power and his recent self-comparison to Alexander the Great and felt he must die for the good of Rome. North's work translated a French version of Plutarch, which itself had been translated from Latin. Shakespeare's version was written about 1599 and performed at the newly built Globe Theater. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-ides-of-march

• 1820 --- Maine joined the 22 states of the United States of America. Travel way up to the far northeastern tip of the U.S., where many pine trees grow, and you’ll be in Maine, the Pine Tree State. Coincidentally, the white pine cone with its tassel is the state flower; and since the chickadee makes its nest in the pine tree, we figure that’s why it is the state bird. The landlocked salmon is the state fish, the tourmaline is the state mineral and the state song is ... we’re not kidding ... “State of Maine Song”. ‘I direct’ is the state motto which is ‘dirigo’ in Latin. How about all of us who know the origin of the name, Maine, getting together for a Maine lobster dinner! We learned that its first use was to distinguish the mainland from islands offshore. Maine was also thought to be named in honor of Henrietta Maria, Charles I of England’s queen. She owned a province in France titled, Mayne. And, last but not least, Augusta is the capital of Maine (not Georgia).

• 1877 --- The first cricket test between Australia and England was played in Melbourne. Australia won by 45 runs.

• 1892 --- New York State unveiled the new automatic ballot voting machine.

• 1907 --- In Finland, women won their first seats in the Finnish Parliament. They took their seats on May 23.

• 1913 --- U.S. President Woodrow Wilson held the first open presidential news conference just 11 days after his inauguration.

• 1917 --- During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, is forced to abdicate the throne by the Petrograd insurgents, and a provincial government is installed in his place. Crowned on May 26, 1894, Nicholas was neither trained nor inclined to rule, which did not help the autocracy he sought to preserve in an era desperate for change. The disastrous outcome of the Russo-Japanese War led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which the czar diffused only after signing a manifesto promising representative government and basic civil liberties in Russia. However, Nicholas soon retracted most of these concessions, and the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups won wide support. In 1914, Nicholas led his country into another costly war, and discontent in Russia grew as food became scarce, soldiers became war-weary, and devastating defeats on the eastern front demonstrated the czar's ineffectual leadership. In March 1917, the army garrison at Petrograd joined striking workers in demanding socialist reforms, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Nicholas and his family were first held at the Czarskoye Selo palace, then in the Yekaterinburg palace near Tobolsk. In July 1918, the advance of counterrevolutionary forces caused the Yekaterinburg Soviet forces to fear that Nicholas might be rescued. After a secret meeting, a death sentence was passed on the imperial family, and Nicholas, his wife, his children, and several of their servants were gunned down on the night of July 16.

• 1945 --- Billboard magazine began a new feature. It was the record chart of top albums. What album was the first to top this new chart? For those who thought it was something by Lauryn Hill, move two steps back, please. For those who thought it was a wax cylinder from Thomas Edison and the Record Rappers, jump back another three spaces. If, however, you said that the first album to reach #1was Nat King Cole Trio, you are absolutely correct! Of course, the albums mentioned on the Billboard list were, for several years, 78 rpm disks, not the 33-1/3 albums or CD’s we’ve come to know. Billboard and other trade magazines continue to list the week’s top albums. Billboard lists the Top 200 in order, from #1 on down.

• 1954 --- CBS television inaugurated its Morning Show. The host? None other than the man who would become “The most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite. Uncle Walter was called “host, ring-master and coordinator” in the network’s attempt to compete against the already three-year-old Today show on NBC. Cronkite was a ‘nice’ host, but clearly out of his news element and the show was a ratings disappointment. Jack Paar took over as host some time later. The show still didn’t work. The program immediately following did work, however. That show was Captain Kangaroo.

• 1956 --- The Lerner and Loewe musical "My Fair Lady" opened on Broadway. The show ran for 6-1/2 years before 2,717 audiences. It became, thanks to Rex Harrison and an outstanding cast, the longest-running musical to that time.

• 1965 --- President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of legislation guaranteeing voting rights for all. Using the phrase "we shall overcome," borrowed from African-American leaders struggling for equal rights, Johnson declared that "every American citizen must have an equal right to vote." Johnson reminded the nation that the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War, gave all citizens the right to vote regardless of race or color. But states had defied the Constitution and erected barriers. Discrimination had taken the form of literacy, knowledge or character tests administered solely to African-Americans to keep them from registering to vote. "Their cause must be our cause too," Johnson said. "Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome." The speech was delivered eight days after racial violence erupted in Selma, Alabama. Civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King and over 500 supporters were attacked while planning a march to Montgomery to register African-Americans to vote. The police violence that erupted resulted in the death of a King supporter, a white Unitarian Minister from Boston named James J. Reeb. Television news coverage of the event galvanized voting rights supporters in Congress.

• 1968 --- "LIFE" magazine called Jimi Hendrix "the most spectacular guitarist in the world."

• 1972 --- "The Godfather," Francis Ford Coppola's epic gangster movie based on the Mario Puzo novel and starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, premiered in New York.

• 1989 --- In a dramatic indication of just how far he wants his reforms to go, General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev calls for an end to the Soviet agricultural bureaucracy and the introduction of free market principles. Gorbachev's speech was an indication that his economic program in the Soviet Union was suffering serious troubles--problems that eventually led to the collapse of his government and the Soviet Union in December 1991.

• Birthdays
• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
• Phil Lesh
• Mike Love
• Sly Stone
• Ry Cooder
• Terence Trent D’Arby
• Fabio
• Eva Longoria
• will. i. am.
• Andrew Jackson (7th President)
• Samuel “Lightning” Hopkins
• Harry James
• Alan Bean
• Bobby Bonds
• Eduard Strauss