Friday March 18, 2014

•   87^th Day of 2014 / 278 Remaining
• 85 Days Until The First Day of Summer

• Sunrise:6:59
• Sunset:7:29
• 12 Hours 30 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:5:33am
• Moon Set:5:34pm
• Moon’s Phase: 5 %

• The Next Full Moon
• April 15 @ 12:45 am
• Full Pink Moon
• Full Sprouting Moon
• Full Egg Moon
• Full Grass Moon
• Full Fish Moon

This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

• Tides
• High:9:39am/10:27pm
• Low:3:35am/3:54pm

• Rainfall
• This Year:9.49
• Last Year:14.73
• Average Year to Date:21.17

• Holidays
• National Black Forest Day
• Something on a Stick Day

• Teacher’s Day-Czech Republic
• Constitution Day-Serbia

• On This Day In …
• 1774 --- Upset by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property by American colonists, the British Parliament enacts the Coercive Acts, to the outrage of American Patriots. Passed in response to the Americans' disobedience, the Coercive Acts included: The Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until damages from the Boston Tea Party were paid. The Massachusetts Government Act, which restricted Massachusetts; democratic town meetings and turned the governor's council into an appointed body. The Administration of Justice Act, which made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in Massachusetts. The Quartering Act, which required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand, including in their private homes as a last resort.

• 1776 --- Juan Bautista de Anza, one of the great western pathfinders of the 18th century, arrives at the future site of San Francisco with 247 colonists. Anza established a presidio, or military fort, on the tip of the San Francisco peninsula. Six months later, a Spanish Franciscan priest founded a mission near the presidio that he named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi—in Spanish, San Francisco de Asiacutes. The most northerly outpost of the Spanish Empire in America, San Francisco remained an isolated and quiet settlement

  

  for more than half a century after Anza founded the first settlement. It was not until the 1830s that an expansionist United States began to realize the commercial potential of the magnificent natural harbor. In the wake of the Mexican War, the U.S. took possession of California in 1848, though San Francisco was still only a small town of 900 at that time. With the discovery of gold that year at Sutter's Fort, however, San Francisco boomed. By 1852, San Francisco was home to more than 36,000 people.

• 1797 --- The first U.S. patent for a 'washing machine' was issued (possibly to Nathaniel Briggs).  It was called a scrub board or wash board. Back then, however, there was a whole different way of speaking -- and of spelling -- to describe this wonderful invention. “This device is an improvement in washing cloaths.”

• 1834 --- President Andrew Jackson is censured by Congress for refusing to turn over documents. Jackson was the first president to suffer this formal disapproval from Congress.

• 1865 --- Outdoor advertising legislation was enacted in New York. The law banned "painting on stones, rocks and trees."

• 1898 --- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen. This meant that they could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

• 1930 --- The names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were changed to Istanbul and Ankara, respectively.

• 1938 --- In Italy, psychiatrists demonstrated the use of electric-shock therapy for treatment of certain mental illnesses.

• 1939 --- In Spain, the Republican defenders of Madrid raise the white flag over the city, bringing to an end the bloody three-year Spanish Civil War.

• 1947 --- The American Helicopter Society revealed a flying device that could be strapped to a person's body.
  

  

• 1958 --- Eddie Cochran recorded "Summertime Blues."

• 1963 --- The Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds" premiered in New York.
  

  

• 1964 --- Radio Caroline debuted as the first pirate radio station to broadcast off the coast of England. The combination of rock music and lively disk jockey patter played to a huge audience in Great

  

  Britain; but well out of reach of British authorities. However, that didn’t stop them from trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to shut down the radio station ship. Radio Caroline had become competition to the staid and usually dull British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

• 1974 --- A streaker ran onto the set of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. The clever NBC censors decided to blackout the

  

  lower half of the TV screen on the videotape to prevent an ‘X’ rating. The streaker was arrested, but released, for “lack of evidence,” said Johnny.

• 1979 --- The worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat. At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public's faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island,

  

  which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again. In the more than two decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.

• 1981 --- The group Blondie, featuring Debbie Harry, received a gold record for the tune, Rapture. At the time, the pop-rock hit was perched at the top of the pop music charts. Blondie had eight

  

  charted hits. Four of them were million sellers, beginning with their first release, Heart of Glass in 1979. Four of the eight hits were number one on the charts, as well.

• 1984 --- Bob Irsay (1923-1997), owner of the once-mighty Baltimore Colts, moves the team to Indianapolis. Without any sort of public announcement, Irsay hired movers to pack up the team's offices in

  

  Owings Mills, Maryland, in the middle of the night, while the city of Baltimore slept.

• 1985 --- Roger Waters of Pink Floyd made radio history. His Radio City Music Hall concert in New York was broadcast live using a new high-tech sound system called ‘holophonics’. It is said to have recreated the stage experience in amazing detail.

• 2002 --- The National Museum of American History put a cornet that had belonged to Louis Armstrong on display.
  

  

• 2006 --- Duke University officials suspend the men’s lacrosse team for two games following allegations that team members sexually assaulted a stripper hired to perform at a party. Three players were later charged with rape. The case became a national scandal, impacted by issues of race, politics and class. In April 2007, all charges against the young men were dropped due to lack of credible evidence and the district attorney was eventually disbarred for his mishandling of the case.

• Birthdays
• Lady Gaga
• Vince Vaughn
• Zbigniew Brzezinski
• Dianne Wiest
• Salt (Cheryl James)
• Julia Stiles
• Reba McIntyre