- 125th Day of 2012 / 241 Remaining
- 47 Days Until Summer Begins
- Sunrise:6:10
- Sunset:8:04
- 13 Hr 54 Min
- Moon Rise:6:48pm
- Moon Set:4:53am
- Moon’s Phase: 97 %
- The Next Full Moon
- May 5 @ 8:36pm
- Full Flower Moon
- Full Corn Planting Moon
- Full Milk Moon
In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.
- Tides
- High:10:33am/10:06pm
- Low:4:03am/3:52pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:15.66
- Last Year:26.17
- Normal To Date:23.07
- Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
- Holidays
- Great American Grump Out
- Star Wars Day
- Independence Day-Rhode Island
- National Orange Juice Day
- Compliment Someone's Smile Day
- No Pants Day
- Greenery Day-Japan
- Memorial Day-Curacao
- Youth Day-China
- International Respect for Chickens Day
- Casinga Day- Namibia
- Proclamation of Independence, Declaration of the Republic of Latvia
- Herdenkings Day (Remembrance Day)-Nederlands
- On This Day In …
- 1776 --- Rhode Island declared its freedom from England two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
- 1886 --- What begins as a peaceful labor protest in Haymarket Square in Chicago turns into a riot, leaving more than 100 wounded and 8 police officers dead. After Chicago authorities arrested and detained nearly every anarchist and socialist in town, eight men, who were either speakers in or organizers of the protest, were charged with murder. The day before the riot, a couple of people were killed and others were wounded in an unprovoked attack by police officers firing into a crowd of striking workers at the nearby McCormick Reaper Works. Despite tension the following day, the crowd at Haymarket Square was listening quietly to speakers advocating a mandatory eight-hour workday for employees. As the final speaker was winding the rally down, police officers forced their way toward the stage to disperse the crowd, provoking someone to throw a bomb into the crowd. After the explosion, officers began firing wildly in all directions, inciting a riot among protestors. About sixty police officers were wounded and eight died. Although the public was later led to believe that the deaths resulted from the bomb, seven of the eight fatalities and the great majority of the injuries were caused by shots fired by fellow officers during the confusion.
- 1927 --- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in Hollywood.
- 1946 --- A two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended. Five people were killed.
- 1948 --- Twenty-five-year-old Norman Mailer's first novel, The Naked and the Dead, is published on this day in 1948. The book is critically acclaimed and widely considered one of the best novels to come out of World War II.
- 1959 --- The first ever Grammies were awarded for: best single Domenico Modugnos "Volare;" best album Henry Mancinis Peter Gunn; best C&W the Kingston Trios "Tom Dooley;" best R&B "Tequila" by The Champs.
- 1970 --- The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre occurred at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing 4, Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder & Sandra Scheuer and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike f four million students,and the event further affected the public opinion—at an already socially contentious time—over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War. All those shot were students in good standing at the university. Immediately after the shootings, many angry students were ready to launch an all-out attack on the National Guard. Many faculty members, led by geology professor and faculty marshal Glenn Frank, pleaded with the students to leave the Commons and to not give in to violent escalation, saying:"I don't care whether you've never listened to anyone before in your lives. I am begging you right now. If you don't disperse right now, they're going to move in, and it can only be a slaughter. Would you please listen to me? Jesus Christ, I don't want to be a part of this...!" After 20 minutes of speaking, the students left the Commons, as ambulance personnel tended to the wounded, and the Guard left the area. Professor Frank's son, also present that day, said "He absolutely saved my life and hundreds of others".Photographs of the dead and wounded at Kent State that were distributed in newspapers and periodicals worldwide amplified sentiment against the United States' invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War in general. In particular, the camera of Kent State photojournalism student John Filo captured a fourteen-year old runaway, Mary Ann Vecchio, screaming over the body of Jeffrey Miller. The photograph, which won a Pulitzer Prize, became the most enduring image of the events, and one of the most enduring images of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
- 1976 --- "Waltzing Mathilda' was adopted as Australia's national anthem. It was replaced in 1986 with "Australia Fair."
- 1979 --- Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister.
- 1985 --- The famed Apollo Theatre, once the showcase for the nation’s top black performers, reopened after a renovation that cost $10.4 million. The landmark building on West 125th Street in New York was the first place The Beatles wanted to see on their initial visit to the United States. Ed Sullivan used to frequent the Apollo in search of new talent for his CBS show.
- 1990 --- Twenty-five-year-old Norman Mailer's first novel, The Naked and the Dead, is published. The book is critically acclaimed and widely considered one of the best novels to come out of World War II.
- 1994 --- Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached agreement in Cairo on the first stage of Palestinian self-rule.
- The agreement was made in accordance with the Oslo Accords, signed in Washington, D.C. on September 13, 1993. This was the first direct, face-to-face agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and it acknowledged Israel's right to exist. It was also designed as a framework for future relations between the two parties.
- 1997 --- A wildly quacking duck, jumping around in circles in the middle of the street, stopped a police car in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Then, the mama mallard led the officers to a nearby storm drain where her nine baby ducks were trapped. The officers rescued the babies, and proclaimed the mama one dexterous duck.
- 1998 --- Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, CA. The sentence was under a plea agreement that spared Kaczynski the death penalty.
- 2000 --- Londoners elected their mayor for the first time.
- 2010 --- Pablo Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" sold for $106.5 million.
- Birthdays
- Audrey Hepburn
- Hosni Mubarak
- Roberta Peters
- Ron Carter
- Dick Dale
- George F. Will
- Ana Gasteyer
- Mike Dirnt
- Horace Mann
- Maynard Ferguson
- David LaFlamme
- Jackie Jackson
- Pia Zadora