- 170th Day of 2013 / 95 Remaining
- 85 Days Until The First Day of Winter
- Sunrise:7:02
- Sunset:6:57
- 11 Hours 55 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:12:08am
- Moon Set:2:35pm
- Moon’s Phase: 44 %
- The Next Full Moon
- October 18 @ 4:37pm
- Full Barley Moon
- Full Hunter’s Moon
This full Moon is often referred to as the Full Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon, or Sanguine Moon. Many moons ago, Native Americans named this bright moon for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer are fattened, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. Because the fields were traditionally reaped in late September or early October, hunters could easily see fox and other animals that come out to glean from the fallen grains. Probably because of the threat of winter looming close, the Hunter’s Moon is generally accorded with special honor, historically serving as an important feast day in both Western Europe and among many Native American tribes.
- Tides
- High:6:56am/5:16pm
- Low:12:00pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:0.19
- This Year:0.44
- Last Year:0.02
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Chocolate Milk Day
- Ancestor Appreciation Day
- World Tourism Day
- True Cross Day-Ethiopia
- French Community Holiday-Belgium
- On This Day In …
- 1540 --- In Rome, the Society of Jesus--a Roman Catholic missionary organization--receives its charter from Pope Paul III. The Jesuit order played an important role in the Counter-Reformation and eventually succeeded in converting millions around the world to Catholicism.
- 1779 --- The Continental Congress appoints John Adams to travel to France as minister plenipotentiary in charge of negotiating treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain during the Revolutionary War.
- 1825 --- England’s Stockton and Darlington line opened. It was the first line to have a passenger train pulled along the tracks by a locomotive, the first time an engine -- not a horse --
had accomplished this. (The very first steam-engine locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick, also of England, in 1804.) Several years later, the locomotive, the Rocket, designed by George Stephenson, and his son Robert, with input from Henry Booth of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, won the Rainhill Trials. Rocket, the first truly successful steam locomotive, beat out ten other locomotives and remains the model for most steam locomotives even today. Critics were a little wary of these first iron horses. One said that it would make stay-at-homes into gadabouts; honest men into liars and be the downfall of an intellectual society
- 1854 --- Sudden and heavy fog causes two ships to collide, killing 322 people off the coast of Newfoundland on this day in 1854. The Arctic was a luxury ship, built in 1850 to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. It had a wooden hull and could reach speeds of up to 13 knots per hour, an impressive clip at that point in history. On September 20, the Arctic left Liverpool, England, for North America. Seven days later, just off of the Newfoundland coast, it came into a heavy fog. Unfortunately, the ship's captain, James Luce, did not take the usual safety measures for dealing with fog—he did not slow the Arctic, he did not sound the ship's horn and he did not add extra watchmen. At 12:15, the Arctic slammed into the steamer Vesta, an iron-hulled ship piloted by Captain Alphonse Puchesne. Since it was the Arctic that hit the Vesta, the crew of the Arctic initially directed their energy at helping the Vesta. They had not realized that the iron hull of the Vesta had actually done much more damage to the Arctic than vice versa. Soon, the Arctic released lifeboats, but many capsized in the choppy waters. As the crew of the Arctic discovered that their ship was seriously damaged, Captain Luce decided to try to beach the ship. In doing so, he ran over several of the lifeboats, causing even more people to drown.
- 1892 --- Joshua Pusey invented book matches (he called them Flexible Matches). He sold the patent to the Diamond Match Company.
- 1894 --- The Aqueduct Race Track opened in New York City, NY.
- 1938 --- Thanks for the Memory was heard for the first time on The Bob Hope Show -- on the NBC Red radio network.
- 1942 --- Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performed together for the last time. Miller volunteered for the U.S. Army and disappeared December 15, 1944 over the English Channel.
- 1954 --- The Tonight Showdebuted on NBC-TV. Steve Allen hosted the late-night program which began as a local New York show on WNBT-TV in June 1953. Tonight became a launching pad for Steve
and hundreds of guests, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Skitch Henderson and orchestra provided the music. Ernie Kovacs was the host from 1956-1957.
- 1962 --- Detroit secretary Martha Reeves cut a side with a group called The Vandellas and the result was I’ll Have to Let Him Go. Soon thereafter, the hits of Martha and The Vandellas just kept on comin’.
- 1964 --- The Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
- 1967 --- An advertisement headed "A Call To Resist Illegitimate Authority," signed by over 320 influential people (professors, writers, ministers, and other professional people), appears in the New Republic and the New York Review of Books, asking for funds to help youths resist the draft. In Washington, Senator Thurston B. Morton (Republican from Kentucky), told reporters that President Johnson had been "brainwashed" by the "military-industrial complex" into believing a military victory could be achieved in Vietnam. Johnson felt the sting of such criticism and he was also frustrated by contradictory advice from his advisors. Still, he thought that slow and steady progress was being made in Vietnam based on optimistic reports coming out of the U.S. military headquarters in Saigon. General Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, reported that U.S. operations were keeping the Viet Cong off balance and inflicting heavy losses. Still, the home front was crumbling as Johnson came under increasingly personal attacks for his handling of the war. The situation would reach a critical state when the communists launched a major surprise attack on January 31 during the 1968 Tet holiday, the traditional Vietnamese holiday celebrating the lunar new year.
- 1973 --- Vice President Spiro Agnew said he would not resign after
he pled "no contest" to a charge of tax evasion. He did resign on October 10th.
- 1979 --- The Department of Education became the 13th Cabinet in U.S. history after the final approval from Congress.
- 1989 --- Two men went over the 176-foot-high Niagara Falls in a barrel. Jeffrey Petkovich and Peter Debernardi were the first to ever survive the Horshoe Falls.
- 1989 --- Zsa Zsa Gabor, on trial for slapping a police officer, storms out of the courtroom in the middle of the district attorney's closing argument. The prosecutor told the jury that Gabor "craves media attention . . . and abused two weeks of this process for her own self-aggrandizement." Although her attorney objected when the prosecutor said, "the defendant doesn't know the meaning of truth," Gabor was already running out in tears.
- 1991 --- U.S. President George H.W. Bush eliminated all land-based tactical nuclear arms and removed all short-range nuclear arms from ships and submarines around the world. Bush then called on the Soviet Union to do the same.
- 1994 --- More than 350 Republican congressional candidates signed the "Contract with America," a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the U.S. House.
- 1998 --- Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit his 69th and 70th home runs, setting a new record for most home runs in a single
season (McGwire was the first to break Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers on September 8). That 70th home run ball brought $2.7 million at a 1999 baseball auction.
- 1999 --- Placido Domingo makes his 18th opening-night appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House, breaking an "unbreakable" record previously held by the great Enrico Caruso.
- 2010 --- The temperature in downtown Los Angeles, California hit 113 degrees F just after noon, setting a new record high temperature.
- Birthdays
- Samuel Adams
- Marvin Lee Aday/'Meat Loaf'
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Avril Lavigne
- Jayne Meadows
- Wilford Brimley
- Liz Torres
- Shaun Cassidy
- Lil’ Wayne
- Benjamin Gould
- Thomas Nast
- Harry Blackstone
- Sen Sam Ervin
- William Conrad
- Bud Powell
- Don Cornelius