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Friday September 28, 2012

  • 272nd Day of 2012 /94 Remaining
  • 84 Days Until The First Day of Winter
  • Sunrise:7:03
  • Sunset:6:57
  • 11 Hours 54 Minutes of Daylight
  • Moon Rise:6:01pm
  • Moon Set:5:41am
  • Moon’s Phase: 98 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • September 29 @ 8:18pm
  • Full Corn Moon
  • Full Harvest Moon

This full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked when corn was  supposed to be harvested. Most often, the September full moon is actually the Harvest Moon, which is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.

  • Tides
  • High:10:31am/10:43pm
  • Low:4:03am/4:34pm
  • Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
  • This Year:0.03
  • Last Year:0.11
  • Normal To Date:0.20
  • Holidays
  • National Women's Health and Fitness Day
  • National Strawberry Cream Pie Day
  • Confucius’ Birthday-Taiwan
  • Referendum Day-Guinea
  • Statehood Day-Czech Republic
  • On This Day In …
  • 48BC --- Upon landing in Egypt, Roman general and politician Pompey is murdered on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt. During his long career, Pompey the Great displayed exceptional military talents on the battlefield. He fought in Africa and Spain, quelled the slave revolt of Spartacus, cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, and conquered Armenia, Syria, and Palestine. Appointed to organize the newly won Roman territories in the East, he proved a brilliant administrator. In 60 B.C., he joined with his rivals Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus to form the First Triumvirate, and together the trio ruled Rome for seven years. Caesar's successes aroused Pompey's jealousy, however, leading to the collapse of the political alliance in 53 B.C. The Roman Senate supported Pompey and asked Caesar to give up his army, which he refused to do. In January 49 B.C., Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon River from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy, thus declaring war against Pompey and his forces. Caesar made early gains in the subsequent civil war, defeating Pompey's army in Italy and Spain, but he was later forced into retreat in Greece. In August 48 B.C., with Pompey in pursuit, Caesar paused near Pharsalus, setting up camp at a strategic location. When Pompey's senatorial forces fell upon Caesar's smaller army, they were entirely routed, and Pompey fled to Egypt. Pompey hoped that King Ptolemy, his former client, would assist him, but the Egyptian king feared offending the victorious Caesar. On September 28, Pompey was invited to leave his ships and come ashore at Pelusium. As he prepared to step onto Egyptian soil, he was treacherously struck down and killed by an officer of Ptolemy.
  • 1542 --- Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed his ship at what we now call San Diego Bay. The site is marked with a monument, the Cabrillo National Monument, and some folks in California still celebrate Cabrillo day. There’s a reason for that. Cabrillo was the first to find California.

  • 1781 --- General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War. Earlier, in a stroke of luck for the Patriots, the French fleet commanded by Francois, Count de Grasse, departed St. Domingue (the then-French colony that is now Haiti) for the Chesapeake Bay, just as Cornwallis chose Yorktown, at the mouth of the Chesapeake, as his base. Washington realized that it was time to act. He ordered Marquis de Lafayette and an American army of 5,000 troops to block Cornwallis' escape from Yorktown by land while the French naval fleet blocked the British escape by sea. By September 28, Washington had completely encircled Cornwallis and Yorktown with the combined forces of Continental and French troops. After three weeks of non-stop bombardment, both day and night, from cannon and artillery, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in the field at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence. Pleading illness, Cornwallis did not attend the formal surrender ceremony, held on October 19. Instead, his second in command, General Charles O'Hara, carried Cornwallis' sword to the American and French commanders. Although the war persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the Patriot victory at Yorktown ended fighting in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally recognizing the United States as a free and independent nation after eight years of war.
  • 1941 --- The Boston Red Sox's Ted Williams plays a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics on the last day of the regular season and gets six hits in eight trips to the plate, to boost his batting average to .406 and become the first player since Bill Terry in 1930 to hit .400. Williams, who spent his entire career with the Sox, played his final game exactly 19 years later, on September 28, 1960, at Boston’s Fenway Park and hit a home run in his last time at bat, for a career total of 521 homeruns. In addition to his .406 batting average--no major league player since him has hit .400--the left fielder led the league with 37 homers, 135 runs and had a slugging average of .735. Also that season, Williams, whose nicknames included "The Splendid Splinter" and "The Thumper," had an on-base percentage of .553, a record that remained unbroken for 61 years, until Barry Bonds achieved a percentage of .582 in 2002.
  • 1850 --- U.S. President Millard Fillmore named Brigham Young the first governor of the Utah territory. In 1857, U.S. President James Buchanan removed Young from the position.
  • 1918 --- Private Henry Tandey, a British soldier serving near the French village of Marcoing, reportedly encounters a wounded German soldier and declines to shoot him, sparing the life of 29-year-old Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler. Tandey, a native of Warwickshire, took part in the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914 and the Battle of the Somme in 1916, where he was wounded in the leg. After being discharged from the hospital, he was transferred to the 9th Battalion in France and was wounded again during the Third Battle of Ypres at Passchendaele in the summer of 1917. From July to October 1918, Tandey served with the 5th Duke of Wellington Regiment; it was during this time that he took part in the successful British capture of Marcoing, for which he earned a Victoria Cross for "conspicuous bravery." As Tandey later told sources, during the final moments of that battle, as the German troops were in retreat, a wounded German soldier entered Tandey’s line of fire. "I took aim but couldn’t shoot a wounded man," Tandey remembered, "so I let him go." The German soldier nodded in thanks, and disappeared. Though sources do not exist to prove the exact whereabouts of Adolf Hitler on that day in 1918, an intriguing link emerged to suggest that he was in fact the soldier Tandey spared. A photograph that appeared in London newspapers of Tandey carrying a wounded soldier at Ypres in 1914 was later portrayed on canvas in a painting by the Italian artist Fortunino Matania glorifying the Allied war effort. As the story goes, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain traveled to Germany in 1938 to engage Hitler in a last-ditch effort to avoid another war in Europe, he was taken by the führer to his new country retreat in Bavaria. There, Hitler showed Chamberlain his copy of the Matania painting, commenting, "That’s the man who nearly shot me."
  • 1955 --- The World Series was televised in color for the first time. The game was between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  • 1963 --- "She Loves You" by the Beatles was played on the radio by Murry The K in New York. It is believed that this was the first time a Beatles song was played in the U.S.
  • 1975 --- 50,000 people gathered in the cold and fog to enjoy a free concert with The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship at Lindley Park in Golden Gate Park. A dozen long-stemmed red roses rested on the stage as the members of Jefferson Starship members took their respective places on a makeshift stage set up on a flatbed trailer; Grace Slick, fellow golden-voiced lead singer Marty Balin, singer/rhythm guitarist ace Paul Kantner, quicksilver lead guitarist Craig Chaquico, and barefoot drummer Johnny Barbata, with David Freiberg and Pete Sears trading off on keyboards and bass, produced sounds that were distinctively Airplane/Starship – an evolved blend of original members and latter-day members who showed their Great Society/Bay Area musical roots through each note of their exemplary set. As equipment was changed, a luminescent Jerry Garcia emerged from his tuning room – a Dodge van parked next to the Grateful Dead’s equipment truck – and joined the stage with bassist Phil Lesh the perpetually smiling rhythm guitarist Bob “Ace” Weir, keyboardist Keith Godchaux and his vocalist wife Donna, and team drummers Billy Kreutzman and Mickey Hart. “Long time no see, folks!” Lesh’s greeting to the audience was answered with thundering cheers as the Dead kicked off their set with “The Music Never Stopped” and “Franklin’s Tower” from “Allah.” As the 6 p.m. park permit deadline approached, Weir sang the lead on his “Playin’ in the Band,” a tune which reaches into totally esoteric expanses of freeform taste by the band.
  • Birthdays
  • Janeane Garofalo
  • Koko Taylor
  • Avery Brundage
  • Ben E. King
  • Ed Sullivan
  • William Paley
  • William Paley
  • Marcello Mastroianni
  • Brigitte Bardot
  • Carre Otis  
  • Naomi Watts
  • Mira Sorvino