- 226th Day of 2012 / 140 Remaining
- 40 Days Until Autumn Begins
- Sunrise:6:24
- Sunset:8:06
- 13 Hours 42 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:2:35am
- Moon Set:5:19pm
- Moon’s Phase: 15 %
- The Next Full Moon
- August 31 @ 8:27pm
- Full Sturgeon Moon
The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.
- Tides
- High:9:58am/8:19pm
- Low:2:59am/2:36pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:0.03
- Last Year:0.11
- Normal To Date:0.00
- Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
- Holidays
- National Garage Sale Day
- Sturgeon Moon
- National Filet Mignon Day
- National Skinny Dipping Day
- Independence Day-Central African Republic
- Women's Day-Tunisia
- International Lefthanders Day
- O - Bon / Festival of Souls-Japan
- Montserrat Annual Pilgrimage
- On This Day In …
- 1521 --- Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez captured present-day Mexico City from the Aztecs.
- 1889 --- A patent for a coin-operated telephone was issued to William Gray.
- 1913 --- True Stainless steel was cast for the first time in Sheffield, England. Harry Brearly of Thomas Firth & Sons discovered how to make 'the steel that doesn't rust'
- 1919 --- The previously undefeated racehorse, Man o’ War, was upset -- by Upset -- at Saratoga, NY. This turn of events so upset Man o’ War that the horse never lost a race again. Man o’ War proved to be quite the stud, as well. After wining 1,300 races, he sired 379 foals. The stud fee for Man o’ War was $5,000.
- 1924 --- The first country music record to sell one million copies reached that point on this day. It was The Prisoner’s Song, recorded by Vernon Dalhart. The Prisoner’s Song and songs like Molly Darling, Death of Floyd Collins and New River Train helped Dalhart outsell all others during his era (about 75 million records). He became a Country Music Hall of Famer in 1981.
- 1930 --- Charles Chreighton and James Hargis backed their 1929 Model-A Ford Roadster into Los Angeles, having backed the 3,340 miles from New York City without once stopping their engine. Then, to celebrate, they backed back to New York, backing the entire round-trip in 42 days.
- 1934 --- Cartoonist Al Capp began his famous comic strip, Li’l Abner. In those early days, the cartoon strip was carried in eight newspapers. Eventually, it would be in more than 500, and would be the basis for a Broadway play and a Hollywood movie, too.
- 1938 --- Robert Johnson played a show at a roadhouse outside Greenwood, MS. It speculated that Johnson was poisoned by the bar owner. Johnson died several days later.
- 1948 --- Cartoonist Al Capp began his famous comic strip, Li’l Abner. In those early days, the cartoon strip was carried in eight newspapers. Eventually, it would be in more than 500, and would be the basis for a Broadway play and a Hollywood movie, too.
- 1952 --- Big Mama Thornton recorded the original version of "Hound Dog". It was the first hit for the song-writing team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. (Among their other famous hits: Kansas City [Wilbert Harrison], On Broadway [The Drifters], and Stand By Me [Ben E. King]. Big Mama Thornton was a native of Montgomery, Alabama, who came of age on the R&B circuit in the 1940s after starting her professional career in 1941 at the age of 14. In 1951, she signed her first record contract with Peacock Records and was soon paired with another of its artists, bandleader Johnny Otis, who brought Thornton out to join his band in California. It was there, in late 1952, that Otis asked two young songwriters on the Los Angeles music scene if they would write something especially for Thornton. Those songwriters were Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who would go on to have an enormous impact on R&B and early rock and roll through their work with groups like the Coasters and the Drifters. But hits like "Yakkity Yak," "Charlie Brown," "Stand By Me," "Jailhouse Rock" and "Love Potion No. 9" were still ahead of Lieber and Stoller when they did what Otis asked and came back to him with a 12-bar country blues tune called "Hound Dog."
- 1961 --- The German city of Berlin was divided by a barbed wire fence. The East Berlin government was adamant in its effort to keep those in the eastern sector from moving into the non-Communist western sector. Even regular telephone and postal service between the sectors was stopped. Several days later, the barbed wire was reinforced with a concrete wall between official crossing points. The Berlin Wall stood as a barrier to freedom for the East Germans until November 9, 1989.
- 1965 --- The Jefferson Airplane made its stage debut at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, CA.
- 1966 --- China announced plans for a "new leap forward" after the first meeting in four years of the Communist Party's Central Committee. The blueprint unveiled by the committee shows Peking's determination to spread the words of leader Mao Zedong and purge all those "who have followed the path of capitalism". According to news broadcast on Radio Peking, the committee wholeheartedly endorsed Chairman Mao's purge and "rectification" programme described as the "great proletarian cultural revolution". The radio report said the committee had strongly reaffirmed the nation's "hard line" at home and abroad. It also called on people for renewed efforts to fulfil economic goals. Chairman Mao attempted to stimulate agricultural and industrial production during the first Great Leap Forward in 1958. By reorganising small collectives into great communes he hoped to release workers for industry with the aim of driving up steel production. But the plan backfired - grain output declined leading to the country's biggest famine while industry began producing masses of unwanted, shoddy goods.
- Birthdays
- Lucy Stone
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Annie Oakley
- Fidel Castro
- Dan Fogelberg
- Danny Bonaduce
- Joycelyn Elders
- Bert Lahr
- Ben Hogan
- Don Ho
- William Goldman