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Monday February 13, 2012

Galileo faces the Roman Inquisition (see highlighted story below)
Galileo faces the Roman Inquisition (see highlighted story below)

 

  • 44th Day of 2012 / 322 Remaining
  • 36 Days Until Spring Begins
  • Sunrise:7:02
  • Sunset:5:47
  • 10 Hr 45 Min
  • Moon Rise:12:50am
  • Moon Set:10:14am
  • Moon’s Phase: 60 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • March 8 @ 1:41 am
  • Full Worm Moon

As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

  • Tides
  • High:2:27am/3:38pm
  • Low:9:13am/8:47pm
  • Rainfall
  • This Year:6.42
  • Last Year:12.67
  • Normal To Date:14.82
  • Annual Average: 22.28
  • Holidays
  • Employee Legal Awareness Day
  • Get A Different Name Day
  • Madly in Love With Me Day
  • National Tortellini Day
  • Dream of Your Sweetheart Day
  • On This Day In …
  • 1542 --- Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. She was the fifth wife of England's King Henry VIII.
  • 1633 --- Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome to face charges of heresy for advocating Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo officially faced the Roman Inquisition in April of that same year and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Put under house arrest indefinitely by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo spent the rest of his days at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, before dying on January 8, 1642. Galileo, the son of a musician, was born February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. He entered the University of Pisa planning to study medicine, but shifted his focus to philosophy and mathematics. In 1589, he became a professor at Pisa for several years, during which time he demonstrated that the speed of a falling object is not proportional to its weight, as Aristotle had believed. According to some reports, Galileo conducted his research by dropping objects of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. From 1592 to 1630, Galileo was a math professor at the University of Padua, where he developed a telescope that enabled him to observe lunar mountains and craters, the four largest satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Jupiter. He also discovered that the Milky Way was made up of stars. Following the publication of his research in 1610, Galileo gained acclaim and was appointed court mathematician at Florence. Galileo's research led him to become an advocate of the work of the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1573). However, the Copernican theory of a sun-centered solar system conflicted with the teachings of the powerful Roman Catholic Church, which essentially ruled Italy at the time. Church teachings contended that Earth, not the sun, was at the center of the universe. In 1633, Galileo was brought before the Roman Inquisition, a judicial system established by the papacy in 1542 to regulate church doctrine. This included the banning of books that conflicted with church teachings. The Roman Inquisition had its roots in the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, the purpose of which was to seek out and prosecute heretics, considered enemies of the state.
  • 1635 --- The Boston Public Latin School was established. It was the first public school building in the United States.
  • 1741 --- The American Magazine, the first magazine in the U.S., was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It beat Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine off the presses by 3 days (whew!). Andrew Bradford, publisher of this 50-page gem, was quoted as saying, “Stuff it Ben. Someday, I’ll be mentioned ahead of you in Those Were the Days.”
  • 1867 --- Johann Strauss' magnificent "Blue Danube Waltz" was played for the first time at a public concert in Vienna, Austria.
  • 1914 --- The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (known as ASCAP) was formed in New York City. The society was founded to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
  • 1945 --- The most controversial episode in the Allied air war against Germany begins as hundreds of British bombers loaded with incendiaries and high-explosive bombs descend on Dresden, a historic city located in eastern Germany. Dresden was neither a war production city nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of civilians--somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000--were dead.
  • 1959 --- Mattel toy partner Ruth Handler gave birth to an 11-inch teenager named Barbie, the first doll with developed breasts. Mattel sells over 20-million Barbies a year.
  • 1965 --- Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the ladies senior figure skating title at Lake Placid, NY. Fleming would go on to win Olympic gold, and as a professional skater, signed a long-term, $500,000 contract for several commercial endorsements that lasted for years. She appeared in TV specials and performed with the Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice and was elected to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Olympic Hall of Fame.
  • 1991 --- Sotheby's announced the discovery of a long-lost manuscript of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The manuscript was the first half of Twain's original version, heavily corrected in his own handwriting, which had been missing for more than a century. The manuscript surfaced when a 62-year-old Los Angeles librarian finally got around to sorting through some old papers in six trunks sent to her when an aunt from upstate New York died. Twain, it turned out, had sent the second half of the manuscript to the librarian's grandfather, James Gluck, who had solicited it for the Buffalo and Erie Library in Buffalo, New York, where Twain had once lived. At the time, Twain was unable to find the entire manuscript, and it was presumed lost for more than 100 years. However, it turned out that Twain did eventually find the manuscript and send it to Gluck.
  • 1997 --- After a two-day chase, space shuttle Discovery’s astronauts hauled the Hubble Space Telescope aboard to begin a $350 million refurbishment. The mission’s objective was to replace worn-out components and install new ones to inctrease the performance of the telescope..
  • 2000 --- The last original Sunday "Peanuts" comic strip appeared in newspapers. Peanuts creator, artist Charles M. Schulz, had died the day before.
  • Birthdays
  • Georgios Papandreou
  • Grant Wood
  • Pauline Frederick
  • Bess Truman
  • Patty Berg
  • Chuck Yeager
  • Dorothy (Dotty) McGuire
  • George Segal
  • Oliver Reed
  • Oliver Reed
  • Peter Tork
  • Jerry Springer
  • Peter Gabriel
  • Henry Rollins
  • Mena Suvari