- 28th Day of 2013 / 337 Remaining
- 51Days Until The First Day of Spring
- Sunrise:7:16
- Sunset:5:30
- 10 Hours 14 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:7:26pm
- Moon Set:7:49am
- Moon’s Phase: 97 %
- The Next Full Moon
- February 25 @ 12:28pm
- Full Snow Moon
- Full Hunger Moon
Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February’s full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult.
- Tides
- High: 12:59am/12:02pm
- Low: 6:07am/6:28pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:13.50
- Last Year:6.03
- Normal To Date:13.17
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day
- Fun at Work Day
- National Kazoo Day
- National Blueberry Pancake Day
- Democracy Day-Rwanda
- On This Day In …
- 1813 --- The novel "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen was first published anonymously in London.
- 1878 --- The first telephone switchboard was installed -- in New Haven, Connecticut. The phone company that owned the switchboard had 21 subscribers.
- 1902 --- The Carnegie Institution was established in Washington, DC. It began with a gift of $10 million from Andrew Carnegie.
- 1912 --- The National Football League franchise in Decatur, Illinois was transferred this day to Chicago. The team took the name, Chicago Staleys for the 1921 season. The following year, it was decided that since the team was playing in the stadium of the Chicago Cubs, it should be named the Chicago Bears.
- 1916 --- Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.
- 1938 --- The first ski tow started operation in Vermont.
- 1956 --- Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national television. No, he didn’t appear on some teenage dance show; but rather, The Dorsey Brothers Show, starring Tommy and Jimmy. Elvis sang Blue Suede Shoes and Heartbreak Hotel. He was backed by the instruments of the Dorsey band, believe it or not.
- 1957 --- The Brooklyn Dodgers announced that circus clown Emmett Kelly had been hired to entertain fans at baseball games.
- 1980 --- Six Americans who had fled the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 1979, left Iran using false Canadian diplomatic passports. The Americans had been hidden at the Canadian embassy in Tehran.
- 1985 --- 45 of the world’s top recording artists were invited to an all-night recording session at the A&M studios in Los Angeles. As each of the artists walked through the studio door, they were greeted by a hand-lettered sign -- put there by Lionel Richie. It simply said, “Check your ego at the door.” The session started at 10 p.m. with producer Quincy Jones conducting. At 8 o’clock the following morning, the project, USA for Africa, spearheaded by promoter, Ken Kragen, was recorded and mixed. The resulting song, We Are the World, featuring Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Sting, Harry Belafonte, Diana Ross, Paul Simon and many others became the top song in the U.S. on April 13, 1985.
- 1986 --- The space shuttle “Challenger” lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger's launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off. Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa's family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors. In the aftermath of the explosion, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. The investigation determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of an "O-ring" seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive explosion. As a result of the explosion, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle.
- 1990 --- Super Bowl XXIV (at New Orleans), 49ers 55 - Broncos 10. San Francisco had won all three trips they had made to the Super Bowl. Denver had lost all three times they had been there. At the end of this game the 49ers were still winners and the Broncos were still losers. MVP: 49ers’ QB Joe Montana. Tickets: $125.00.
- 1997 --- In South Africa, four apartheid-era police officers, appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, admit to the 1977 killing of Stephen Biko, a leader of the South African "Black consciousness" movement. In 1969, Biko, a medical student, founded an organization for South Africa's black students to combat the minority government's racist apartheid policies and to promote black identity. In 1972, he helped organize the Black People's Convention and in the next year was banned from politics by the Afrikaner government. Four years later, in September 1977, he was arrested for subversion. While in police custody in Port Elizabeth, Biko was brutally beaten and then driven 700 miles to Pretoria, where he was thrown into a cell. On September 12, 1977, he died naked and shackled on the filthy floor of a police hospital. News of the political killing, denied by the country's white minority government, led to international protests and a U.N.-imposed arms embargo.
- 1999 --- Ford Motor Company announced the purchase of Sweden's Volvo AB for $6.45 billion.
- 2003 --- President George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Africa. (The claim was later disputed by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been asked by the CIA to investigate.)
- Birthdays
- Sarah McLachlan
- Nikolas Sarkozy
- Arthur Rubinstein
- Jose Marti
- Alan Alda
- Elijah Wood
- Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle)
- Sir Henry Morton Stanley
- Jackson Pollock
- Susan Sontag