- 188th Day of 2014 / 177 Remaining
- Autumn Begins in 77 Days
- Sunrise:5:55
- Sunset:8:34
- 14 Hours 39 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:3:45pm
- Moon Set: 1:48am
- Moon Phase: 73%
- The Next Full Moon
- July 12 @ 4:26 am
- Full Buck Moon
- Full Thunder Moon
- Full Hay Moon
July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also named for the thunderstorms that are most common during this time. And in some areas it was called the Full Hay Moon.
- Tides
- High:7:51am/7:113pm
- Low:1:32am/12:42pm
- Holidays
- National Strawberry Sundae Day.
- Macaroni Day
- Chocolate Day
- Father & Daughter Take a Walk Day
- Tell the Truth Day
- Independence Day-Solomon Islands
- Running of the Bulls-Spain
- Saba Saba Day-Tanzania
- Tanabata/Star Festival-Japan
- Unity Day/Victory Day-Yemen
- On This Day In …
- 1550 --- The first chocolate arrived in Europe.
- 1754 --- King’s College opened in New York City. The institution of higher learning admitted eight students and one faculty member, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who also served as school president. These were humble beginnings for a school which would become one of the largest in the United States. King’s was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and, later, became Columbia University. Many prestigious awards come from this university, including the Columbia Award for Journalism and the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism (named after Joseph Pulitzer, a former Columbia professor).
- 1846 --- U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.
- 1862 --- The first railroad post office was tested on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in Missouri.
- 1865 --- Four people were hanged in Washington, D.C., after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
- 1891 --- The Travelers Cheque was patented.
- 1898 --- The United States annexed Hawaii.
- 1912 --- Jim Thorpe wins the pentathlon at the fifth modern Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. At the time, Thorpe, a Native Amercian who attended Pennsylvania’s Carlisle Indian School, was only beginning to establish his reputation as the greatest all-around athlete in the world.
- 1928 --- Sliced bread was born. Otto Frederick Rohwedder spent many years working on a bread slicing machine beginning in 1912. He finally perfected it, and the first sliced bread was produced and sold at M.F. Bench's Chillicothe Baking Company, 100 Elm Street in Chillicothe, Missouri. According to the story, Mr. Bench assisted Rohwedder in the fine tuning the new bread slicing machine. The Chillicothe, Missouri Constitution-Tribune of July 7, 1928 carried a story of the new machines first use on that day. Chillcothe Baking Co. bread sales increased 2,000% over the next few months.
- 1930 --- Construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures in the world.
- 1936 --- Henry F. Phillips patented the Phillips-head screw and screwdriver.
- 1937 --- Lou Gehrig hit a two-run home run to lead the American League over the National League 8-3 in the All-Star Game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. Pitcher Dizzy Dean of St. Louis suffered a career-shortening broken toe on his left foot during the game.
- 1949 --- Jack Webb’s Dragnet was first heard on NBC radio. The program was the first to dramatize cases from actual police files. Each episode on radio and TV began with the announcement, “The story you are about to hear (see) is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”; and ended with the somber sentence handed down to the criminal. Dragnet went to television in January 1952 after a successful TV preview on Chesterfield Sound-Off Time a few weeks earlier. The show actually ran simultaneously on radio and TV from 1952 - 1956, continuing on television through 1959. After a seven-year hiatus, it returned asDragnet ’67 to distinguish itself from its own reruns. This first major real-life police drama series was so successful that it remains in syndication some 30 to 40 years later.
- 1954 --- Elvis Presley made his radio debut when Memphis, Tenn., station WHBQ played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right."
- 1956 --- Johnny Cash made his first appearance on "Grand Ole Opry."
- 1958 --- The first IHOP (International House of Pancakes) opened at 4301 Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, California.
- 1958 --- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill.
- 1969 --- Canada's House of Commons gave final approval to a measure that made the French language equal to English throughout the national government.
- 1976 --- For the first time in history, women are enrolled into the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. On May 28, 1980, 62 of these female cadets graduated and were commissioned as second lieutenants.
- 1980 --- The original lineup of Led Zeppelin gave its final show.
- 1981 --- President Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor, an Arizona court of appeals judge, to be the first woman Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. On September 21, the Senate unanimously approved her appointment to the nation's highest court, and on September 25 she was sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger.
- 1987 --- Lt. Col. Oliver North began his public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing, telling Congress that he had "never carried out a single act, not one" without authorization.
- 1987 --- A gasoline tanker truck crashes into an ice cream parlor in Herborn, Germany. The resulting explosion and fire killed 50 people. The truck was carrying a full load of gasoline, nearly 7,000 gallons, when it exited the Frankfurt-Rhur autobahn, a major highway in Germany. It was about 8:30 in the evening as the truck came through the center of Herborn. When its brakes overheated and failed, the truck plowed straight into a building containing an ice cream parlor and pizzeria. There was no immediate explosion and the truck's driver managed to escape with only minor injuries. As gasoline poured from the ruptured tanker, though, nearly 50 people were trapped in the ice cream parlor; fortunately, the pizzeria had already closed. When the gasoline exploded, the building was completely destroyed and all those inside died. A chain reaction of explosions caused gas pipes in neighboring homes to ignite and manhole covers to fly into the air on a nearby street. Meanwhile, gasoline continued to flow out of the truck and began to flood the
town's underground sewage system. Deadly fumes also permeated the town center. Twenty-thousand homes in the vicinity were evacuated while firefighters fought to contain the damage. Approximately 25 people were seriously injured but could not be evacuated by cars because people coming to view the enormous fire had crowded the roads. Helicopters were used to take them to area hospitals.
- 1990 --- Martina Navratilova won a record ninth women's singles title at Wimbledon.
- 2005 --- Bombs are detonated in three crowded London subways and one bus during the peak of the city's rush hour. The synchronized suicide bombings, which were thought to be the work of al-Qaida, killed 56 people including the bombers and injured another 700. It was the largest attack on Great Britain since World War II. No warning was given.
- Birthdays
- Michelle Kwan
- Satchel Paige
- Ringo Starr
- Linda Williams
- Shelley Duvall
- Lisa Leslie
- Gustav Mahler
- Marc Chagall
- Ezzard Charles
- Pinetop Perkins
- Mary Ford
