- 289th Day of 2012 / 77 Remaining
- 67 Days Until The First Day of Winter
- Sunrise:7:19
- Sunset:6:32
- 11 Hours 13 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise: 7:35am
- Moon Set:6:37pm
- Moon’s Phase: New Moon
- The Next Full Moon
- October 29 @ 12:50 pm
- Full Hunter’s Moon
- Full Harvest Moon
This full Moon is often referred to as the Full Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon, or Sanguine Moon. Many moons ago, Native Americans named this bright moon for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer are fattened, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. Because the fields were traditionally reaped in late September or early October, hunters could easily see fox and other animals that come out to glean from the fallen grains. Probably because of the threat of winter looming close, the Hunter’s Moon is generally accorded with special honor, historically serving as an important feast day in both Western Europe and among many Native American tribes.
- Tides
- High: 10:54am
- Low: 4:41am/5:26pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:0.04
- Last Year:1.49
- Normal To Date:0.60
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Grouch Day
- Sweetest Day
- White Cane Safety Day
- National Roast Pheasant Day
- National Mushroom Day
- UN International Day Of Rural Women
- Cayenne Festival-French Guyana
- Evacuation Day-Tunisia
- International Day Of Older People-Australia
- National Tree Planting Day-Sri Lanka
- Rectification Day-Burkina Faso
- On This Day In …
- 1860 --- Eleven-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by growing a beard.
- 1892 --- The U.S. government announced that the land in the western Montana was open to settlers. The 1.8 million acres were bought from the Crow Indians for 50 cents per acre.
- 1930 --- The legendary composer and bandleader Duke Ellington was so famous for his poise and charm that it should be no surprise that he had a pithy story at the ready whenever he was asked about one of his most famous and enduring works, "Mood Indigo." Of the song he and his orchestra recorded for the very first time on this day in 1930, Ellington was fond of saying, "Well, I wrote that in 15 minutes while I was waiting for my mother to finish cooking dinner." As neatly as that version fit with his well-tended reputation for effortless sophistication, the true account of the song's development reflects the gifts for collaboration and adaptation that were always critical elements of Ellington's genius.
- 1951 --- I Love Lucy debuted on CBS-TV. For the next 20 years, Lucille Ball would be a TV regular. She did take 1956 off. Why? No, having little Ricky had nothing to do with it. She starred in Wildcat on Broadway that year.
- 1955 --- The “Grand Ole Opry”, first heard on network radio in 1939, made it to TV. The ABC network carried just one hour of “Opry” (it continued through the night) live from Nashville. This arrangement only lasted for one year; although the Grand Ole Opry was used as a staging arena for other successful shows like “Classic Country Featuring Stars of the Grand Ole Opry” and “Hayride”. Then, miracle of miracles for country music fans, “Grand Ole Opry” came to TV to stay. In 1985, the Nashville Network (TNN) positioned the show on Saturday nights. In 2001, “Opry” was carried on Country Music Televison (CMT). In 2003, “Grand Ole Opry (Opry Live)” moved to GAC (Great American Country).
- 1959 --- Van Johnson was originally slated to play Eliot Ness, but he backed out in a dispute over money the weekend before filming was to begin. Robert Stack was hastily recruited for the starring role in The Untouchables on a Sunday morning. He was fitted for costumes in the afternoon, and started filming the first episode, The Empty Chair, on Monday morning. The Untouchables, with the chatter of machine-gun fire and the squeal of tires on the streets of Chicago, began a four-year run this day on ABC-TV. With Stack, as G-man Ness, were Nick Georgiade (as Enrico Rossi), Jerry Paris (as Martin Flaherty), Abel Fernandez (as William Youngfellow), Anthony George (as Cam Allison), Paul Percerni (as Lee Hobson), Steve London (as Agent Rossman) and Bruce Gordon (as Frank Nitti). The unforgettable narrator was radio’s famous Walter Winchell.
- 1962 --- The Cuban Missile Crisis began. It was on this day that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing data discovered Soviet medium-range missle sites in Cuba. On October 22 U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that he had ordred the naval "quarantine" of Cuba.
- 1964 --- It was announced that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev had been removed from office. He was succeeded as premier by Alexei N. Kosygin and as Communist Party secretary by Leonid I. Brezhnev.
- 1965 --- In a demonstration staged by the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the first public burning of a draft card in the United States takes place. These demonstrations drew 100,000 people in 40 cities across the country. In New York, David Miller, a young Catholic pacifist, became the first U.S. war protestor to burn his draft card in direct violation of a recently passed law forbidding such acts. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation later arrested him; he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
- 1966 --- U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill creating the Department of Transportation.
- 1969 --- National Moratorium antiwar demonstrations are conducted across the United States involving hundreds of thousands of people. The National Moratorium was an effort by David Hawk and Sam Brown, two antiwar activists, to forge a broad-based movement against the Vietnam War. The organization initially focused its effort on 300 college campuses, but the idea soon grew and spread beyond the colleges and universities. Hawk and Brown were assisted by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which was instrumental in organizing the nation-wide protest. One of the largest demonstrations occurred when 100,000 people converged on the Boston Common, but demonstrations nationwide also included smaller rallies, marches, and prayer vigils. The demonstrations involved a broad spectrum of the population, including those who had already participated in antiwar demonstrations and many who had never before raised their voices against the war. The protest, as a nationally coordinated antiwar demonstration, was considered unprecedented; Walter Cronkite called it "historic in its scope. Never before had so many demonstrated their hope for peace."
- 1971 --- Rick Nelson was booed off the stage when he didn’t stick to all oldies at the seventh Annual Rock ’n’ Roll Revival show at Madison Square Garden, New York. He tried to slip in some of his new material and the crowd did not approve. The negative reaction to his performance inspired Nelson to write his last top-40 hit, Garden Party, which hit the top-ten about a year after the Madison Square Garden debacle. Garden Party, ironically, was Nelson’s biggest hit in years, “...If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck; But if memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck.”
- 1973 --- The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a 1971 Federal Communications directive that broadcasters censor from the airwaves songs with drug-oriented lyrics.
- 1987 --- Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead, opened a series of solo shows on Broadway.
- 1990 --- Killer bees reach the U.S. in the city of Hidalgo in southern Texas.
- 1991 --- After a bitter confirmation hearing, the U.S. Senate votes 52 to 48 to confirm Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. In July 1991, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, announced his retirement after 34 years. President George Bush quickly nominated Clarence Thomas, a 43-year-old African American judge known for his conservative beliefs, to fill the seat. Thomas had been chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) during the Reagan administration, and in 1990 Bush had appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals. As the confirmation hearings for Thomas' Supreme Court nomination got underway, he evaded controversy over his conservative views on issues such as abortion by refusing to state a clear political position. He seemed headed for an easy confirmation until Anita Hill, a former aide, stepped forward and accused him of sexual harassment. Hill, who had served as an aide to Thomas at the Department of Education and the EEOC during the 1980s, alleged that the Supreme Court nominee had repeatedly made sexually offensive comments to her in an apparent campaign of seduction. Beginning on October 11, 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee held four days of televised hearings on Hill's charges. Americans were shocked by both the frankness of Hill's lurid testimony and the unsympathetic response of the all-male committee, some of whom were openly antagonistic toward Hill. Thomas, meanwhile, denied the charges, and some witnesses called on his behalf cast doubt on Hill's character and mental stability. On October 15, the Senate narrowly voted to approve Thomas' confirmation. Although the hearings left the Senate and the nation deeply divided, the episode served to foster a greater public awareness of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. In taking over the seat of the ultra-liberal Thurgood Marshall, Thomas contributed significantly to the conservative character of the nation's highest court in the 1990s and after the turn of the century.
- 1993 --- African National Congress leader Nelson (Rolihlahla) Mandela and South African President F.W. (Frederik Willem) de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to usher in reforms that 1) ended South Africa’s era of white minority rule and 2) laid the foundations for democracy.
- 1999 --- Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the USSR (1985-1991), won the Nobel Peace Prize. Gorbachev is widely credited for “helping to end the Cold War, change the map of Europe and usher in a new era in world affairs.”
- Birthdays
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
- Tito Jackson
- Linda Lavin
- Barry McGuire
- Penny Marshall
- Jim Palmer
- Richard Carpenter
- Sarah Ferguson
- Emerile Lagasse
- Virgil
- John L Sullivan
- Linda Lavin
- Mario Puzo
- Lee Iacocca
- Michael Lewis