© 2024 KALW 91.7 FM Bay Area
KALW Public Media / 91.7 FM Bay Area
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Monday September 17, 2012

  • 261ST Day of 2012 /105 Remaining
  • 5 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
  • Sunrise:6:54
  • Sunset:7:14
  • 12 Hours 20 Minutes of Daylight
  • Moon Rise:8:46am
  • Moon Set:8:03pm
  • Moon’s Phase: 4 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • September 29 @ 8:18pm
  • Full Corn Moon
  • Full Harvest Moon

This full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked when corn was  supposed to be harvested. Most often, the September full moon is actually the Harvest Moon, which is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later formuch of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.

  • Tides
  • High:12:01am/12:13pm
  • Low:5:53am/6:29pm
  • 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
  • Citizenship Day
  • National Stepfamily Day
  • National Apple Dumpling Day
  • International Coastal Cleanup
  • International Eat an Apple Day
  • Day of the National Hero-Angola
  • Rosh Hashana-Judaism
  • On This Day In …
  • 1630 --- Boston, Massachusetts was founded. Nickname, 'Bean Town.'
  • 1787 --- The U.S. Constitution was completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
  • 1862 --- The Battle of Antietam took place during the American Civil War. More than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing. The Rebel advance was ended with heavy losses to both armies.
  • 1872 --- Phillip W. Pratt of Abington, MA patented an automatic sprinkler system for putting out fires. The system was operated by means of a valve to which cords and fuses were attached. The cords held the valve closed with a spring-loaded lever. In case of a fire, when the fuses ignited, the cords burned, and the valve opened, releasing a stream of water.
  • 1916 --- German air ace Manfred von Richthofen—known to history as the "Red Baron"—shoots down his first enemy plane over the Western Front during World War I. Richthofen, the son of a Prussian nobleman, switched from the German army to the Imperial Air Service in 1915. He became the star pupil and protégé of Oswald Boelcke, one of Germany’s most successful fighter pilots. After seeing action over the Eastern Front, where he bombed Russian forces and railway junctions, Richthoften began his legendary career in the west.
  • 1923 --- A fire in northern California threatens the University of California at Berkeley, kills 2 people and causes $10 million in damages. The exact cause of the devastating fire has never been determined, but it began in the dry forests northeast of Berkeley. Strong winds from the east blew cinders into the air and caused the fire to spread rapidly. The red-hot cinders sometimes jumped several houses at a time, resulting in a random pattern of destruction. Homeowners attempted to fight the flames with garden hoses and buckets, but these amateur labors proved no match for the fire. Firefighters from Oakland and San Francisco rushed to the area, but their efforts were hampered by a lack of available water. A group of hundreds of students from the University of California—rumored to have included tennis champion Helen Wills--also pitched in, as the fire came right to the campus gates. Nearly 1,000 houses had succumbed to the fire, including half of the fraternity and sorority houses in the area, when the wind abruptly shifted just as the flames reached campus. The National Guard was quickly called in to stop the looting that followed in the chaotic aftermath.
  • 1930 --- Construction on Boulder Dam, later renamed Hoover Dam, began in Black Canyon, near Las Vegas, NV.
  • 1953 --- Ernie Banks became the first black baseball player to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform. Banks was also quick to say, “Let’s play two!” Banks was the Cubs’ outstanding shortstop from 1954 to 1960. In 1961 he was moved to left field, then to first base, where he spent the rest of his career. In 1969, Ernie Banks was voted the Cub’s best player ever by Chicago fans. ‘Mr. Cub’ retired in 1971.
  • 1965 --- CBS-TV debuted an oxymoronic show. “Hogan’s Heroes”, a comedy, took place in a World War II Nazi POW camp. For six years the prisoners, under the lead of Colonel Robert Hogan (played by former KNX radio air personality Bob Crane), managed to outwit the incompetent and inept Nazi Colonel Wilhelm Klink (played very competently by Werner Klemperer [2-time Emmy-Award winner for his role]) and Nazi Sgt. Shultz (played quite deftly by John Banner). The prisoners finagled, cheated and tricked the Germans so they could feed classified information to the Allies, help fugitives escape from Germany, etc. They managed, through their conniving, to live in luxury. Robert Clary played the Frenchman Louis LeBeau, who prepared fine French cuisine for his fellow prisoners. A steam room, a barbershop and many other creature comforts added to the amusement of the viewers Those who watched the antics in Stalag 13 will remember the comedy and pathos brought to the small screen by POWs: Sgt. Andrew Carter (played by Larry Hovis); radioman Sgt. James Kinchloe (played by Ivan Dixon); and Peter Newkirk, the English corporal (played by Richard Dawson, later of Family Feud). Some thought it almost sacrilegious to make light of a POW camp. However, much can be learned through comedy. With tongue in cheek, Hogan’s Heroes educated and entertained. Now, a new generation, along with old fans, can be entertained by “Hogan’s Heroes”, through the book, “Hogan’s Heroes; Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13”, written by Werner Klemperer with Brenda Scott Royce.
  • 1967 --- In introducing them at the Monterey Pop Festival three months earlier, Eric Burdon of the Animals had offered high praise for the up-and-coming British rock band the Who, promising the crowd "A group that will destroy you in more ways than one." A substandard audio setup that day prevented the Who from unleashing the full sonic assault for which they were already becoming famous, but their high-energy, instrument-destroying antics inspired the next act, Jimi Hendrix, to burn his guitar and announced to the tens of thousands of Festival-goers the arrival of a powerful new force in rock and roll. The rest of America would get its introduction on September 17, 1967, when the Who ended an already explosive, nationally televised performance of "My Generation" with a literal bang that singed Pete Townshend's hair, left shrapnel in Keith Moon's arm and momentarily knocked The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour off the air. As buttoned-down as its hosts appeared to be, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour came as close as any network program could in 1967 to being culturally and politically subversive. Tommy and Dick Smothers fought a running battle with CBS during their show's three-year run over scripts that subtly tweaked "the Establishment" and guests whose off-air politics were deemed controversial by network censors. Though there was nothing overtly political about the Who, it was more than just lyrics like "Hope I die before I get old" that marked the group as happy warriors in the generational battle being waged in the late 1960s. It was also, among other things, the sheer volume at which they preferred to play and their penchant for leaving every stage they played on looking as if a bomb had just gone off. On this day in 1967, one actually did. Keith Moon was already in the habit of placing an explosive charge in one his two bass drums to detonate during Pete Townshend's guitar-smashing at the end of each Who performance. But for their Smothers Brothers appearance, Moon packed several times the normal amount of explosives into his drum kit, and when he set it off, a gigantic explosion rocked the set as a cloud of white smoke engulfed Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey. Though bassist John Entwistle never lost his cool, Daltrey practically flew downstage and when Townshend emerged from the smoke, his hair was almost literally blown to one side of his head. Though the incredible explosion has been rumored to have caused Pete Townshend's eventual near-deafness, credit for that should probably go instead to the Who's pioneering use of stacked Marshall amplifiers as a means of achieving maximum volume during their live performances.
  • 1972 --- The comedy series "M.A.S.H." premiered on CBS.
  • 1976 --- NASA publicly unveils its first space shuttle, the Enterprise, during a ceremony in Palmdale, California. Development of the aircraft-like spacecraft cost almost $10 billion and took nearly a decade. In 1977, the Enterprise became the first space shuttle to fly freely when it was lifted to a height of 25,000 feet by a Boeing 747 airplane and then released, gliding back to Edwards Air Force Base on its own accord. Regular flights of the space shuttle began on April 12, 1981, with the launching of Columbia from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and an external tank, only the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth. When the two-day mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider at California's Edwards Air Force Base.
  • 1980 --- Former Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay.
  • 1983 --- Vanessa Williams, Miss New York, was crowned Miss America. Williams was the first black woman in the 62-year history of the Miss America Pageant to win the coveted title. Williams relinquished her crown during her reign when nude pictures of her were published in Penthouse magazine. She went on to enjoy popularity as a singer (Dreamin’, Save the Best for Last) and an actress (Candyman, Another You, Under the Gun).
  • 1984 --- Reggie Jackson hit his 500th career home run. It was exactly 17 years from the day he hit his first major league home run.
  • 2004 --- San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds hit his 700th career home run, joining Babe Ruth (714) and Hank Aaron (755) as the only players to reach the milestone.
  • 2011 --- A demonstration calling itself Occupy Wall Street began in New York.
  • Birthdays
  • Hank Williams
  • Rube Foster
  • David Dunbar Buick
  • Warren Burger
  • David Souter
  • Fee Waybill
  • Cassandra Peterson
  • Rita Rudner
  • George Blanda
  • Anne Bancroft
  • Orlando Cepeda
  • Ken Kesey
  • Sen Charles Grassley
  • John Willard Marriott