- 266th Day of 2013 / 99 Remaining
- 89 Days Until The First Day of Winter
- Sunrise:6:59
- Sunset:7:03
- 12 Hours 4 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:9:45pm
- Moon Set:11:19am
- Moon’s Phase: 80 %
- The Next Full Moon
- October 18 @ 4:37pm
- Full Barley Moon
- Full Hunter’s 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:2:23am/1:46pm
- Low:7:45am/8:34pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:0.15
- This Year:0.44
- Last Year:0.02
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Pancake Day
- Celebrate Bisexuality Day
- Checkers Day
- Hug a Vegetarian Day
- Libra Begins
- Love Note Day
- Mabon-Wiccan
- Kingdom Unification-Saudi Arabia
- Independence Day-Armenia
- Grito de Lares-Peuerto Rico
- On This Day In …
- 1779 --- During the American Revolution, the U.S. ship Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, wins a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, off the eastern coast of England. In August 1779, Jones took command of the Bonhomme Richard and sailed around
the British Isles. On September 23, the Bonhomme Richard engaged the Serapis and the smaller Countess of Scarborough, which were escorting the Baltic merchant fleet. After inflicting considerable damage to the Bonhomme Richard, Richard Pearson, the captain of the Serapis, asked Jones if he had struck his colors, the naval signal indicating surrender. From his disabled ship, Jones replied, "I have not yet begun to fight," and after three more hours of furious fighting it was the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough that surrendered. After the victory, the Americans transferred to the Serapis from the Bonhomme Richard, which sank the following day.
- 1806 --- Amid much public excitement, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast and back. The Lewis and Clark Expedition had set off more than two years before to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase.
- 1845 --- The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York was formed by Alexander Joy Cartwright. It was the first baseball team in America.
- 1846 --- German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovers the planet Neptune at the Berlin Observatory. Neptune, generally the eighth planet from the sun, was postulated by the French astronomer Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier, who calculated the
approximate location of the planet by studying gravity-induced disturbances in the motions of Uranus. On September 23, 1846, Le Verrier informed Galle of his findings, and the same night Galle and his assistant Heinrich Louis d'Arrest identified Neptune at their observatory in Berlin. Noting its movement relative to background stars over 24 hours confirmed that it was a planet. The blue gas giant, which has a diameter four times that of Earth, was named for the Roman god of the sea. It has eight known moons, of which Triton is the largest, and a ring system containing three bright and two dim rings. It completes an orbit of the sun once every 165 years. In 1989, the U.S. planetary spacecraft Voyager 2 was the first human spacecraft to visit Neptune.
- 1875 --- Billy the Kid is arrested for the first time after stealing a basket of laundry. He later broke out of jail and roamed the
American West, eventually earning a reputation as an outlaw and murderer and a rap sheet that allegedly included 21 murders.
- 1908 --- The baseball term, “Merkle’s Boner” and the expression, “You’re a bonehead,” had their origins on this day -- at the final game of the National League pennant race between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants. The Giants were at bat, two men were on base and the score was tied 1-1. The batter hit safely, scoring the winning run. But, Chicago claimed that Fred Merkle, who had been on first, never advanced to second, that he went straight to the dugout upon seeing the winning run come in. Chicago Cubs’ Johnny Evers tried to tag Merkle but was hampered by hundreds of fans pouring on to the field. Fans called the play a ‘boner’, etc. (It was later decided that the game was a tie, and the teams met again for a playoff, a 4-2 Cubs win.)
- 1930 --- Flashbulbs were patented by Johannes Ostermeier of Athegnenber, Germany. Now that’s an invention that used to be very popular in the little box cameras. You popped the bulb into the
socket in front of a silver reflector dish. The bulb would get all crinkly looking and milky white in color after it was used (you could only use it once). Then the bulbs were replaced by flash cubes and now, the automatic flash is built into the camera. So easy to use ... but not half as much fun.
- 1944 --- During a campaign dinner with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, President Franklin D. Roosevelt makes a reference to his small dog, Fala, who had recently been the subject of a Republican political attack. The offense prompted Roosevelt to defend his dog's honor and his own reputation.
- 1951 --- The first transcontinental telecast was received on the west coast. The show "Crusade for Freedom" was broadcast by CBS-TV from New York.
- 1952 --- Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon went on television to deliver what came to be known as the
"Checkers'' speech as he denied allegations of improper campaign financing.
- 1962 --- New York's Philharmonic Hall opened. It was the first unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The hall was later renamed the Avery Fisher Hall.
- 1962 --- "The Jetsons" premiered on ABC-TV. It was the first program on the network to be carried in color.
- 1964 --- The Paris Opera unveils a stunning new ceiling painted as a gift by Belorussian-born artist Marc Chagall, who spent much of his
life in France. The ceiling was typical of Chagall's masterpieces—childlike in its apparent simplicity yet luminous with color and evocative of the world of dreams and the subconscious.
- 1969 --- The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with the responsibility for the violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago. The defendants
included David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"); Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; and two lesser known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines.
- 1973 --- Overthrown Argentine president Juan Peron was returned to power. He had been overthrown in 1955. His wife, Eva Duarte, was the subject of the musical "Evita."
- 1980 --- David Bowie made his acting debut in the Broadway show "The Elephant Man".
- 1981 --- Jack Henry Abbott is captured in the oil fields of Louisiana after a two-month long manhunt that began when he killed Richard Adan at the Binibon restaurant in New York City on July 18. At the time of the murder, Abbott had been out on parole largely through the efforts of author Norman Mailer, who convinced officials that he had a great writing talent.
- 1986 --- Japanese newspapers quoted Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone as saying that minorities lowered the "intelligence level" of America.
- Birthdays
- John Coltrane
- Ray Charles
- Bruce Springsteen
- Ani DiFranco
- Jason Alexander
- Julio Iglesias
- Caesar Augustus
- Mary Kay Place
- Robert Bosch
- Aldo Moro
- Walter Pidgeon
- Mickey Rooney
- Ben E King