- 119th Day of 2016 247 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 53 Days
- Sunrise: 6:15
- Sunset: 7:58
- 13 Hours 43 Minutes
- Moon Rise: 12:51am
- Moon Set: 11:18am
- Phase: 65% 21 Days
- Next Full Moon May 21 @ 2:16pm
- In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name Full Flower Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.
- Tides
- High: 2:57am/5:23pm
- Low: 10:00am/10:27pm
- Rainfall (July 1 – June 30)
- This Year: 22.20
- Last Year: 18.44
- YTD Avg.: 22.88
- Annual Avg.: 23.80
- Holidays
- National Blueberry Pie Day
- National Cubicle Day
- Biological Clock Day
- Great Poetry Reading Day
- National Kiss Your Mate Day
- National Superhero Day
- Pay It Forward Day
- Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day
- Workers Memorial Day
- Thank You Thursday
- Evacuation Day-Libya
- Hero’s Day-Barbados
- National Day Of Mourning-Canada
- On This Day
- 1789 --- Three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty is seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti.
- 1940 --- Glenn Miller and his orchestra recorded "PEnnsylvania 6-5000." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_muFwwTSMs
- 1945 --- “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during the German occupation toward the close of the war. As the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, defeat of the Axis powers all but certain, Mussolini considered his options. Not wanting to fall into the hands of either the British or the Americans, and knowing that the communist partisans, who had been fighting the remnants of roving Italian fascist soldiers and thugs in the north, would try him as a war criminal, he settled on escape to a neutral country. He and his mistress made it to the Swiss border, only to discover that the guards had crossed over to the partisan side. Knowing they would not let him pass, he disguised himself in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet, hoping to slip into Austria with some German soldiers. His subterfuge proved incompetent, and he and Petacci were discovered by partisans and shot, their bodies then transported by truck to Milan, where they were hung upside down and displayed publicly for revilement by the masses.
- 1947 --- Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl and five others set out in a balsa wood craft known as Kon Tiki to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. The trip began in Peru and took 101 days to complete the crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
- 1962 --- In the Sahara Desert of Algeria, a team led by Red Adair used explosives to put out the well fire known as the Devil's Cigarette Lighter. The fire was caused by a pipe rupture on November 6, 1961.
- 1965 --- In an effort to forestall what he claims will be a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends more than 22,000 U.S. troops to restore order on the island nation. Johnson’s action provoked loud protests in Latin America and skepticism among many in the United States.
- 1965 --- Barbra Streisand’s breakout year as a singer came in 1963, when she released her first two albums, won her first two Grammys and began appearing live in some of the most prominent nightclubs in the country. By the following year, she was a showbiz phenomenon, earning further nominations from the Grammys and Tonys after wowing Broadway critics and audiences in her first leading role, as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. Yet even then, in a Time magazine cover article in 1964, it was noted that “Many people still say who? when they hear her name.” That probably changed once and for all on April 28, 1965, when millions of American television viewers tuned in to a solid primetime hour of the 22-year-old Streisand in her first-ever TV special, the triumphant “My Name Is Barbra”. “My Name is Barbra” was the first special to be shot and aired under a $5 million, 10-year contract signed between Streisand and CBS in June 1964. Quite apart from the money, what made the deal so extraordinary was the creative control it gave to Streisand. She chose to exercise that control by eschewing many of the conventions of the then-popular musical variety show genre. Rather than shooting only in a studio, Streisand and her crew filmed one of their major sequences on location in the fur department of Bergdorf Goodman, where Streisand vamped in exotic fur coats and specially designed hats by Halston to a medley of poverty songs, including “Give Me the Simple Life” and “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” And rather than filling out the bill with big-name guest stars—a safe strategy for a young and still-rising star—Streisand performed every number alone. “You can imagine how nervous that made the network,” Streisand later remarked, “when they learned that there would be major guest stars, not even any minor ones—just me and a bunch of great songs and some wonderful musicians.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqpcedow950
- 1967 --- Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 14, 1942, the future three-time world champ changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam. He scored a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome and made his professional boxing debut against Tunney Husaker on October 29, 1960, winning the bout in six rounds. On February 25, 1964, he defeated the heavily favored bruiser Sonny Liston in six rounds to become heavyweight champ. On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.
- 1969 --- In Santa Rosa, Charles M. Schulz's Redwood Empire Ice Arena opened.
- 1970 --- President Richard Nixon gives his formal authorization to commit U.S. combat troops, in cooperation with South Vietnamese units, against communist troop sanctuaries in Cambodia. Secretary of State William Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, who had continually argued for a downsizing of the U.S. effort in Vietnam, were excluded from the decision to use U.S. troops in Cambodia. Gen. Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cabled Gen. Creighton Abrams, senior U.S. commander in Saigon, informing him of the decision that a “higher authority has authorized certain military actions to protect U.S. forces operating in South Vietnam.” Nixon believed that the operation was necessary as a pre-emptive strike to forestall North Vietnamese attacks from Cambodia into South Vietnam as the U.S. forces withdrew and the South Vietnamese assumed more responsibility for the fighting. Nevertheless, three National Security Council staff members and key aides to presidential assistant Henry Kissinger resigned in protest over what amounted to an invasion of Cambodia.
- 1977 --- In Stuttgart, West Germany, the lengthy trial of the leaders of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, ends with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe being found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder. Each defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, Germany’s most severe punishment. The Red Army Faction was founded by ultra-left revolutionaries Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in 1968. Advocating communist revolution in West Germany, the group employed terrorist tactics against government, military, and corporate leaders in an effort to topple capitalism in their homeland. Baader was imprisoned in 1970 but escaped, and Meinhof was captured in 1972. In 1976, Baader was recaptured, and Meinhof hanged herself in her cell.
- 1986 --- For the first time, a compact disc of an album was released before its vinyl version. The album was "The Art of Excellence" by Tony Bennett. It was his first album upon re-signing with Columbia Records. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRlSMfbQ8-5agMnGoBJt57c1hz4jdQP6N
- 1994 --- Former CIA official Aldrich Ames, who had given U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and then Russia, pled guilty to espionage and tax evasion. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
- 1995 --- A gas explosion beneath a busy city street in Taegu, South Korea, kills more than 100. Sixty children, some on their way to school, were among the victims of the blast. Taegu was a city of 2.2 million people, located about 150 miles south of Seoul. At the time of the explosion, an underground railroad was being constructed beneath the city streets. Metal sheets were put down in place of asphalt to cover holes in certain sections of downtown roads during the construction. At about 7:30 a.m., during a busy rush hour, a large explosion rumbled beneath the streets, blasting the metal sheets high into the air. Flames shot out from underground, some 150 feet high, throughout a 300-yard area. Cars were transformed into fireballs and one was reported to have been thrown 30 feet into the air. Some pedestrians in the area were enveloped by fire; others further away were blown to the ground. Flaming debris hit people up to half of a mile away. The final death toll was 110, with hundreds injured. Rescue efforts were impeded by broken water mains that flooded the area in the aftermath.
- 2001 --- A Russian rocket launched from Central Asia with the first space tourist aboard. The crew consisted of California businessman Dennis Tito and two cosmonauts. The destination was the international space station.
- 2004 --- The first photos of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal were shown on CBS' "60 Minutes II."
- Birthdays
- Harper Lee
- Alice Waters
- Lionel Barrymore
- Carolyn Jones
- James Monroe (5th President)
- Blossom Dearie
- Bruno Kirby
- Too Short
- Jay Leno
- Kim Gordon
- Barry Larkin
- Penelope Cruz
- Jessica Alba
- Ferruccio Lamborghini
National Blueberry Pie Day-KALW Almanac-4/28/2016
