- 103rd Day of 2016 263 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 69 Days
- Sunrise: 6:36
- Sunset: 7:43
- 12 Hours 53 Minutes
- Moon Rise: 11:10am
- Moon Set: 12:44am
- Phase: 34% 5 Days
- Next Full Moon April 21 @ 10:25pm
- Full Pink Moon, this name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.
- Tides
- High: 2:53am/5:03pm
- Low: 9:52am/10:11pm
- Rainfall (July 1 – June 30)
- This Year: 21.41
- Last Year: 17.97
- YTD Avg.: 22.18
- Annual Avg.: 23.80
- Holidays
- Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
- Big Wind Day
- Drop Everything And Read Day
- Equal Pay Day
- National Be Kind To Lawyers Day
- National Library Workers Day
- National Licorice Day
- National Only Child Day
- National Licorice Day
- Walk On Your Wild Side Day
- International Day For Space Flight
- International Day For Street Children
- Cosmonaut’s Day-Russia
- National redemption Day-Liberia
- On This Day
- 1633 --- Father Vincenzo Maculano da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII,begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial. This was the second time that Galileo was in the hot seat for refusing to accept Church orthodoxy that the Earth was the immovable center of the universe: In 1616, he had been forbidden from holding or defending his beliefs. In the 1633 interrogation, Galileo denied that he “held” belief in the Copernican view but continued to write about the issue and evidence as a means of “discussion” rather than belief. The Church had decided the idea that the Sun moved around the Earth was an absolute fact of scripture that could not be disputed, despite the fact that scientists had known for centuries that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
- 1861 --- The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern “insurrection.”
- 1877 --- The catcher for Harvard's baseball team, James Tyng, wore a modified fencing mask behind the plate. It is believed to be the first time a catcher's mask was used during a game.
- 1914 --- The Mark Strand Theatre opens to the public in New York City. Located at Broadway and 47th Street, in the heart of Manhattan’s Theater District, the theater was the creation of Mitchell L. Mark, who began his motion-picture career as a producer but later became an exhibitor. Before 1914, motion-picture exhibitors had generally showcased their offerings behind modest storefronts, dubbed “nickelodeons” after the original Nickelodeon that opened in Pittsburgh in 1905. By contrast, the Mark Strand Theatre–later known simply as the Strand–was the first of the so-called “dream palaces,” called as such for their impressive size and luxuriously appointed interiors.
- 1945 --- While on a vacation in Warm Springs, Georgia, President Roosevelt suffers a stroke and dies. His death marked a critical turning point in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, as his successor, Harry S. Truman, decided to take a tougher stance with the Russians. By April 1945, Roosevelt had been elected president of the United States four times and had served for over 12 years. He had seen the United States through some of its darkest days, from the depths of the Great Depression through the toughest times of World War II. In early 1945, shortly after being sworn in for his fourth term as president, Roosevelt was on the verge of leading his nation to triumph in the Second World War. Germany teetered on the brink of defeat, and the Japanese empire was crumbling under the blows of the American military. In February 1945, Roosevelt traveled to Yalta in the Soviet Union to meet with Russian leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss the postwar world. Roosevelt returned from these intense meetings drawn and sick. He vacationed in Warm Springs, Georgia, but the rest did not lead to recuperation. On April 12, 1945, he suffered a massive stroke and died.
- 1954 --- Bill Haley and the Comets recorded “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock.” If rock and roll was a social and cultural revolution, then “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock” was it’s Declaration of Independence. And if Bill Haley was not exactly the revolution’s Thomas Jefferson, it may be fair to call him its John Hancock. Bill Haley put his enormous signature on rock and roll history during the final 40 minutes of a three-hour recording session in New York City—a session set up not for the recording of “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” but of a song called “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town).” It took the group nearly all of their scheduled session to get a useable take of “Thirteen Women,” a song that was entirely new to them but was chosen as the A-side of their upcoming single by their new record label, Decca. With time running out and no chance of extending the session, Haley and his Comets were eager to lay down the song they’d been playing live for many months to enthusiastic audience response. The lead guitarist brought in for the session, Danny Cedrone, had not had time to work up a new solo for the instrumental break on “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock,” so he repurposed one he’d used on a Haley recording two years earlier called “Rock This Joint.” Cedrone was paid $31 for his work that evening, which included performing what is still recognized as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdufzXvjqw
- 1961 --- Aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, “Flight is proceeding normally; I am well.”
- 1975 --- In Cambodia, the U.S. ambassador and his staff leave Phnom Penh when the U.S. Navy conducts its evacuation effort, Operation Eagle. On April 3, 1975, as the communist Khmer Rouge forces closed in for the final assault on the capital city, U.S. forces were put on alert for the impending embassy evacuation. An 11-man Marine element flew into the city to prepare for the arrival of the U.S. evacuation helicopters. On April 10, U.S. Ambassador Gunther Dean asked Washington that the evacuation begin no later than April 12.
- 1981 --- The space shuttle Columbia is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, becoming the first reusable manned spacecraft to travel into space. Piloted by astronauts Robert L. Crippen and John W. Young, the Columbia undertook a 54-hour space flight of 36 orbits before successfully touching down at California’s Edwards Air Force Base on April 14.
- 1984 --- Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning the Solar Max satellite to space.
- 1985 --- Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. They were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.
- 2002 --- A first edition version of Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" sold for $64,780 at Sotheby's. A signed first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" sold for $66,630. A copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," signed by J.K. Rowling sold for $16,660. A 250-piece collection of rare works by Charles Dickens sold for $512,650.
- Birthdays
- Henry Clay
- Imogen Coca
- Sally Rand
- Lily Pons
- Ann Miller
- Jane Withers
- Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury)
- Herbie Hancock
- Tom Clancy
- David Letterman
- Scott Turow
- David Cassidy
- Vince Gill
- Amy Ray
- Shannen Doherty
- Claire Danes
National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day-KALW Almanac-4/12/2016
