- 232nd Day of 2015 133 Remaining
- Autumn Begins in 34 Days
- Sunrise:6:30
- Sunset:7:55
- 13 Hours 25 Minutes
- Moon Rise:12:01pm
- Moon Set:11:11pm
- Phase:31%
- Full Moon August 29 @ 11:37am
- Full Sturgeon Moon / Full Green Corn Moon
- Full Grain Moon/Full Red Moon
- The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.
- Tides
- High:2:52am/3:21pm
- Low:8:49am/9:55pm
- Holidays
- National Lemonade Day
- National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day
- National Radio Day
- Virtual Worlds Day
- Homeless Animals Day
- World Mosquito Day
- Constitution Day-Hungary
- Restoration Of Independence Day-Estonia
- Tanabata-Japan
- Surstromingspremiaren-Sweden (Sour Herring Premiere, Aug 20, 2015 - 3rd Thursday. By ordinance, the year's supply of sour herring may begin to be sold.)
- On This Day
- 1862 --- New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley publishes a passionate editorial calling on President Abraham Lincoln to declare emancipation for all slaves in Union-held territory. Greeley’s blistering words voiced the impatience of many Northern abolitionists; but unbeknownst to Greeley and the public, Lincoln was already moving in the direction of emancipation.
- 1866 --- It was formally declared by U.S. President Andrew Johnson that the American Civil War was over. The fighting had stopped months earlier.
- 1882 --- Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuted in Moscow.
- 1910 --- The Great Fire of 1910 (also called the Big Blowup or the Big Burn) was the largest forest fire in U.S. history. Burning for 2 days, August 20 & 21, it destroyed about 3 million acres across northeast Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana (an area about the size of Connecticut). 87 people were killed, including 78 firefighters.
- 1932 --- In Flanders, Belgium, the German artist Kathe Kollwitz unveils the monument she created to memorialize her son, Peter, along with the hundreds of thousands of other soldiers killed on the battlefields of the Western Front during World War I.
- 1940 --- Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer, Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day.
- 1945 --- Tommy Brown (Brooklyn Dodgers) became the youngest player to hit a home run in a major league ball game. Brown was 17 years, 8 months and 14 days old.
- 1967 --- The New York Times reported about a noise reduction system for album and tape recording developed by technicians R. and D.W. Dolby. Elektra Record's subsidiary, Checkmate Records became the first label to use the new Dolby process in its recordings.
- 1968 --- In the face of rising anti-Soviet protests in Czechoslovakia, Soviet troops (backed by troops from other Warsaw Pact nations) intervene to crush the protest and restore order. The brutal Soviet action shocked the West and dealt a devastating blow to U.S.-Soviet relations. Not since 1956, when Soviet troops intervened in Hungary, had the Russian government resorted to such force to bring one of its communist allies into line with its own policies. The Czech invasion was particularly damaging to U.S.-Soviet relations. In June 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson met with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin to begin discussions related to a number of issues, including arms control. It was agreed that Johnson would visit the Soviet Union in October 1968 to continue the talks. The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia caused Johnson to cancel his visit abruptly.
- 1975 --- Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars. On June 19, 1976, the spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars and devoted the next month to imaging the Martian surface with the purpose of finding an appropriate landing site for its lander. On July 20–the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing–the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and touched down on the Chryse Planitia region, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars. The same day, the craft sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface.
- 1977 --- The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.
- 1985 --- The original Xerox 914 copier was presented to the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of American History. Chester Carlson was the man who invented the machine.
- 1991 --- A rally of more that 100,000 people occurred outside the Russian parliament building to protest the coup that removed Gorbachev from power.
- 1997 --- Alabama Governor Fob James joined the mayors of Montgomery and Georgina, Al. in the Alabama State Capitol to dedicate a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 65 to the memory of Hank Williams. The section of roadway was renamed the "Hank Williams Memorial Lost Highway."
- 2004 --- 83 tow trucks roll through the streets of Wenatchee, Washington, in an event arranged by the Washington Tow Truck Association (WTTA). “The Guinness Book of World Records” dubbed it the world’s largest parade of tow trucks.
- Birthdays
- Isaac Hayes
- Rajiv Ghandi
- Jacqueline Susann
- Connie Chung
- Robert Plant
- Benjamin Harrison (23rd President)
- Jack Teagarden
- HP Lovecraft
- Don King
- Doug Fieger
- Al Roker
- Joan Allen
- KRS-One
National Lemonade Day-KALW Almanac-8/20/2015
