- 351st Day of 2015 14 Remaining
- Winter Begins in 4 Days
- Sunrise: 7:19
- Sunset: 4:52
- 9 Hours 33 Minutes
- Moon Rise: 11:45am
- Moon Set: 11:44pm
- Phase: 40% 6 Days
- Next Full Moon December 25 @ 3:11am
- The Full Cold Moon; or the Full Long Nights Moon – December During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.
- Tides
- High: 3:33am/2:55pm
- Low: 9:24am/9:21pm
- Holidays
- National Maple Syrup Day
- Nutcracker Day
- Wright Brothers Day
- National Re-gifting Day
- Pan American Aviation Day
- National Day-Bhutan
- Las Posadas-Mexico
- On This Day
- 1843 --- Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' was published. (sources list both Dec 17 and Dec 19).
- 1892 --- The first performance of Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker' in St. Petersburg.
- 1903 --- Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.
- 1933 --- In the first NFL championship game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants 23-21 at Wrigley Field.
- 1961 --- A fire at a circus in Brazil kills more than 300 people and severely burns hundreds more. The cause of the fire was never conclusively determined but it may have been the result of sparks from a train passing nearby. Christmas week was just beginning, the children had just begun their winter vacations, and spirits were high for the 2,500 in attendance at the Gran Circo Norte Americano, the Brazilian version of America’s Ringling Brothers. The large blue-and-white tent was set up across the bay from Rio de Janeiro and was filled to capacity. All seemed to be proceeding as planned when disaster struck suddenly. Antonietta Estavanovich, a trapeze artist, was the first to see the flames. From her high perch, she could see the roof of the tent beginning to burn. As the crowd became aware of the fire, pandemonium ensued and people were trampled as they tried to exit. In one reported instance, a Boy Scout attending the circus pulled out a knife, cut a hole in the tent and managed to get his family out safely. Hundreds of others, though, were not so lucky–323 people, many of them children, died in the fire. At least 500 more people were seriously injured, from burns, smoke inhalation and trampling.
- 1969 --- An estimated 50 million viewers watched singer Tiny Tim marry Miss Vicky on NBC's "Tonight Show."
- 1975 --- A federal jury in Sacramento, California, sentences Lynette Alice Fromme, also known as “Squeaky” Fromme, to life in prison for her attempted assassination of President Gerald R. Ford. On September 5, a Secret Service agent wrested a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Fromme, who brandished the weapon during a public appearance of President Ford in Sacramento. “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson, was pointing the loaded gun at the president when the Secret Service agent grabbed it.
- 1977 --- Elvis Costello and the Attractions appear on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in place of the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols could not get visas to enter the U.S.
- 1979 --- Hollywood stuntman Stan Barrett blasts across a dry lakebed at California’s Edwards Air Force Base in a rocket- and missile-powered car, becoming the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound on land. He did not set an official record, however. The radar scanner was acting up, and so Barrett’s top speed–739.666 miles per hour by the most reliable measure–was only an estimate. Also, he only drove his rocket car across the lakebed once, not twice as official record guidelines require. And, none of the spectators heard a sonic boom as Barrett zoomed across the course.
- 1989 --- The animated TV series "The Simpsons" premiered on Fox.
- 1990 --- Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a radical Roman Catholic priest and opponent of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, is elected president of Haiti in a landslide victory. It was the first free election in Haiti’s history. However, less than one year later, in September 1991, Aristide was deposed in a bloody military coup. He escaped to exile, and a three-man junta took power.
- 1991 --- After a long meeting between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, a spokesman for the latter announces that the Soviet Union will officially cease to exist on or before New Year’s Eve. Yeltsin declared that, “There will be no more red flag.” It was a rather anti-climactic culmination of events leading toward the dismantling of the Soviet Union.
- 1996 --- Kofi Annan of Ghana became United Nations secretary-general.
- 1996 --- In Lima, Peru, 14 members of the Tupac Amaru leftist rebel movement, disguised as waiters and caterers, slip into the home of Japanese Ambassador Morihisa Aoki, where a reception honoring the birthday of the Japanese emperor was being held. The armed terrorists took 490 people hostage. Police promptly surrounded the compound, and the rebels agreed to release 170 women and elderly guests but declared they would kill the remaining 320 if their demands were not met.
- 1999 --- Crossover jazz saxophonist, Grover Washington, collapsed and died in New York after taping a performance for CBS's "The Saturday Early Show." He was 56. The show aired the next day.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55cvwcWHcqQ
- 2000 --- Terrell Owens (San Francisco 49ers) caught an NFL-record 20 passes for 283 yards and a touchdown against the Chicago Bears. The previous record was held by Tom Fears (Los Angeles Rams) with 18 catches on December 3, 1950, against the Green Bay Packers. Owens also broke Jerry Rice's franchise record of 16 receptions set in 1994 against the Los Angeles Rams.
- 2003 --- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final film in the trilogy based on the best-selling fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, opens in theaters. The film was a huge box-office success and won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, for Peter Jackson.
- 2005 --- A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus costumes rampaged through Auckland, New Zealand, robbing stores and assaulting security guards.
- Birthdays
- Arthur Fiedler
- Wes Studi
- Sharon White
- Sarah Dallin
- Mike Mills
- Marissa Ribisi
- Milla Jovovich
- William Safire
- George Lindsey
- Art Neville
- Paul Butterfield
- Eugene Levy
- Burt Baskin
- Vanessa Zima
- Pope Francis
National Maple Syrup Day-KALW Almanac-12/17/2015
