National No. 2 Pencil Day-KALW Almanac-August 17, 2015

KALW | By Joe Burke

Published August 17, 2015 at 6:13 AM PDT

229^th Day of 2015 136 Remaining
Autumn Begins in 37 Days
Sunrise:6:27
Sunset:7:59
13 Hours 28 Minutes
Moon Rise:9:18am
Moon Set:9:36pm
Phase:9%
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:12:38am/1:41pm
Low:7:06am/7:30pm
Holidays
Cupcake Day
Balloon Airmail Day
National #2 Pencil Day
National Black Cat Appreciation Day
National Thrift Shop Day
National Vanilla Custard Day
Stay Home With Your Kids Day
O-Bon (Festival of Souls)-Japan
National Day-Indonesia
On This Day
1807 --- Robert Fulton's first steamboat left on its inaugural voyage, from New York to Albany. It was the first commercially successful steamboat. Its name was 'North River Steamboat' – frequently, but incorrectly, referred to as the 'Clermont.'
1859 --- A hot air balloon was used to carry mail for the first time. John Wise left Lafayette, IN, for New York City with 100 letters. He had to land after only 27 miles.
1896 --- George Washington Carmack registered gold claims for Rabbit Creek (Bonanza Creek), where he and three others had discovered gold the day before (Aug 16). According to Carmack, the gold veins were "thick between the flaky slabs, like cheese sandwiches."
1903 --- Joseph Pulitzer donated a million dollars to Columbia University. This started the Pulitzer Prizes in his name.
1915 --- Charles F. Kettering, co-founder of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) in Dayton, Ohio, is issued U.S. Patent No. 1,150,523 for his “engine-starting device”–the first electric ignition device for automobiles
1933 --- New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig plays in his 1,308th consecutive game, breaking former Yankee Everett Scott’s record for consecutive games played. Gehrig would go on to play in 2,130 games in a row, setting a record that would stand for over half a century.
1943 --- U.S. General George S. Patton and his 7th Army arrive in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and his 8th Army, winning the unofficial “Race to Messina” and completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
1962 --- East German guards gun down a young man trying to escape across the Berlin Wall into West Berlin and leave him to bleed to death. It was one of the ugliest incidents to take place at one of the ugliest symbols of the Cold War. The 1962 incident occurred almost a year to the day that construction began on the Berlin Wall.
1969 --- The grooviest event in music history–the Woodstock Music Festival–draws to a close after three days of peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll in upstate New York. Conceived as “Three Days of Peace and Music,” Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang. Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio near the arty New York town of Woodstock. When they couldn’t find an appropriate venue in the town itself, the promoters decided to hold the festival on a 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York–some 50 miles from Woodstock–owned by Max Yasgur. By the time the weekend of the festival arrived, the group had sold a total of 186,000 tickets and expected no more than 200,000 people to show up. By Friday night, however, thousands of eager early arrivals were pushing against the entrance gates. Fearing they could not control the crowds, the promoters made the decision to open the concert to everyone, free of charge. Close to half a million people attended Woodstock, jamming the roads around Bethel with eight miles of traffic. Soaked by rain and wallowing in the muddy mess of Yasgur’s fields, young fans best described as “hippies” euphorically took in the performances of acts like Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Who performed in the early morning hours of August 17, with Roger Daltrey belting out “See Me, Feel Me,” from the now-classic album Tommy just as the sun began to rise. The most memorable moment of the concert for many fans was the closing performance by Jimi Hendrix, who gave a rambling, rocking solo guitar performance of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
1977 --- Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD) reported that in one day the number of orders for flowers to be delivered to Graceland had surpassed the number for any other event in the company's history.
1978 --- The Double Eagle II completes the first transatlantic balloon flight when it lands in a barley field near Paris, 137 hours after lifting off from Preque Isle, Maine. The helium-filled balloon was piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman and flew 3,233 miles in the six-day odyssey.
1986 --- A bronze statue of a pig was dedicated at Seattle's Pike Place Market.
1996 --- Ross Perot was announced to be the Reform Party's presidential candidate. It was the party's first-ever candidate.
1998 --- President Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting president to testify before the Office of Independent Council as the subject of a grand-jury investigation. The testimony came after a four-year investigation into Clinton and his wife Hillary’s alleged involvement in several scandals, including accusations of sexual harassment, potentially illegal real-estate deals and suspected “cronyism” involved in the firing of White House travel-agency personnel. The independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, then uncovered an affair between Clinton and a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. When questioned about the affair, Clinton denied it, which led Starr to charge the president with perjury and obstruction of justice, which in turn prompted his testimony on August 17.
1999 --- Just after 3 a.m., an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale strikes northwestern Turkey, home to one-third of the country’s population and half its industry. The epicenter of the earthquake was Izmit, located 65 miles from Istanbul and on the North Anatolian fault line. The quake came at the worst possible time, when people were at home in their beds, and thousands were killed instantly as their homes collapsed on them. Thousands more died of injuries, suffocation, dehydration, or exhaustion as rescue crews scrambled to pull them from the rubble. All told, more than 17,000 people were killed and damages totaled $6.5 billion, making it one of the most devastating earthquakes of the 20th century. The immense disaster exposed serious problems with government and building contractors in Turkey.
Birthdays
Mae West
Marcus Garvey
Davy Crockett
Hazel Bishop
Francis Gary Powers
Samuel Goldwyn
Maureen O’Hara
Martha Coolidge
Robert DeNiro
Belinda Carlisle
Sean Penn
Maria McKee