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National Trail Mix Day-KALW Almanac-8/31/15

  • 243rd Day of 2015 122 Remaining
  • Autumn Begins in 23 Days
  • Sunrise:6:39
  • Sunset:7:40
  • 13 Hours 1 Minute
  • Moon Rise:9:05pm
  • Moon Set:8:53am
  • Phase:94%
  • Full Moon September 27 @ 7:52pm
  • Full Harvest Moon / Full Corn Moon
  • This full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked when corn was supposed to be harvested. Most often, the September full moon is actually the Harvest Moon, which is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief staples are now ready for gathering.
  • Tides
  • High:12:09am/12:53pm
  • Low:6:24am/6:50pm
  • Holidays
  • National Trail Mix Day
  • Motorist Consideration Monday
  • We Love Memoirs Day
  • Eat Outside Day
  • Love Litigating Lawyers Day
  •  
  • Hero’s Day-Philippines
  • National Day-Malaysia
  • Independence Day-Trinidad & Tobago
  • National Language Day-Moldova
  • White Rose Day-Australia
  • Independence Day-Kyrgyzstan
  • On This Day
  • 1864 --- At the Battle of Jonesboro, Georgia, General William T. Sherman launches the attack that finally secures Atlanta, Georgia, for the Union, and seals the fate of Confederate General John Bell Hood’s army, which is forced to evacuate the area.
  • 1887 --- The kinetoscope was patented by Thomas Edison. The device was used to produce moving pictures.
  • 1888 --- Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of London serial killer “Jack the Ripper,” is found murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel’s Buck’s Row. The East End of London saw four more victims of the murderer during the next few months, but no suspect was ever found. In Victorian England, London’s East End was a teeming slum occupied by nearly a million of the city’s poorest citizens. Many women were forced to resort to prostitution, and in 1888 there were estimated to be more than 1,000 prostitutes in Whitechapel. That summer, a serial killer began targeting these downtrodden women.
  • 1897 --- Thomas Edison receives a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph. Edison had developed the camera and its viewer in the early 1890s and staged several demonstrations.
  • 1920 --- John Lloyd Wright was issued a patent for "Toy-Cabin Construction," which are known as Lincoln Logs. (U.S. patent 1,351,086). 
  • 1928 --- Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) receives its world premiere in Berlin. “I think I’ve written a good piece and that several numbers in it, at least musically, have the best prospects for becoming popular very quickly.” This was the assessment offered by the German composer Kurt Weill in a letter to his publisher 10 days before the premiere of his latest work. Created in partnership with the revolutionary dramatist Bertolt Brecht, that work would, in fact, prove to be the most significant and successful of Weill’s career and one of the most important works in the history of musical theater:Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera). In addition to running for 400-plus performances in its original German production, Brecht and Weill’s masterpiece would go on to be translated into 18 languages and receive more than 10,000 performances internationally.
  • 1939 --- At noon, despite threats of British and French intervention, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs an order to attack Poland, and German forces move to the frontier. That evening, Nazi S.S. troops wearing Polish uniforms staged a phony invasion of Germany, damaging several minor installations on the German side of the border. They also left behind a handful of dead German prisoners in Polish uniforms to serve as further evidence of the alleged Polish attack, which Nazi propagandists publicized as an unforgivable act of aggression.
  • 1955 --- William G. Cobb of the General Motors Corp. (GM) demonstrates his 15-inch-long “Sunmobile,” the world’s first solar-powered automobile, at the General Motors Powerama auto show held in Chicago, Illinois.
  • 1959 --- Brooklyn Dodgers left-hander Sandy Koufax strikes out 18 batters, setting a new National League record for most strikeouts in a single game. Koufax and the Dodgers faced their rivals the San Francisco Giants in Los Angeles. The Dodgers entered the game two games behind the Giants in the race for the National League pennant, and Koufax came out firing, whizzing fastballs and breaking off curveballs to strike out the first two Giants batters. However, Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda then hit back-to-back doubles to give the Giants a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. The Dodgers quickly tied the game in the bottom of the inning, but in the fifth, Willie McCovey, the Giants star slugger, hit a home run to put the Giants up 2-1. The Dodgers tied it up, and Koufax continued to throw strikes. Finally, in the ninth, Koufax and Jim Gilliam singled before Wally Moon sent a 1-1 fastball from relief pitcher Al Worthington over the left-field fence. The capacity crowd in Chavez Ravine erupted, and the Dodgers won 5-2. Koufax’s total of 18 strikeouts in the game broke Dizzy Dean’s 26-year-old National League record, and tied the major league record held by Cleveland Indian ace Bob Feller.
  • 1974 --- In federal court, John Lennon testified the Nixon administration tried to have him deported because of his involvement with the anti-war demonstrations at the 1972 Republican convention in Miami. 
  • 1980 --- Representatives of the communist government of Poland agree to the demands of striking shipyard workers in the city of Gdansk. Former electrician Lech Walesa led the striking workers, who went on to form Solidarity, the first independent labor union to develop in a Soviet bloc nation.
  • 1985 --- Richard Ramirez, the notorious “Night Stalker,” is captured and nearly killed by a mob in East Los Angeles, California, after being recognized from a photograph shown both on television and in newspapers. Recently identified as the serial killer, Ramirez was pulled from the enraged mob by police officers.
  • 1994 --- A cease-fire was declared by the Irish Republican Army after 25 years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.
  • 1995 --- The summer was so hot in Missouri, that at the end of August, methane gas emitted within large bales of freshly-cut hay began to spontaneously combust.
  • 1997 --- Britain's Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris at age 36.
  • Birthdays
  • Frank Robinson
  • Maria Montessori
  • Eldridge Cleaver
  • Queen Wilhelmina
  • Van Morrison
  • Frederick March
  • Arthur Godfrey
  • William Saroyan
  • Caligula
  • Daniel Schorr
  • Buddy Hackett
  • James Coburn
  • Itzhak Perlman
  • Richard Gere