- 97th Day of 2016 269 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 75 Days
- Sunrise: 6:45
- Sunset: 7:38
- 12 Hours 53 Minutes
- Moon Rise: 6:24am
- Moon Set: 7:03pm
- Phase: 1% 29 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: 10:51am/11:10pm
- Low: 4:36am/4:49pm
- Holidays
- National Caramel Popcorn Day
- Jump Over Things Day
- National Day of Hope
- National Hostess Twinkie Day
- National Siamese Cat Day
- National Student Athlete Day
- National Walking Day
- New Beers Eve
- Paraprofessional Awareness Day
- Plan Your Epithaph Day
- Whole Grain Sampling Day
- National Tartan Day
- Army Day
- California Poppy Day
- Chakri Day-Thailand
- Uprising Day-Sudan
- On This Day
- 1607 --- An expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport arrived at the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico for supplies before continuing on their journey. On May 14, they went ashore and founded Jamestown, Virginia, as the first permanent English colony in America.
- 1814 --- Granted sovereignty in the island of Elba and a pension from the French government, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates at Fountainebleau. He was allowed to keep the title of emperor.
- 1862 --- The Civil War explodes in the west as the armies of Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston collide at Shiloh, near Pittsburgh Landing in Tennessee. The Battle of Shiloh became one of the bloodiest engagements of the war, and the level of violence shocked North and South alike.
- 1869 --- New York governor John Thompson Hoffman signed a bill creating the American Museum of Natural History. The museum opened to the public in New York City on April 27, 1871.
- 1895 --- Writer Oscar Wilde is arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde had been engaged in an affair with the marquess’s son since 1891, but when the outraged marquess denounced him as a homosexual, Wilde sued the man for libel. However, he lost his case when evidence strongly supported the marquess’s observations. Homosexuality was classified as a crime in England at the time, and Wilde was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
- 1896 --- The first modern Olympic Games are held in Athens, Greece, with athletes from 14 countries participating.The International Olympic Committee met for the first time in Paris in June 1894 and chose Greece as the site of the inaugural modern Olympiad. The ancient games are believed to have originated in 776 B.C. in Olympia, Greece, where athletes competed in one event: a foot race. Over the years, other events were added, including chariot racing, boxing, wrestling and the pentathlon. Participants, who were all young men from Greek city-states and colonies, often battled it out in the buff, as a way to celebrate the human body, and winners received olive branches. The last ancient Olympics are thought to have taken place in A.D. 393.
- 1909 --- American explorer Robert Peary accomplishes a long elusive dream, when he, assistant Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos reach what they determine to be the North Pole. Decades after Peary’s death, however, navigational errors in his travel log surfaced, placing the expedition in all probability a few miles short of its goal. The claim was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation.
- 1930 --- 'Twinkies' go on sale for the first time. They originally had a banana creme filling and were sold two for a nickel.
- 1930 --- After a 240 mile march, Mahatma Gandhi arrived at the the coastal village of Dandi to produce salt without paying the salt tax, in protest of the British salt monopoly.
- 1954 --- C.A. Swanson & Sons introduced the first TV dinner (The actual date that Swanson introduced TV dinners is in dispute. Either Sept 10, 1953 or April 6, 1954): Roast Turkey with Stuffing and Gravy, Sweet Potatoes and Peas. It sold for 98 cents and came in an aluminum tray, so you could just open the box and heat the dinner in the oven. (No microwave ovens back then). Supposedly executive Gerald Thomas came up with the idea when the company had tons of leftover turkey from Thanksgiving (Didn't we all?). The idea for the aluminum trays came from the trays used for airline food.. They were an immediate success, and Turkey dinners are still the most popular Swanson frozen dinner. Swanson stopped calling them TV dinners in 1962.
- 1963 --- The Kingsmen recorded their version of the song "Louie Louie."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V1p1dM3snQ
- 1965 --- President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the use of ground troops in combat operations in Vietnam.
- 1968 --- Stanley’s Kubrick’s science-fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey makes its debut in movie theaters. Originally entitled A Journey Beyond the Stars, Kubrick’s film was released in April 1968 as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Jumping seamlessly from Africa in the Pleistocene Era to a space-shuttle cabin some 4 million years later, the film clocked in at around three hours and contained less than 40 minutes of dialogue. Stretches of absolute silence or of the sound of human breathing (mimicking the external and internal experience of being inside a space suit) were interspersed with grand orchestral scores, including work by both Richard and Johann Strauss. Kubrick intended 2001 to be a primarily visual–rather than verbal–experience, and the scarcity of dialogue and languid pacing only enhanced the impact of the film’s impressive visual effects.
- 1974 --- "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones" opened at New York City's Ziegfeld Theatre. It was the first concert film to feature a soundtrack in quadraphonic sound.
- Birthdays
- Raphael
- Marilu Henner
- Lowell Thomas
- Gerry Mulligan
- John Ratzenberger
- Andre Previn
- Merle Haggard
- Billy Dee Williams
- Warren Haynes
- Frand Black
- Ari Meyers
Nat'l Caramel Popcorn Day-KALW Almanac-4/6/2016
