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Thursday April 10, 2014

  • 100th Day of 2014 265 Days Remaining
  • 73 Days Until Summer Begins

  • Sunrise 6:40
  • Sunset 7:41
  • 12 Hours 1 Minute

  • Moon Rise 3:34pm
  • Moon Set 4:04am
  • Moon Phase 80 %

  • This year 12.30
  • Last year 16.31
  • Normal 22.06

  • Holidays
  • Commodore Perry Day
  • National Siblings Day
  • Salvation Army Founder's Day
  • National Cinnamon Crescent Day

  • On This Day In History
  • 1633 --- Bananas were supposedly displayed in the shop window of merchant Thomas Johnson. This was the first time the banana had ever been seen in Great Britain. It would be more than 200 years before they were regularly imported.

  • 1778 --- Commander John Paul Jones and his crew of 140 men aboard the USS Ranger set sail from the naval port at Brest,
    France, and head toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War.

  • 1845 --- Erastus B. Bigelow patented a new loom to manufacture gingham cloth. Until then all gingham was hand made.

  • 1849 --- Walter Hunt of New York City patented the safety pin. Most of us still use the device which comes in a variety of sizes and is
    quite handy to have around. Mr. Hunt, however, didn’t think so. He thought the safety pin to be a temporary convenience and sold the patent for a total of $400.

  • 1865 --- One day after surrendering to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Confederate General Robert E. Lee addresses his army for the last time. "After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them...I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen...I bid you an affectionate farewell."

  • 1866 --- The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was incorporated.

  • 1912 --- The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England.
  • 1916 --- The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) held its first championship tournament on this day. This first PGA Championship title went to Britisher, Jim Barnes. Barnes won the match-play event at Siwanoy golf course in Bronxville, NY and was presented with a trophy and the major share of the $2,580 purse.

  • 1919 --- Emiliano Zapata, a leader of peasants and indigenous people during the Mexican Revolution, is ambushed and shot to death in Morelos by government forces.
  • 1925 --- F. Scott Fitzgerald published "The Great Gatsby" for the first time.
  • 1927 --- Ballet Mécanique was presented for the first time at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was the first symphonic work that called for an airplane propeller and other mechanical contraptions not normally associated with the ballet.

  • 1933 --- President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), an innovative federally funded organization that put thousands of Americans to work during the Great Depression on projects with environmental benefits.

  • 1942 --- The day after the surrender of the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese, the 75,000 Filipino and American troops captured on the Bataan Peninsula begin a forced march to a prison camp near Cabanatuan. During this infamous trek, known as the
    "Bataan Death March," the prisoners were forced to march 85 miles in six days, with only one meal of rice during the entire journey. By the end of the march, which was punctuated with atrocities committed by the Japanese guards, hundreds of Americans and many more Filipinos had died.

  • 1947 --- Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals.

  • 1956 --- Nat King Cole was beaten up by a group of racial segregationists in Birmingham, AL.

  • 1963 --- The USS Thresher, an atomic submarine, sinks in the Atlantic Ocean, killing the entire crew. One hundred and twenty-nine sailors and civilians were lost when the sub unexpectedly plunged to the sea floor 300 miles off the coast of New England.
  • 1967 --- The song "Somethin' Stupid" became the first father-daughter song to hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart. The song was performed by Nancy and Frank Sinatra.
  • 1970 --- The legendary rock band the Beatles spent the better part of three years breaking up in the late 1960s, and even longer than that hashing out who did what and why. And by the spring of 1970, there was little more than a tangled set of business relationships keeping the group together. Each of the Beatles was pursuing his musical interests outside of the band, and there were no plans in place to record together as a group. But as far as the public knew, this was just a temporary state of affairs. That all changed on April 10, 1970, when an ambiguous Paul McCartney "self-interview" was seized upon by the international media as an official announcement of a Beatles breakup. Nothing in Paul's answers constituted a
    definitive statement about the Beatles' future, but his remarks were nevertheless reported in the press under headlines like "McCartney Breaks Off With Beatles" and "The Beatles sing their swan song." And whatever his intent at the time, Paul's statements drove a further wedge between himself and his bandmates. In the May 14, 1970, issue of Rolling Stone, John Lennon lashed out at Paul in a way he'd never done publicly: "He can't have his own way, so he's causing chaos," John said. "I put out four albums last year, and I didn't say a f***ing word about quitting."

  • 1971 --- The American table tennis team arrived in China. They were the first group of Americans officially allowed into China since the founding of the People Republic in 1949. The team had recieved the surprise invitation while in Japan for the 31st World Table Tennis Championship.

  • 1972 --- As part of his first visit to the United States in 20 years, British film pioneer Charlie Chaplin accepts an honorary Academy
    Award for his "incalculable" contribution to the art of filmmaking. Chaplin, once America's most successful movie star and director, had left the country under a storm of controversy in 1952.

  • 1981 --- Imprisoned IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands won election to the British Parliament.
  • 1992 --- Financier Charles Keating Jr. was sentenced in Los Angeles to nine years in prison for swindling investors when his Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed.

  • 1992 --- Comedian Sam Kinison was killed when a pickup truck slammed into his car on a desert road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

  • 1999 --- George Michael, Sinead O'Connor, the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, Tom Jones, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney all performed at the "Here There and Everywhere: A Concert for Linda", a charity tribute to Linda McCartney held at London's Royal Albert Hall.
  • Birthdays
  • Anne Lamott
  • Joseph Pulitzer
  • Frances Perkins
  • Max Von Sydow
  • Mandy Moore
  • Bunny Wailer
  • Terri Roche
  • Steven Seagal
  • Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds
  • Brian Setzer
  • Katrina Leskanich
  • Lewis Wallace
  • Vladimir Lenin
  • Harry Morgan
  • Liz Sheridan
  • Omar Sharif
  • John Madden
  • Ken Griffey