- 101st Day of 2013 / 254 Remaining
- 71 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:6:38
- Sunset:7:42
- 13 Hours 4 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:7:17am
- Moon Set:9:20pm
- Moon’s Phase:2 %
- The Next Full Moon
- April 25 @ 12:59pm
- Full Pink Moon
- Full Sprouting Grass Moon
- Full Egg Moon
- Full Fish Moon
This moon’s 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:12:52pm
- Low:6:17am/6:12pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:16.31
- Last Year:13.61
- Normal To Date:22.12
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- Barbershop Quartet Day
- National Cheese Fondue Day
- International "Louie Louie" Day
- Liberation Day-Uganda
- National Heroes Day-Costa Rica
- On This Day In …
- 1814 --- Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. In 1812, thinking that Russia was plotting an alliance with England, Napoleon launched an invasion against the Russians that eventually ended with his troops retreating from Moscow and much of Europe uniting against him. In 1814, Napoleon's broken forces gave up and Napoleon offered to step down in favor of his son. When this offer was rejected, he abdicated and was sent to Elba. In March 1815, he escaped his island exile and returned to Paris, where he regained supporters and reclaimed his emperor title, Napoleon I, in a period known as the Hundred Days. However, in June 1815, he was defeated at the bloody Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon's defeat ultimately signaled the end of France's domination of Europe. He abdicated for a second time and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, in the southern Atlantic Ocean, where he lived out the rest of his days. He died at age 52 on May 5, 1821, possibly from stomach cancer, although some theories contend he was poisoned.
- 1921 --- Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax.
- 1921 --- The first live sports event on radio took place this day over KDKA radio. Pittsburgh sports writer, Florent Gibson, gave an account of the action in the lightweight boxing match between Johnny Ray and Johnny Dundee.
- 1931 ---The witty and caustic Dorothy Parker resigns her job as drama critic for The New Yorker. However, she continues to write book reviews until 1933, which are published in 1971 as A Month of Saturdays. The funny, sophisticated Parker symbolized the Roaring Twenties in New York for many readers. Parker was born in New Jersey and lost her mother as an infant. Shortly after she finished high school, her father died, and she struck out on her own for New York, where she took a job writing captions for fashion photos for Vogue for $10 a week. She supplemented her income by playing piano at nights at a dancing school. In 1917, she was transferred to the stylish Vanity Fair, where she became close friends with Robert Benchley, the managing editor, and Robert Sherwood, the drama critic. The three became the core of the famous Algonquin Round Table, an ad hoc group of newspaper and magazine writers, playwrights, and performers who lunched regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and tried to outshine each other in brilliant conversation and witty wisecracks. Parker, known as the quickest tongue among them, became the frequent subject of gossip columns as a prototypical young New Yorker enjoying the freedom of the 1920s Parker lost her job at Vanity Fair in 1919 because her reviews were too harsh. She began writing reviews for The New Yorker, as well as publishing her own work. Her 1926 poetry collection, Enough Rope, became a bestseller, and her short story collection Big Blonde won the prestigious O. Henry Award.
- 1938 ---The SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America) was founded by 26 singing, striped-shirted gentlemen. Now we know that’s 6½ quartets worth, but that’s what it took to get the organization humming. So, let’s head for the barbershop and ask for a “shave & a haircut, two bits!” or a refrain of Sweet Adeline. By the way, Sweet Adeline, the love song that became a favorite of barbershop quartets, was written in 1903 by Richard Gerard and Henry Armstrong; and there really was a sweet Adeline. She was opera singer Adelina Patti. Today, female barbershop quartets are called Sweet Adelines.
- 1947 --- Jackie Robinson became the first black player in major-league history. He played in an exhibition game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- 1951 --- In perhaps the most famous civilian-military confrontation in the history of the United States, President Harry S. Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of command of the U.S. forces in Korea. The firing of MacArthur set off a brief uproar among the American public, but Truman remained committed to keeping the conflict in Korea a "limited war."
- 1956 --- James Brown debuts on the R&B charts with "Please, Please, Please."
- 1956 --- Elvis Presley reached the top spot on the Billboard music chart with his first double-sided hit. The disk featured Heartbreak Hotel and I Was the One. The RCA Victor record stayed at number one for eight weeks. Elvis also made the country and R&B charts, as well.
- 1961 --- Bob Dylan made his professional singing debut in Greenwich Village. He opened for John Lee Hooker. Who knows how many other young men arrived in New York City in the winter of 1961 looking like James Dean and talking like Jack Kerouac? It would have been difficult to pick Bob Dylan out of the crowd at first, considering how much he had in common with the other Bohemian kids kicking around Greenwich Village. Artistic ambition? Check. Antipathy toward mainstream culture? Yes. A desire to put his middle-class identity behind him? Definitely. But the singular creative vision that would separate Dylan from the rest of his peers and change the face of popular music wasn't really in evidence yet. What Bob Dylan did have, though, in addition to his guitar and harmonica, was a unique stage presence and a vast library of American folk songs in his repertoire. On April 11, 1961, he got his first real chance to put those on display with his first major gig in New York City, opening for bluesman John Lee Hooker at Gerde's Folk City. Bob Dylan had just arrived in town a few months earlier, but as the prominent producer/talent scout John Hammond would write in the liner notes of his debut album one year later, "The young man from the provinces began to make friends very quickly in New York, all the while continuing, as he has since he was ten, to assimilate musical ideas from everyone he met, every record he heard." Dylan befriended not only his idol Woody Guthrie—whose hospitalization in New Jersey had been the initial impetus for Dylan to come east from Minnesota—but also some of the significant figures on the burgeoning Downtown folk scene, like Jack Elliot and Dave Van Ronk. Dylan would write about this period in "Talkin' New York" (1962). Dylan had previously joined other unknowns like himself onstage at Gerde's during the club's Monday "Hootenanny Night," but the invitation to appear on a regular bill presented a bit of an administrative problem. At just 19 years old, Bob Dylan was too young to obtain the necessary union card and cabaret license. One of the clubs owners, Mike Porco, was interested enough in getting the young man on the bill, though, that he signed on as Dylan's guardian—"the Sicilian father I never knew I had," as Dylan put it. A number of major developments in the year that followed would set Bob Dylan on his road toward stardom, but the very first of those was his appearance at Gerde's Folk City on this day in 1961.
- 1961 --- Carl Yastrzemski replaced Ted Williams in left field for the Boston Red Sox. The ‘Yaz’ was just 21 years old and had but two years experience in the minor leagues when he was called. In his first at-bat, he got a hit off Kansas City’s Ray Herbert. Yastrzemski retired in 1984, having played his entire major-league career in a Boston Red Sox uniform.
- 1974 --- The Judiciary committee subpoenas U.S. President Richard Nixon to produce tapes for impeachment inquiry.
- 1979 --- Ugandan dictator Idi Amin flees the Ugandan capital of Kampala as Tanzanian troops and forces of the Uganda National Liberation Front close in. Two days later, Kampala fell and a coalition government of former exiles took power. Amin, chief of the Ugandan army and air force from 1966, seized control of the African nation in 1971. A tyrant and extreme nationalist, he launched a genocidal program to purge Uganda of its Lango and Acholi ethnic groups. In 1972, he ordered all Asians who had not taken Ugandan nationality to leave the country, and some 60,000 Indians and Pakistanis fled. These Asians comprised an important portion of the work force, and the Ugandan economy collapsed after their departure. In 1979, his eight years of chaotic rule came to an end when Tanzania and anti-Amin Ugandan forces invaded and toppled his regime.
- 1986 --- Kellogg's stopped giving tours of its breakfast-food plant. The reason for the end of the 80-year tradition was said to be that company secrets were at risk due to spies from other cereal companies.
- 2002 --- U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-Ohio, was convicted of taking bribes and kickbacks from businessmen and his own staff.
- Birthdays
- Joel Grey
- Louise Lasser
- Ellen Goodman
- Bill Irwin
- Lisa Stansfield
- Mark Texeira
- Richard Berry
- Dean Acheson
- Oleg Casini
- Ethel Kennedy
- Neville Staple