- 107th Day of 2014 / 258 Remaining
- Sunrise 6:30
- Sunset 7:47
- 13 Hours 17 Minutes
- Moon Rise 10:36pm
- Moon Set 8:10am
- Next Full Moon May 14th @ 12:16pm
- High Tide 12:20am/1:45pm
- Low Tide 6:59am/6:52pm
- Rainfall
- This Year 12.30
- Last Year 16.32
- Avg YTD 22.43
- Holidays
- National Cheeseball Day
- Bat Appreciation Day
- Blah Blah Blah Day
- Ellis Island Family History Day
- International Ford Mustang Day
- Nothing Like a Dame Day
- Verrazano Day
- Flag Day- American Samoa
- FAO Day- Iraq
- Independence Day-Syria
- On This Day In …
- 1521 --- Martin Luther went before the Diet of Worms to face charges stemming from his religious writings.
- 1524 --- New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.
- 1629 --- The first horses were imported to the American colonies by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
- 1704 --- John Campbell, known by many as America’s first news vendor, published what would eventually become the first successful American newspaper, the Boston News-Letter.
- 1758 --- Frances Williams published a collection of Latin poems. He was the first African-American to graduate from a college in the western hemisphere.
- 1810 --- Pineapple cheese was patented by Lewis M. Norton. Mr. Norton lived nowhere near pineapples. He was from Troy, PA. Pineapple cheese... Yummy!
- 1860 --- New Yorkers learned of a new law that required fire escapes to be provided for tenement houses.
- 1861 --- The Virginia State Convention voted to secede from the Union.
- 1937 --- Daffy Duck makes his debut appearance in 'Porky,s Duck Hunt’
- 1941 --- Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter (or heliocopter as it was called then) lift-off from water near Stratford, CT.
- 1951 --- Baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle made his major league debut with the New York Yankees.
- 1961 --- The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure. Fidel Castro had been a concern to U.S. policymakers since he seized power in Cuba with a revolution in January 1959. Castro's attacks on U.S. companies and interests in Cuba, his inflammatory anti-American rhetoric, and Cuba's movement toward a closer relationship with the Soviet Union led U.S. officials to conclude that the Cuban leader was a threat to U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. In March 1960, President Eisenhower ordered the CIA to train and arm a force of Cuban exiles for an armed attack on Cuba. John F Kennedy inherited this program when he became president in 1961. Though many of his military advisors indicated that an amphibious assault on Cuba by a group of lightly armed exiles had little chance for success, Kennedy gave the go-ahead for the attack. On April 17, 1961, around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The hope was that the exile force would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry, who would rise up and overthrow Castro's government. The plan immediately fell apart--the landing force met with unexpectedly rapid counterattacks from Castro's military, the tiny Cuban air force sank most of the exiles' supply ships, the U.S.
refrained from providing necessary air support, and the expected uprising never happened. Over 100 of the attackers were killed, and more than 1,100 were captured.
- 1964 --- The Ford Mustang, a two-seat, mid-engine sports car, is officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, on April 17, 1964. That same day, the new car also debuted in Ford showrooms across America and almost 22,000 Mustangs were immediately snapped up by buyers. Named for a World War II fighter plane, the Mustang was the first of a type of vehicle that came to be known as a “pony car.” Ford sold more than 400,000 Mustangs within its first year of production, far exceeding sales expectations. The Mustang was conceived as a “working man’s Thunderbird,” according to Ford. The first models featured a long hood and short rear deck and carried a starting price tag of around $2,300.
- 1964 --- The FBI lab reported that it could not determine the lyrics to "Louie Louie."
- 1967 --- The U.S. Supreme Court barred Muhammad Ali's request to be blocked from induction into the U.S. Army.
- 1967 --- Comedian Joey Bishop got the opportunity to attempt to unseat the king of late night, Johnny Carson. The Joey Bishop Show made its debut on ABC-TV this night. Bishop, Regis Philbin (announcer) and Johnny Mann (music) couldn’t beat Carson, but held out until December 26, 1969.
- 1969 --- Alexander Dubcek, the communist leader who launched a broad program of liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia, is forced to resign as first secretary by the Soviet forces occupying his country. The staunchly pro-Soviet Gustav Husak was appointed Czechoslovak leader in his place, reestablishing an authoritarian communist dictatorship in the Soviet satellite state.
- 1970 --- With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth. On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the spacecraft. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth, "Houston, we've had a problem here," and it was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply, as well as providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Navigation was another problem, and Apollo 13's course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers. On April 17, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1970 --- The breakup of the most influential rock group in music history was official when Paul McCartney’s solo LP, McCartney, was released. Paul played all the instruments himself on this Apple album.
- 1970 --- Johnny Cash performed at the White House at the invitation of President Richard M. Nixon. He played "A Boy Named Sue."
- 1972 --- The first major antiwar protest of 1972 is held. The demonstration, held at the University of Maryland, was organized to protest the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). Hundreds of students were arrested and 800 National Guardsmen were ordered onto the campus. Significant protests continued across the country in reaction to the increased bombing of North Vietnam, which had been initiated in response to the new communist offensive in South Vietnam.
- 1973 --- FedEx, then known as Federal Express, began operations.
- 1975 --- Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was the end of the five-year war.
- 1980 --- Bob Marley and the Wailers performed as the official guests of State at Zimbabwe's Independence festival.
- 1983 --- In Warsaw, police routed 1,000 Solidarity supporters
- 1984 --- In London, demonstrators outside the Libyan Embassy were fired upon from someone inside. Eleven people were injured and an English Police woman was killed.
- 1985 --- The U.S. Postal Service unveiled its new 22-cent, "LOVE" stamp.
- 2001 --- Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit his 500th career home run, becoming the 17th major leaguer to reach the mark.
- Birthdays
- Sirimavo Banderanaike
- Jennifer Garner
- Victoria Beckham
- Liz Phair
- Redman
- Nikita Krushchev
- Samuel Chase
- JP Morgan
- Thornton Wilder
- Harry Reasoner
- William Holden
- Jan Hammer
