- 115th Day of 2013 / 250 Remaining
- 57 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:6:19am
- Sunset:7:55pm
- 13 Hours 36 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:8:13pm
- Moon Set:6:08am
- Full Moon @ 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:11:46am/11:13pm
- Low:5:10am/5:04pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:16.32
- Last Year:15.30
- Normal To Date:22.77
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Zucchini Bread Day
- State License Plate Day
- World Malaria Day
- ANZAC Day-Australia
- Family Day-South Africa
- National Flag Day-Swaziland
- Liberation Day-Italy
- Liberty Day-Portugal
- Sinai Day-Egypt
- Armed Forces Day-North Korea
- On This Day In …
- 1507 --- Mapmaker and geographer Martin Waldseemuller of Germany explained why the world map he was making would show the new world as ‘Amerige’ (the land of Amerigo). In his book, Cosmographiae Introductio, he wrote, “Inasmuch as both Europe and Asia received their names from women, I see no reason why any one should justly object to calling this part Amerige, i.e., the land of Amerigo, or America, after Amerigo, its discoverer, a man of great ability.” And so, Waldseemuller printed one thousand maps with Amerige printed on the part of the world we now call South America. He was obviously talking about the explorations of Amerigo Vespucci; not learning of Columbus’ discovery until several years later (news traveled quite slowly in those days); and he, obviously, never had any discussions with the Incas. They might have had a few different suggestions as to what to call the land where they lived. However, it wasn’t long before ‘America’ was applied to both the North and South American continents ... and, as you may have noted, America is still a part of our maps and our geography lessons. Because the name, America, stuck, some refer to Waldseemuller as the godfather of America.
- 1590 --- The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu.
- 1684 --- A patent was granted for the thimble.
1719 --- Daniel Defoe's fictional work The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is published. The book, about a shipwrecked sailor who spends 28 years on a deserted island, is based on the experiences of shipwreck victims and of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who spent four years on a small island off the coast of South America in the early 1700s.
1859 --- At Port Said, Egypt, ground is broken for the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway intended to stretch 101 miles across the isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who organized the colossal undertaking, delivered the pickax blow that inaugurated construction. Artificial canals have been built on the Suez region, which connects the continents of Asia and Africa, since ancient times. Under the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, a channel connected the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea, and a canal reached northward from Lake Timsah as far as the Nile River. These canals fell into disrepair or were intentionally destroyed for military reasons. As early as the 15th century, Europeans speculated about building a canal across the Suez, which would allow traders to sail from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, rather than having to sail the great distance around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labor disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869--four years behind schedule. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal was officially inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III. Ferdinand de Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. He died in 1894.
- 1860 --- The first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington, DC. They remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks while discussing expansion of trade with the United States.
- 1901 --- New York became the first state to require automobile license plates.
- 1928 --- Buddy, the first seeing eye dog, was presented to Morris S. Frank on this day. Many seeing eye organizations and schools continue to offer specially trained dogs “...to enhance the independence, dignity, and self-confidence of blind people...”
- 1945 --- Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
- 1947 --- President Harry S. Truman officially opens the first White House bowling alley. The two-lane bowling alley, situated in the West Wing, had been constructed earlier that year.
- 1959 --- The St. Lawrence Seaway opened to traffic, saving shippers millions of dollars. By going from the sea to the Great Lakes across upstate New York, folks no longer had to ship goods the long, costly over land.
- 1967 --- Colorado Governor John Love signed the first law legalizing abortion in the U.S. The law was limited to therapeutic abortions when agreed to, unanimously, by a panel of three physicians.
- 1968 --- The Beatles refused to perform for the Queen of England at a British Olympic Appeal Fund show because "Our decision would be the same no matter what the cause. We don't do benefits."
- 1970 --- DJs around the U.S. played the new number one song, ABC, quite often, as The Jackson 5 reached the number one spot in pop music for two weeks. ABC was the second of four number one songs in a row for the group from Gary, IN. I Want You Back was their first. ABC was one of 23 hits for Michael, Tito, Jackie, Jermaine and Marlon.
- 1980 --- In Iran, a commando mission to rescue hostages was aborted after mechanical problems disabled three of the eight helicopters involved. During the evacuation, a helicopter and a transport plan collided and exploded. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed. The mission was aimed at freeing American hostages that had been taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.
- 1989 --- James Richardson walks out of a Florida prison 21 years after being wrongfully convicted of killing his seven children. Special prosecutor Janet Reno agreed to the release after evidence showed that the conviction resulted from misconduct by the prosecutor. In addition, neighbor Betsy Reese had confessed to the crime to a nursing home employee.
1990 --- The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope, a long-term space-based observatory, into a low orbit around Earth. The space telescope, conceived in the 1940s, designed in the 1970s, and built in the 1980s, was designed to give astronomers an unparalleled view of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. Initially, Hubble's operators suffered a setback when a lens aberration was discovered, but a repair mission by space-walking astronauts in December 1993 successfully fixed the problem, and Hubble began sending back its first breathtaking images of the universe. Free of atmospheric distortions, Hubble has a resolution 10 times that of ground-based observatories. About the size of a bus, the telescope is solar-powered and orbits Earth once every 97 minutes. Among its many astronomical achievements, Hubble has been used to record a comet's collision with Jupiter, provide a direct look at the surface of Pluto, view distant galaxies, gas clouds, and black holes, and see billions of years into the universe's past.
- 1996 --- The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel
- 2003 --- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was sentenced to four years in prison for her conviction on fraud and theft charges. She was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft of money from a women's political league.
- Birthdays
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Albert King
- Edward R Murrow
- Meadowlark Lemon
- Stu Cook
- Guglielmo Marconi
- Al Pacino
- Talia Shire
- Hank Azaria
- Renee Zellweger
- Jason Lee
- Oliver Cromwell
- Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Vassar Clements