- 93rd Day of 2014 / 272 Remaining
- 79 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:6:50
- Sunset:7:34
- 12 Hours 44 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:9:29am
- Moon Set:11:55pm
- Moon’s Phase: 18 %
- The Next Full Moon
- April 15 @ 12:45 am
- Full Pink Moon
- Full Sprouting Moon
- Full Egg Moon
- Full Grass Moon
- Full Fish 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:2:18am/3:52pm
- Low:8:50am/8:51pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:11.92
- Last Year:15.77
- Average Year to Date:21.61
- Holidays
- Tweed Day
- National Chocolate Mousse Day
- On This Day In …
- 1513 --- Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida. He had sighted the land the day before.
- 1776 --- George Washington received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard College.
- 1776 --- Because it lacked sufficient funds to build a strong navy, the Continental Congress gives privateers permission to attack any and all British ships on this day in 1776. In a bill signed by John Hancock, its president, and dated April 3, 1776, the Continental Congress issued, INSTRUCTIONS to the COMMANDERS of Private Ships or vessels of War, which shall have Commissions of Letters of Marque and Reprisal, authorizing them to make Captures of British Vessels and Cargoes. Letters of Marque and Reprisal were the official documents by which 18th-century governments commissioned private commercial ships, known as privateers, to act on their behalf, attacking ships carrying the flags of enemy nations. Any goods captured by the privateer were divided between the ship's owner and the government that had issued the letter.
- 1829 --- James Carrington patented the coffee mill.
- 1860 --- The first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, simultaneously leaves St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Ten days later, on April 13, the westbound rider and mail packet completed the approximately 1,800-mile journey and arrived in Sacramento, beating the eastbound packet's arrival in St. Joseph by two days and setting a new standard for speedy mail delivery. Although ultimately short-lived and unprofitable, the Pony Express captivated America's imagination and helped win federal aid for a more economical overland postal system. It also contributed to the economy of the towns on its route and served the mail-service needs of the American West in the days before the telegraph or an efficient transcontinental railroad.
- 1865 --- The Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days. For ten months, General Ulysses S. Grant had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate the city. After Lee made a desperate attack against Fort Stedman along the Union line on March 25,Grant prepared for a major offensive. He struck at Five Forks on April 1, crushing the end of Lee's line southwest of Petersburg. On April 2, the Yankees struck all along the Petersburg line, and the Confederates collapsed.
- 1882 --- One of America's most famous criminals, Jesse James, is shot to death by fellow gang member Bob Ford, who betrayed James for reward money. For 16 years, Jesse and his brother, Frank, committed robberies and murders throughout the Midwest.Detective magazines and pulp novels glamorized the James gang, turning them into mythical Robin Hoods who were driven to crime by unethical landowners and bankers. In reality, Jesse James was a ruthless killer who stole only for himself.
- 1933 --- First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt informed newspaper reporters that beer would be served at the White House. This followed the March 22 legislation that legalized "3.2" beer.
- 1936 --- Richard Bruno Hauptmann, convicted in the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the 20-month-old son of Charles A. Lindbergh, is executed by electrocution.
- 1949 --- Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis debuted on radio on the "Martin and Lewis Show". The NBC program ran until 1952.
- 1953 --- "TV Guide" was published for the first time.
- 1955 --- Fred Astaire appeared on The Toast of the Town, with host, Ed Sullivan. Already an established dancer and actor in films, Astaire was quickly becoming a TV sensation as well.
- 1955 --- The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges. The U.S. Customs Department had seized some 520 copies of the book several weeks earlier as the book entered the U.S. from England, where it had been printed. Poet Allen Ginsberg had first read the title poem, Howl, at a poetry reading in the fall of 1956 to enormous acclaim from his fellow Beat poets. The poem's racy language, frank subject matter, and lack of form offended some conservative readers, but to young people in the 1960s, it sounded a call to revolt against convention.
- 1956 ---- Elvis Presley performed on "The Milton Berle Show." The show was broadcast live from the aircraft carrier USS Hancock. Elvis played the songs "Heartbreak Hotel," "Money, Honey," and "Blue Suede Shoes."
- 1959 --- The BBC banned the Coasters song "Charlie Brown" because of the word "spitball." Two weeks later the BBC changed its position on the song.
- 1968 --- Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., less than 24 hours before he was assassinated.
- 1972 --- Charlie Chaplin returned to the U.S. after a twenty-year absence.
- 1974 --- The Super Tornado Outbreak. 148 tornadoes hit the United States heartland within 16 hours. By the time the deadly storm ended, 330 people had died. This was the largest grouping of tornadoes recorded in its time, affecting 11 states and Ontario, Canada. At any one moment during the storm, there were as many as 15 separate tornadoes touching the ground.
- 1979 --- Jane Byrne became the first female mayor in Chicago.
- 1982 --- The temperature in Lamberton, Minnesota dropped from 78 degrees F to 7 degrees F in 24 hours. The 71 degree drop in temperature is a Minnesota record.
- 1993 --- The Norman Rockwell Museum opened in Stockbridge, MA.
- 1996 --- At his small wilderness cabin near Lincoln, Montana, Theodore John Kaczynski is arrested by FBI agents and accused of being the Unabomber, the elusive terrorist blamed for 16 mail bombs that killed three people and injured 23 during an 18-year period.
- 1998 --- The Dow Jones industrial average climbed above 9,000 for the first time.
- 2000 --- A U.S. federal judge ruled that Microsoft had violated U.S. antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors. Microsoft said that they would appeal the ruling.
- 2009 --- Iowa's Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
- Birthdays
- Herb Caen
- William M “Boss” Tweed
- Gertrude “Ma” Rainey
- Marlon Brando
- Jane Goodall
- Eddie Murphy
- Marsha Mason
- Alec Baldwin
- Washington Irving
- Leona Lewis
- Henry R. Luce
- Amanda Barnes
- Wayne Newton
- Tony Orlando
- Richard Thompson
- David Hyde Pierce
- Jennie Garth
- Mary Carpenter
- Virgil I. Grissom
- George Jessel
- Sally Rand
- Richard Manuel