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Thursday August 23, 2012

  • 236th Day of 2012 /130 Remaining
  • 30 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
  • Sunrise:6:33
  • Sunset:7:52
  • 13 Hours 29 Minutes of Daylight
  • Moon Rise:1:17pm
  • Moon Set:11:33pm
  • Moon’s Phase: 41 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • August 31st @ 6:57am
  • Blue Moon

But it’s Blue in name only. That’s because a Blue Moon is sometimes defined as the second full moon in a calendar month. The first full moon was August 1. The second full moon is August 31, 2012. There are two more definitions for Blue Moon. It can be the third of four full moons in a single season. Or, someday, you might see an actual blue-colored moon.

  • Tides
  • High:4:03am/3:48pm
  • Low:9:16am/10:46pm
  • Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
  • This Year:0.03
  • Last Year:0.11
  • Normal To Date:0.00
  • Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
  • Holidays
  • National Spongecake Day
  • Hug Your Sweetheart Day
  • Ride the Wind Day
  • National Sneak Off to the Beach Day
  • International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition
  • Black Ribbon Day-Lithuania
  • National Flag Day-Ukraine
  • Tanabata-Japan
  • Double Seven Festival-China
  • On This Day In …
  • 1617 --- The first one way streets were established in London. Seventeen one way streets were created to regulate "disorder and rude behaviour of Carmen, Draymen, and others using Cartes."
  • 1902 --- Fannie Merrit Farmer opened her cooking school, Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery, in Boston, MA. Ms. Farmer was the leading cooking authority of her day. Known as the ‘mother of measurements’, she revolutionized food preparation throughout the world with her introduction of precise measurements -- the level teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, etc. And, in 1919, candy maker Frank O’Connor paid Fannie the ultimate compliment by naming his now famous company, Fanny Farmer Candy Shops.
  • 1904 --- Harold D. Weed of Canastota, New York, is issued U.S. Patent No. 768,495 for his "Grip-Tread for Pneumatic Tires," a non-skid tire chain to be used on automobiles in order to increase traction on roads slick with mud, snow or ice. He reportedly drew inspiration for his tire chain from the habit of some local motorists who wrapped rope around their tires to increase traction on muddy country roads. In his patent, Weed said that his invention aimed to "provide a flexible and collapsible grip or tread composed entirely of chains linked together and applied to the sides and periphery of the tire and held in place solely by the inflation of the tire, and which is reversible." The tire chain was assembled around a tire when it was partially deflated; after hooks on either end of the chain were fastened, the tire was then reinflated. Weed's tire chains were soon found to work just as well on snow and ice as on mud.
  • 1913 --- The statue of The Little Mermaid, based on the tale by Hans Christien Andersen, was unveiled in Copenhagen. It was a donation from brewer Carl Jacobsen to the City of Copenhagenand has become a famous symbol of the city.
  • 1943 --- LIFE magazine spotlighted a dance craze that was sweeping the U.S.A. -- the Lindy Hop. The Lindy was named after American aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh; and began its entry into the American lifestyle in 1927. The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York was really jumping when George ‘Shorty’ Snowden, one of the Savoy’s famous dancers, started doing twists, turns, jumps and twirls to the music of greats like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. Snowden told everyone he was doing the Lindy Hop. The jitterbug, swing or Lindy as it was called by white dancers became an integral part of Hollywood’s golden era and was picked up by the youth of America during WWII, as exhibited on the LIFE cover. The Lindy Hop was still being danced in the 1950s to rock ’n’ roll at sock hops; and was the jump start for the dance styles of the 1960s and 1970s.
  • 1965 --- The U.S. premiere of the motion picture Help!, starring The Beatles, was held for thousands of moviegoers wanting to see the group’s first color motion picture. Their first film, A Hard Day’s Night, had been produced in black and white.
  • 1979 --- Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York.
  • 1982 --- Gaylord Perry was tossed out of a game for throwing an illegal spitball. Perry, pitching for the Seattle Mariners, was given the heave-ho by the home plate umpire in the seventh inning of the game.
  • 1989 --- In a call for independence, an estimated one million people linked arms in a human chain that stretched 400 miles across much of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
  • 1989 --- Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose accepts a settlement that includes a lifetime ban from the game. A heated debate continues to rage as to whether Rose, a former player who remains the game’s all-time hits leader, should be given a second chance. Although gambling on a sport you play or coach is now considered unacceptable in nearly all levels of sport, it was relatively common among those connected with baseball in the early 20th century. Some of baseball’s most talented and well-known players, such as "Turkey" Mike Donlin and Hal Chase, as well as manager John McGraw, who publicly won $400 dollars when his New York Giants won the World Series in 1905, were often suspected of gambling on their own games. Chase was considered a dangerous man to have on a team because of his willingness to make extra money by dropping fly balls or misplaying first base. This all changed, however, after the White Sox purposefully lost the World Series in 1919 for a payoff from gambler Arnold Rothstein. Outraged, a group of baseball’s faithful--including American League Commissioner Ban Johnson, former player and manager Christy Matthewson and White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, among others--made it a priority to clean up the game and repair its reputation. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former federal judge, was hired as Major League Baseball’s first commissioner to crack down on corruption. One of Landis’ first moves was to ban eight White Sox players found to be involved in the World Series betting scandal from the game for life, including Chase and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, one of the greatest players in baseball history. Major League Baseball Rule 21(d) now states that a player faces a ban of one year for betting on any baseball game, and a lifetime ban for betting on his own team. In addition, signs posted prominently in every clubhouse remind players that gambling is not permitted. It was known in baseball circles since the 1970s that Pete Rose had a gambling problem. Although at first he bet only on horse races and football games, allegations surfaced in early 1989 that Rose was not only betting on baseball, but on his own team. Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti began an inquiry, and hired Washington lawyer John Dowd to head the investigation. Dowd compiled hundreds of hours of testimony from numerous sources that detailed Rose’s history of gambling on baseball while serving as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, including betting on his own team. Although Rose continued to proclaim his innocence, he was eventually persuaded to accept a settlement that included a lifetime ban from the game. At a subsequent press conference, Giamatti characterized Rose’s acceptance of the ban as a no-contest plea to the charges against him. In 2004, after years of repeated denials, Rose published My Prison Without Bars, in which he finally confessed to gambling on the Reds, though he added that had always bet on the Reds to win. Because of the lifetime ban, Rose cannot work in Major League Baseball and, despite his stellar playing career, he is not eligible for the Hall of Fame.
  • 2003 --- A 47-year-old German man lost his driver's license after failing to perform any of the required actions on an alcohol test. The test in Koblenz was noteworthy because the man's dog, a West Highland white terrier, executed all the commands perfectly, including a 360-degree turn as his master staggered and fell.
  • 2004 --- The French Parliament passed a bill to combat obesity among French youth.  The bill bans junk food and soft drink vending machines in French schools, and requires health warnings or an alternate tax on snack food and soft drink commercials. The provisions became effective in September, 2005.
  • Birthdays
  • Louis XVI
  • Gene Kelly
  • Shelley Long
  • Barbara Eden
  • Mark Russell
  • Queen Noor of Jordan
  • Fmr Gov Pete Wilson
  • Sonny Jurgensen
  • Vera Miles
  • Keith Moon