- 243rd Day of 2012 /123 Remaining
- 23 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:38
- Sunset:7:42
- 13 Hours 4 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:6:59pm
- Moon Set:5:47am
- Moon’s Phase: 99 %
- 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:11:12am/10:46pm
- Low:4:33am/4:44pm
- 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 Holistic Pet Day
- Huey P. Long Day-Louisiana
- National Toasted Marshmallow Day
- Talk Intelligently Day(For those who normally talk intelligently, it’s Talk Brilliantly Day)
- Victory Day-Turkey
- Eid-Al-Fitr (Celebrating the Fast - Islamic)
- Agou-Haiti
- Children's Day-Afghanistan
- On This Day In …
- 30BC --- Cleopatra the 7th (or maybe the 6th) of ancient Egypt committed suicide by allowing a poisonous snake to bite her.
- 1776 --- General George Washington gives the New York Convention three reasons for the American retreat from Long Island. That same day, he rejects British General William Howe's second letter of reconciliation. With Howe and a superior British force having recently landed at Long Island–they handed the Continentals a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights on August 27–Washington gave these reasons for his decision to retreat: the need to reunite his forces, the extreme fatigue of his soldiers and the lack of proper shelter from the weather. For his part, Howe had attempted to reconcile with the Patriots before blood was spilled, but had been rejected by Washington because he had failed to use Washington's title of "general" when addressing the letter. Even after beating the Continentals at Brooklyn Heights, Howe looked for a peaceful resolution, allowing Washington and his army to escape by boat to Manhattan and sending yet another letter to Washington through American General John Sullivan. Washington refused to accept the missive, but gave Sullivan permission to deliver it to Congress in Philadelphia. On September 11, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and other congressional representatives accepted Howe's offer and reopened talks on Staten Island. The negotiations fell through when the British refused to accept American independence as a condition for peace. The British captured New York City on September 15; it would remain in British hands until the end of the war.
- 1780 --- General Benedict Arnold secretly promised to surrender the West Point fort to the British army.
- 1905 --- Ty Cobb made his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers.
- 1918 --- After speaking at a factory in Moscow, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is shot twice by Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Social Revolutionary party. Lenin was seriously wounded but survived the attack. The assassination attempt set off a wave of reprisals by the Bolsheviks against the Social Revolutionaries and other political opponents. Thousands were executed as Russia fell deeper into civil war.
- 1936 --- Donald Duck first appeared in a comic strip. He already was a movie star.
- 1967 --- Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. He would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. From a young age, Marshall seemed destined for a place in the American justice system. His parents instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution, a feeling that was reinforced by his schoolteachers, who forced him to read the document as punishment for his misbehavior. After graduating from Lincoln University in 1930, Marshall sought admission to the University of Maryland School of Law, but was turned away because of the school's segregation policy, which effectively forbade blacks from studying with whites. Instead, Marshall attended Howard University Law School, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1933.
- 1968 --- The stars came out for charity as John and Yoko Lennon hosted the One on One concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Among the music greats appearing were Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack. Over $250,000 was raised to aid mentally retarded children.
- 1969 --- Ho Chi Minh's reply to President Nixon's letter of July 15 is received in Paris. Ho accused the United States of a "war of aggression" against the Vietnamese people, "violating our fundamental national rights" and warned that "the longer the war goes on, the more it accumulates the mourning and burdens of the American people." Ho said he favored the National Liberation Front's 10-point plan as "a logical and reasonable basis for the settlement of the Vietnamese problem." Ho demanded that the United States "cease the war of aggression," withdraw its troops from Vietnam and allow self-determination for the Vietnamese people. President Nixon would not reveal that he had received this communication until his speech to the nation on November 3.
- 1983 --- U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford becomes the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on its third mission. It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:32 a.m. The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle's robotic arm. Just before dawn on September 5, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that date.
- 1990 --- Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. became the first father and son to play on the same major-league baseball team. Both singled in the first inning for the Seattle Mariners.
- 1993 --- Late Show with David Letterman debuted on CBS-TV. CBS remodeled the Ed Sullivan Theater (on 54th Street in New York City) for Letterman, who had just spent over a decade on NBC (Late Night with David Letterman). The first musical guest to appear on the new show was Billy Joel.
- 2001 --- Two killers who planned to marry in England's Broadmoor Prison called off the wedding after finding out just how evil each other was. Lifers Sharon Carr and Robbie Layne, who had already bought gold rings, were stunned when they read a newspaper report describing their killings. A nurse said they stormed out of the room and wouldn't even talk to each other.
- 2005 --- On the day after Hurricane Katrina struck, 80 percent of New Orleans was under water. A massive rescue effort plucked hundreds from rooftops. Many others waited for days to be rescued. Meanwhile, Katrina flattened much of Gulfport and Biloxi, Missisippi, flooded Mobile, Alabama., and heavily damaged smaller towns in between.
- 2006 --- The California State Senate passes Assembly Bill (AB) 32, otherwise known as the Global Warming Solutions Act. The law made California the first state in America to place caps on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, including those found in automobile emissions. The Global Warming Solutions Act became law thanks to an alliance between the state's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and its Democratic-controlled legislature. The bill's passage solidified California's role as a leader in enacting legislation aimed at combating global warming, or the gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere due to the so-called "greenhouse effect" caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. California--which represents 10 percent of the nation's automobile market and is known for its struggles with air pollution--took the lead early in setting stricter fuel emissions standards than the federal government's.
- Birthdays
- Fred MacMurray
- Ted Williams
- Cameron Diaz
- Peggy Lipton
- Jean-Claude Killy
- R Crumb
- Huey Long
- John Phillips
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa was born.(Mokcsa imported 1,400 varieties of grapevines to California in 1862 and planted the first large vineyard in California in the Sonoma Valley. After the devastating blight destroyed much of Europe’s vineyards, some of these same vines, now on resistant root stock, helped rescue the French and German wine industries.)