- 341st Day of 2012 / 25 Remaining
- 15 Days Until The First Day of Winter
- Sunrise:7;11
- Sunset:4:51
- 9 Hours 40 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise: 12:43am(Friday)
- Moon Set:12:13pm
- Moon’s Phase: Last Quarter
- The Next Full Moon
- December 28 @ 2:22 am
- Full Cold Moon
- Full Long Nights Moon
During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.
- Tides
- High: 4:30am/4:03pm
- Low: 10:47am/10:13pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:8.89
- Last Year:3.20
- Normal To Date:5.34
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Miner's Day
- National Pawnbrokers Day
- National Gazpacho Day
- Microwave Oven Day
- Constitution Day-Spain
- Independence Day-Finland
- Saint Nicholas Day-Catholicism
- Farmer’s Day-Ghana
- On This Day In …
- 1790 --- Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia.
- 1865 --- The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, is ratified. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." With these words, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War was officially noted in the Constitution. The ratification came eight months after the end of the war, but it represented the culmination of the struggle against slavery. When the war began,some in the North were against fighting what they saw as a crusade to end slavery. Although many northern Democrats and conservative Republicans were opposed to slavery's expansion, they were ambivalent about outlawing the institution entirely. The war's escalation after the First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, in July 1861 caused many to rethink the role that slavery played in creating the conflict. By 1862, Lincoln realized that it was folly to wage such a bloody war without plans to eliminate slavery. In September 1862, following the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all slaves in territory still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be declared forever free. The move was largely symbolic, as it only freed slaves in areas outside of Union control, but it changed the conlfict from a war for the reunification of the states to a war whose objectives included the destruction of slavery. Lincoln believed that a constitutional amendment was necessary to ensure the end of slavery. In 1864, Congress debated several proposals. Some insisted on including provisions to prevent discrimination against blacks, but the Senate Judiciary Committee provided the eventual language. It borrowed from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, when slavery was banned from the area north of the Ohio River. The Senate passed the amendment in April 1864.
- 1877 --- Thomas Edison demonstrated the first gramophone, with a recording of himself reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb.
- 1883 --- “Ladies’ Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper” was published for the first time. It became one of the few magazines to reach a circulation of over one million. Paid circulation is over 3,000,000.
- 1902 --- The 8¢ Martha Washington stamp was issued this day. The stamp was the first U.S. definitive or commemorative stamp to feature a woman.
- 1907 --- The worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
- 1921 --- The Irish Free State, comprising four-fifths of Ireland, is declared, ending a five-year Irish struggle for independence from Britain. Like other autonomous nations of the former British Empire, Ireland was to remain part of the British Commonwealth, symbolically subject to the king. The Irish Free State later severed ties with Britain and was renamed Eire, and is now called the Republic of Ireland. English rule over the island of Ireland dates back to the 12th century, and Queen Elizabeth I of England encouraged the large-scale immigration of Scottish Protestants in the 16th century. During ensuing centuries, a series of rebellions by Irish Catholics were put down as the Anglo-Irish minority extended their domination over the Catholic majority. A movement for Irish home rule gained momentum in the late 19th century, and in 1916 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising against British rule in Dublin. The rebellion was crushed, but widespread agitation for independence continued. In 1919, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces. In 1921, a cease-fire was declared, and in January 1922 a faction of Irish nationalists signed a peace treaty with Britain, calling for the partition of Ireland, with the south becoming autonomous and the six northern counties of the island remaining in the United Kingdom. Civil war broke out even before the declaration of the Irish Free State on December 6, 1922, and ended with the victory of the Irish Free State over the Irish Republican forces in 1923. A constitution adopted by the Irish people in 1937 declared Ireland to be "a sovereign, independent, democratic state," and the Irish Free State was renamed Eire. Eire remained neutral during World War II, and in 1949 the Republic of Ireland Act severed the last remaining link with the Commonwealth. Conflicts persisted over Northern Ireland, however, and the IRA, outlawed in the south, went underground to try to regain the northern counties still ruled by Britain. Violence between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland escalated in the early 1970s, and to date the fighting has claimed more than 3,000 lives.
- 1923 --- The first presidential address to be carried on radio was broadcast from Washington, DC. President Calvin Coolidge addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
- 1926 --- In Italy, Benito Mussolini introduced a tax on bachelors.
- 1947 --- Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Harry S Truman. In the President’s words, “Here are no lofty peaks seeking the sky, no mighty glaciers or rushing streams wearing away the uplifted land. Here is land, tranquil in its quiet beauty, serving not as the source of water, but as the last receiver of it. To its natural abundance we owe the spectacular plant and animal life that distinguishes this place from all others in our country.”
- 1957 --- America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
- 1969 --- The massive, three-day Woodstock Music & Art Fair had proved that hundreds of thousands of young people could gather peacefully even in a seemingly chaotic environment rich with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Four months later, it would become clear that Woodstock owed its success not to the inherent peacefulness of the 1960s youth culture, but to the organizational acumen of the event's producers. That idea was proven in the violent, uncontrolled chaos of the disastrous Altamont Speedway Free Festival. Altamont was the brainchild of the Rolling Stones, who hoped to cap off their U.S. tour in late 1969 with a concert that would be the West Coast equivalent of Woodstock, in both scale and spirit. Unlike Woodstock, however, which was the result of months of careful planning by a team of well-funded organizers, Altamont was a largely improvised affair that did not even have a definite venue arranged just days before the event. It was only on Thursday, December 4, 1969, that organizers settled on the Altamont Speedway location for a free concert that was by then scheduled to include Santana; the Jefferson Airplane; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; and the Grateful Dead, all in support of the headlining Stones. The event would also include, infamously, several dozen members the Hells Angels motorcycle gang acting as informal security staff in exchange for $500 worth of beer as a "gratuity." It was dark by the time the concert's next-to-last act, the Grateful Dead, was scheduled to appear. But the Dead had left the venue entirely out of concern for their safety when they learned that Jefferson Airplane singer Marty Balin had been knocked unconscious by one of the Hells Angels in a melee during his band's performance. It was during the Rolling Stones' set, however, that a 21-year-old Hells Angel named Alan Passaro stabbed a gun-wielding 18-year-old named Meredith Hunter to death just 20 feet in front of the stage where Mick Jagger was performing "Under My Thumb." Unaware of what had just occurred, the Rolling Stones completed their set without further incident, bringing an end to a tumultuous day that also saw three accidental deaths and four live births. The killing of Meredith Hunter at Altamont was captured on film in Gimme Shelter, the documentary of the Stones' 1969 tour by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, which opens with Jagger viewing the footage in an editing room several months later. In the years since, Jagger has not spoken publicly about the killing, for which Passaro was tried but acquitted on grounds of self-defense.
- 1973 --- Following the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, House Speaker Gerald Ford became the U.S.’s first appointed Vice President. Later, he became the nation’s first non-elected President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon.
- 1998 --- Astronauts on the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour completed the most difficult task of their 12-day mission, mating modules from Russia and the United States to create the first two building blocks of International Space Station. “We have capture of Zarya,” Commander Robert Cabana announced when the two pieces came together at approximately 9:07 p.m. EST. “Congratulations to the crew of the good ship Endeavour,” replied Mission Control. “That's terrific.”
- Birthdays
- JoBeth Williams
- Tom Hulce
- Steven Wright
- Peter Buck
- Andrew Cuomo
- Janine Turner
- Alfred Joyce Kilmer
- James J Braddock
- Henry VI
- Agnes Moorehead
- Ira Gershwin
- Wally Cox
- Tish Hinohosa