Thursday February 27, 2014

• 58^th Day of 2014 / 307 Remaining
• 21 Days Until The First Day of Spring

• Sunrise:6:42
• Sunset:6:01
• 11 Hours 19 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:5:19am
• Moon Set: 4:34pm
• Moon’s Phase: First Quarter

• The Next Full Moon
• March 16 @ 10:10am
• Full CrowMoon
• Full Crust Moon
• Full Sap Moon
• Full Lenten Moon

As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

• Tides
• High:8:43am/10:02pm
• Low:2:41am/3:21pm

• Rainfall
• This Year:6.22
• Last Year:14.35
• Average Year to Date:17.94

• Holidays
• National Kahlua Day
• National Chili Day

• Independence Day-Dominican Republic

• On This Day In …
• 1827 --- A group of masked and costumed students dance through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, marking the beginning of the city's famous Mardi Gras celebrations. The celebration of Carnival--or the weeks between Twelfth Night on January 6 and Ash

  

  Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian period of Lent--spread from Rome across Europe and later to the Americas. Nowhere in the United States is Carnival celebrated as grandly as in New Orleans, famous for its over-the-top parades and parties for Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday), the last day of the Carnival season.

• 1861 --- In Warsaw, Russian troops fired on a crowd protesting Russian rule over Poland. Five protesting marchers were killed in the incident.

• 1883 --- Oscar Hammerstein of New York City patented the first practical cigar-rolling machine. If Oscar’s name sounds familiar, it should. Hammerstein’s son later made his mark by writing some of the best-known music in the world, teaming up frequently with a guy named Richard Rodgers.

• 1896 --- The "Charlotte Observer" published a picture of an X-ray photograph made by Dr. H.L. Smith. The photograph showed a perfect picture of all the bones of a hand and a bullet that Smith had placed between the third and fourth fingers in the palm.

• 1922 --- The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for female suffrage, is unanimously declared constitutional by the eight members of the U.S. Supreme Court. The 19th Amendment, which stated that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall

  

  not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex," was the product of over seven decades of meetings, petitions, and protests by women suffragists and their supporters.

• 1922 --- Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover convened the first National Radio Conference in Washington, DC. There, industry regulations were widely discussed. Hoover would later become U.S. President and have a dam named after him.

• 1939 --- The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed sit-down strikes.

• 1941 --- At the 13th Academy Awards, 'The Grapes of Wrath' won awards for Best Director (John Ford) and Best Supporting Actress (Jane Darwell as Ma Joad). Based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name dealing with the Great Depression, tenant farmers, migrant workers, the dust bowl and California.

• 1951 --- The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, limiting U.S. Presidents to two terms.

• 1956 --- Specialty Records released Little Richard's "Slippin' and Slidin'."
  

  

• 1960 --- The Miracles made their first TV appearance on "American Bandstand."

• 1960 --- The underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team defeats the Soviet Union in the semifinals at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California. The next day, the U.S. beats Czechoslovakia to win its first-ever Olympic gold medal in hockey.

• 1963 --- Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees signed a baseball contract worth $100,000. Back in 1949, Mantle had signed his first Yankee contract for $1,100.

• 1964 --- The Italian government announces that it is accepting suggestions on how to save the renowned Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapse. The top of the 180-foot tower was hanging 17 feet south of the base, and studies showed that the tilt was increasing

  

  by a fraction every year. Experts warned that the medieval building--one of Italy's top tourist attractions--was in serious danger of toppling in an earthquake or storm. Proposals to save the Leaning Tower arrived in Pisa from all over the world, but it was not until 1999 that successful restorative work began.

• 1970 --- Simon and Garfunkel received a gold record for the single, Bridge Over Troubled Water. The duo was so impressed with their deserved achievement that they played the gold disc on their stereo. But they heard Mitch Miller’s Bridge on the River Kwai instead.

• 1972 --- As the concluding act of President Richard Nixon's historic visit to communist China, the president and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai issue a joint statement summarizing their agreements

  

  (and disagreements) of the past week. The "Shanghai Communique" set into motion the slow process of the normalization of relations between the two former Cold War enemies.

• 1973 --- On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, some 200 Sioux Native Americans, led by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupy Wounded Knee, the site of the infamous 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest

  

  communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country's lowest rates of life expectancy. The day after the Wounded Knee occupation began, AIM members traded gunfire with the federal marshals surrounding the settlement and fired on automobiles and low-flying planes that dared come within rifle range. Russell Means began negotiations, demanding that the U.S. Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government. The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during

  

  which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded. On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after officials promised to investigate their complaints. Russell Means and Dennis Banks were arrested, but on September 16, 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by a federal judge because of the U.S. government's unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence.
  

  

• 1974 --- A new magazine was issued by Time-Life (now Time-Warner). The magazine was People. It had an initial run of one million copies and became the most successful celebrity weekly

  

  ’zine ever published. Weekly circulation of People grew to 3,424,858 by 1994.

• 1977 --- Keith Richards' (Rolling Stones) Toronto hotel suite was raided by Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Richards was arrested and charged possession of heroin with the intent to traffic and possession of cocaine. He was release on $25,000 bail.

• 1990 --- The Exxon Corporation and Exxon Shipping were indicted on five criminal counts relating to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill which had gooed up Alaska pretty good.
  

  

• 1991 --- President George Bush said, “Kuwait is liberated. Iraq’s army is defeated. I am pleased to announce that at midnight tonight, exactly 100 hours since ground operations began and six weeks

  

  since the start of Operation Desert Storm, all United States and coalition forces will suspend offensive combat operations.”

• 1991 --- James Brown was paroled from prison after serving two years. He had been sentenced to six years in prison after leading police on an interstate car chase.

• 1997 --- Legislation banning most handguns in Britain went into effect.

• 1997 --- Divorce became legal in Ireland.

• 2002 --- Alicia Keys won five Grammy Awards for her debut album, "Songs in A Minor."
  

  

• 2010 --- An 8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami killed 524 people in Chile caused $30 billion in damage and left over 200,000 homeless.
  

  

• Birthdays
• Elizabeth Taylor
• John Steinbeck
• Joanne Woodward
• Ralph Nader
• Howard Hessman
• Neal Schon
• Chelsea Clinton
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Justice Hugo Black
• Irwin Shaw
• Alice Hamilton
• Marian Anderson
• John Connally
• Mary Frann