- 29th Day of 2015 336 Remaining
- Spring Begins in 51 Days
- Sunrise:7:15
- Sunset:5:30
- 10 Hours 15 Minutes
- Moon Rise:12:42pm
- Moon Set:2:36am
- Phase: 75%
- Full Moon Tuesday February 3 @ 3:10pm
- Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February’s full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult.
- Tides
- High:6:09am/8:09pm
- Low:1:26pm
- Rainfall:
- This Year to Date:15.14
- Last Year:2.12
- Avg YTD:13.32
- Annual Avg:23.80
- Holidays
- Curmudgeons Day
- Freethinkers Day
- Seeing Eye Dog Day
- Thomas Paine Day
- National Puzzle Day
- National Corn Chip Day
- Martyr’s Day-Nepal
- On This Day
- 1728 --- John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was first performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, London.
- 1777 --- Facing a surprise British counterassault in the bitter cold and with a snowstorm approaching, American commander Major General William Heath and his army of 6,000 abandon their siege on Fort Independence, in Bronx County, New York.
- 1820 --- Ten years after mental illness forced him to retire from public life, King George III, the British king who lost the American colonies, dies at the age of 82.
- 1834 --- Andrew Jackson becomes the first president to use federal troops to quell labor unrest. Workers building the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were rebelling because of persistent poor working conditions and low pay. Construction teams consisted primarily of Irish, German, Dutch and black workers who, with primitive tools, were forced to work long hours for low wages in dangerous conditions. Fed up, the workers rioted on January 29, but were quickly put down by federal troops. The move set a dangerous precedent for future labor-management relations.
- 1845 --- Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem "The Raven," beginning "Once upon a midnight dreary," is published on this day in the New York Evening Mirror.
- 1850 --- Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission of California into the Union as a free state.
- 1861 --- Kansas became the 34th state. Nicknames: The Sunflower State, The Wheat State, The Grasshopper State, The Garden of the West.
- 1878 --- The first patent for a glass milk container was issued to George Lester.
- 1886 --- The first successful petrol-driven motorcar, built by Karl Benz, was patented.
- 1891 --- Following the death of her brother, King Kalakaua, Liliuokalani becomes the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii, first settled by Polynesian voyagers sometime in the eighth century, saw a massive influx of American settlers during the 19th century, most coming to exploit Hawaii's burgeoning sugar industry. In 1887, under pressure from U.S. investors and American sugar planters, King Kalakaua agreed to a new constitution that stripped him of much of his power. However, in 1891, Liliuokalani ascended to the throne and refused to recognize the constitution of 1887, replacing it instead with a constitution that restored the monarchy's traditional authority.
- 1900 --- The American League, consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized in Philadelphia.
- 1922 --- Accumulated snowfall from a blizzard collapses the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., on this day in 1922. The blizzard formed in the Carolinas on January 26 and moved into the Washington area the following day. For two days, snow blanketed the nation's capital, resulting in accumulations of more than two feet. The large amount of snow crippled transportation in Washington and shut down the government. By Saturday night, things were beginning to return to normal, and some 300 people attended a movie at Knickerbocker Theatre, at the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road. In the middle of the film, the accumulated snow on the theater's roof collapsed the building and tons of steel and concrete fell down on top of the theatergoers. One hundred and eight people were killed, including five in a single family. Another 133 were hospitalized. Rescuers worked through the night to pull out the injured from beneath the rubble.
- 1924 --- Carl R. Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio received the first U.S. patent (No. 1,481,813) for an ice cream cone rolling machine.
- 1936 --- The Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members in Cooperstown, New York. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson were the initial inductees.
- 1964 --- Stanley Kubrick's black comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb opens in theaters to both critical and popular acclaim. The movie's popularity was evidence of changing attitudes toward atomic weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence.
- 1969 --- The "Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" debuted on CBS-TV.
- 1979 --- President Jimmy Carter welcomed Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping to the White House following the establishment of diplomatic relations.
- 1979 --- Brenda Spencer kills two men and wounds nine children as they enter the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. Spencer blazed away with rifle shots from her home directly across the street from the school. After 20 minutes of shooting, police surrounded Spencer's home for six hours before she surrendered. Asked for some explanation for the attack, Spencer allegedly said, "I just don't like Mondays. I did this because it's a way to cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays." Spencer was only 16 years old at the time of her murderous attack.
- 1987 --- "Physician’s Weekly" announced that the smile on the face of Leonardo DeVinci's Mona Lisa was caused by a "...facial paralysis resulting from a swollen nerve behind the ear."
- 1990 --- Joseph Hazelwood, the former skipper of the Exxon Valdez, went on trial in Anchorage, AK, on charges that stemmed from America's worst oil spill. Hazelwood was later acquitted of all the major charges and was convicted of a misdemeanor.
- 1995 --- The San Francisco 49ers became the first team to win five Super Bowl titles when they beat the San Diego Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX.
- 1998 --- A bomb exploded at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., killing an off-duty policeman and severely wounding a nurse. (The bomber, Eric Rudolph, was captured in May 2003 and is serving a life sentence.)
- 2004 --- A 60 ton, 56 foot long sperm whale exploded on a busy street in Tainan, Taiwan. A buildup of gas from internal decay caused the explosion. Researchers were taking the whale by truck to the National Cheng Kung University for a necropsy. The whale had beached itself and died on January 17. No one was injured in the explosion, but blood and entrails showered cars and shops, and traffic was held up for several hours while the mess was cleaned up.
- 2009 --- The Illinois Senate voted to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.
- Birthdays
- Oprah Winfrey
- Greg Louganis
- Nicholas Turturro
- Heather Graham
- Anton Chekov
- Thomas Paine
- W.C. Fields
- Paddy Chayefsky
- Professor Irwin Corey
- Germaine Greer
- Claudine Longet
- William McKinley (25th President)
- Lawrence Hargrave
Thursday January 29, 2015
