- 3rd Day of 2013 / 362 Remaining
- 76 Days Until The First Day of Spring
- Sunrise:7:25
- Sunset:5:04
- 9 Hours 39 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:11:36pm
- Moon Set:10:47am
- Moon’s Phase: 74 %
- The Next Full Moon
- January 26 @ 8:40pm
- Full Wolf Moon
Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
- Tides
- High: 3:56am/3:29pm
- Low: 9:47am/9:26pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:13.03
- Last Year:3.34
- Normal To Date:9.54
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- Fruitcake Toss Day
- Congress Assembles Day
- Drinking Straw Day
- Memento Mori
- Admission Day-Alaska
- National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day
- Passport Presentation-Russia
- St. Genevieve Feast Day-France
- On This Day In …
- 1496 --- References in Leonardo da Vinci notebooks suggested that he tested his flying machine. The test didn't succeed and he didn't try to fly again for several years.
- 1521 --- Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1777 --- The Battle of Princeton took place in the War of Independence, in which George Washington defeated the British forces, led by Cornwallis.
- 1841 --- Herman Melville ships out on the whaler Acushnet to the South Seas. Melville was born in New York City in 1819. A childhood bout of scarlet fever permanently weakened his eyesight. He went to sea at age 19, as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Liverpool. Two years later, he sailed for the South Seas. The Acushnet anchored in Polynesia, where Melville took part in a mutiny. He was thrown in jail in Tahiti, escaped, and wandered around the South Sea islands for two years. In 1846, he published his first novel, Typee, based on his Polynesian adventures. His second book, Omoo (1847), also dealt with the region. The two novels were popular successes, although his third, Mardi (1849), more experimental in nature, failed to catch on with the public. In 1851, Harper & Brothers published Moby-Dick. The book flopped and was not recognized as a classic for many years. Meanwhile, Melville bought a farm near Nathaniel Hawthorne's house in Massachusetts, and the two became close friends. Melville continued writing novels and highly acclaimed short stories. Putnam's Monthly published "Bartleby the Scrivener" in 1853 and "Benito Cereno" in 1855. In 1866, Melville won appointment as a customs inspector in New York, which brought him a stable income. He published several volumes of poetry. He continued to write until his death in 1891, and his last novel, Billy Budd, was not published until 1924.
- 1868 --- The Shogunate was abolished in Japan and Meiji dynasty was restored.
- 1871 --- A Binghamton, NY chap named Henry W. Bradley patented oleomargarine this day. How many of you want to reveal your age by saying you remember when oleomargarine was white and was sold in plastic bags with a color tab inside the bag? What fun it was to break that tab and squish the yellow color through the oleomargarine!The dairy industry was able to have laws passed that prevented manufacturers from coloring the margarine. (The natural color of margarine is white).
- 1888 --- The first patent for wax coated paper drinking straws (made by a spiral winding process) was issued to Marvin C. Stone of Washington, D.C.
- 1924 --- Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, they uncover the greatest treasure of the tomb--a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamen. When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for "King Tut's Tomb," finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact. Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over four years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years.
- 1938 --- The March of Dimes was established by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The organization fights poliomyelitis. The original name of the organization was the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The March of Dimes accomplished its mission within 20 years. Research led by Dr. Jonas Salk and supported by funds (those marching little dimes) raised annually by thousands of volunteers, resulted in the announcement in April 1955 that the Salk polio vaccine was “safe, potent and effective.” The foundation also supported the research that led to the Sabin oral vaccine, another safe, effective polio preventative discovered by Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Following the victory over infantile paralysis, the March of Dimes turned its attention to conquering the largest killer and crippler of children: the mental and physical problems that are present at birth. Today, The March of Dimes raises funds to support research, education and community-based programs to prevent birth defects and help lower the rate of premature births and infant mortality. The March of Dimes is one of the 10 largest voluntary health agencies in the United States, with 101 chapters nationwide.
- 1947 --- U.S. Congressional proceedings were televised for the first time. Viewers in Washington, Philadelphia and New York City saw some of the opening ceremonies of the 80th Congress.
- 1952 --- Sergeant Joe Friday’s famous catchphrase, “Just the facts, ma’am”, enters American homes via a new entertainment device: the television. A popular radio series since 1949, the police drama Dragnet became one of the first TV series filmed in Hollywood, instead of New York. It also began a long, nearly unbroken line of popular crime and police TV dramas, continuing into the present day with the ubiquitous Law & Order and CSI (and their seemingly endless spin-offs).
- 1957 --- Fats Domino recorded "I'm Walkin'."
- 1959 --- Alaska (49th state) entered the United States of America; capital: Juneau; bird: willow ptarmigan; flower: forget-me-not; nickname: The Last Frontier.
- 1961 --- In the climax of deteriorating relations between the United States and Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba, President Dwight D. Eisenhower closes the American embassy in Havana and severs diplomatic relations. Severing relations marked the end of America's policy of trying to resolve its differences with Castro's government through diplomacy. Just over two months later, President John F. Kennedy unleashed the Cuban exile force established during the Eisenhower years. This led to the Bay of Pigs debacle, in which Castro's military killed or captured the exile troops. After the Bay of Pigs, the relationship between the United States and Cuba was one of the chilliest of the Cold War.
- 1969 --- 30,000 copies of the John Lennon, Yoko Ono album, Two Virgins, were confiscated by police in Newark, New Jersey. The nude photo of John and Yoko on the cover violated pornography laws in the state.
- 1972 --- Don McLean received a gold record for his 8-minute-plus (8:32) hit, American Pie.
- 1987 --- Aretha Franklin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with Bill Haley and 14 others. Franklin was the first woman to be inducted.
- 1990 --- Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega, after holing up for 10 days at the Vatican embassy in Panama City, surrenders to U.S. military troops to face charges of drug trafficking. Noriega was flown to Miami the following day and crowds of citizens on the streets of Panama City rejoiced. On July 10, 1992, the former dictator was convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
- 1998 --- China announced that it would spend $27.7 billion to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys.
- 2000 --- The last new daily "Peanuts" comic strip by Charles Schulz ran in 2,600 newspapers.
- Birthdays
- Lucretia Mott
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- Stephen Stills
- Sir George Martin
- Robert Loggia
- Bobby Hull
- John Paul Jones
- Mel Gibson
- Victoria Principal
- Dabney Coleman
- Dihn Diem Ngo
- (Marcus Tullius) Cicero
- Marion Davies
- Victor Borge
- Van Dyke Parks
- Zasu Pitts
- Ray Milland
- Maxene Andrews