- 191st Day of 2014 / 174 Remaining
- Autumn Begins in 74 Days
- Sunrise:5:57
- Sunset:8:33
- 14 Hours 36 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:6:52pm
- Moon Set: 4:12am
- Moon Phase: 96%
- The Next Full Moon
- July 12 @ 4:26 am
- Full Buck Moon
- Full Thunder Moon
- Full Hay Moon
July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also named for the thunderstorms that are most common during this time. And in some areas it was called the Full Hay Moon.
- Tides
- High:10:52am/9:38
- Low:3:56am/.3:31pm
- Holidays
- National Pina Colada Day
- Clerihew Day
- Don’t Step On A Bee Day
- Admission Day-Wyoming
- Independence Day-Bahamas
- On This Day In …
- 1776 --- The statue of King George III was pulled down in New York City.
- 1778 --- In support of the American Revolution, Louis XVI declared war on England
- 1850 --- Vice President Milliard Fillmore is sworn in as the 13th president. President Zachary Taylor had died the day before, five days after falling ill with a severe intestinal ailment on the Fourth of July.
- 1866 --- The indelible pencil was patented by Edson P. Clark of Northhampton, Massachusetts. This was the equivalent of the ball point pen of the time. It was non-erasable, and you didn’t need an ink well. Used for bills, prices, etc., you could also place a damp sheet of tissue paper over the writing to get a mirror image.
- 1890 --- Wyoming, the state with the smallest population entered the Union this day. The 44th state was named after an Algonquin Indian word meaning ‘˜large prairie place’. Appropriately, the Indian paintbrush that covers much of the large prairie is the state flower and the meadowlark, frequently seen circling the prairie land, is the state bird. Another Indian term, Cheyenne, is also the name of the state capital. Wyoming is called the Equality State because it is the first state to have granted women the right to vote (1869).
- 1900 --- One of the most famous trademarks in the world, ‘˜His Master’s Voice’, wasregistered with the U.S. Patent Office. The logo of the Victor Talking Machine Company, and later, RCA Victor, shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone machine.
- 1913 --- It’s summer in the northern hemisphere and while you are baking at the beach or lake, keep this factoid in mind: The highest temperature ever recorded in the continental United States was 134 degrees which melted thermometers this day in Death Valley, California.
- 1925 --- In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.
- 1934 --- Carl Hubbell threw three strikeouts in the first inning of the All-Star baseball game heldat New York’s Polo Grounds. Hubbell faced the American League’s best power hitters: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmy Fox. In the second inning, Hubbell remained strong, fanning Al Simmons, Joe Cronin and Lefty Gomez. From then on, however, it was all up hill for theNational League which lost by a score of 9-7.
- 1940 --- The 114-day Battle of Britain began as Nazi forces began attacking southern England by air.
- 1943 --- The Allies begin their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy. Encountering little resistance from the demoralized Sicilian troops, the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery came ashore on the southeast of the island, while the U.S. 7th Army under General George S. Patton landed on Sicily's south coast. Within three days, 150,000 Allied troops were ashore.
- 1949 --- The first practical rectangular television was presented. The picture tube measured 12 by 16 and sold for $12.
- 1962 --- The United States Patent Office issues the Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin a patent for his three-point automobile safety belt "for use in vehicles, especially road vehicles" on this day in 1962. Four years earlier, Sweden's Volvo Car Corporation had hired Bohlin, who had previously worked in the Swedish aviation industry, as the company's first chief safety engineer. At the time, safety-belt use in automobiles was limited mostly to race car drivers; the traditional two-point belt, which fastened in a buckle over the abdomen, had been known to cause severe internal injuries in the event of a high-speed crash. Bohlin designed his three-point system in less than a year, and Volvo introduced it on its cars in 1959. Consisting of two straps that joined at the hip level and fastened into a single anchor point, the three-point belt significantly reduced injuries by effectively holding both the upper and lower body and reducing the impact of the swift deceleration that occurred in a crash.
- 1962 --- The Telstar communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The satellite relayed TV and telephone signals between Europe and the U.S.
- 1965 --- The Rolling Stones hit the top spot on the Billboard chart. It was their first time at the top. The hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" stayed at number one for 4 weeks.
- 1969 --- The National League was divided into two baseball divisions (wacky as the realignment turned out to be). For example, the Atlanta Braves were placed in the West Division, while the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs were Eastern Division teams. Cincinnati was also placed in the National League West. The Chicago Cubs sued to stay out of the west and remain in the east in the 1990s, when three divisions were formed. They ended up in the new Central division.
- 1973 --- The Bahamas became independent after three centuries of British colonial rule.
- 1984 --- Dwight ‘˜Doc’ Gooden of the New York Mets became the youngest player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. Gooden was 19 years, 7 months and 24 days old. He led the National League to a 3-1 win at Candlestick Park.
- 1985 --- In Auckland harbor in New Zealand, Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior sinks after French agents in diving gear plant a bomb on the hull of the vessel. One person, Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira, was killed. The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of international conservation group Greenpeace, had been preparing for a protest voyage to a French nuclear test site in the South Pacific. Two days after the incident, French authorities denied responsibility in the bombing and continued to do so even after New Zealand police arrested two French secret service agents in Auckland. Under pressure from New Zealand authorities, the French government formed an inquiry to investigate the incident and after several weeks concluded that the French agents were merely spying on Greenpeace. Later in the year, however, a British newspaper
uncovered evidence of French President Francois Mitterrand's authorization of the bombing plan, leading to several top-level resignations in Mitterrand's cabinet and an admission by French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius that the agents had sunk the vessel under orders.
- 1991 --- After 1,000 years, the Russian people were finally permitted to elect a president.Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office this day, after he had resoundingly defeated the Communist Party candidate.
- 1992 --- A federal judge in Miami sentenced former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to 40 years in prison on drug and racketeering charges.
- 1999 --- The U.S. women’s soccer team defeats China to win their second Women’s World Cup. The game ended in a 5-4 shootout after 120 scoreless minutes: 90 tightly played minutes of regulation dictated by the United States and 30 tense minutes of overtime largely controlled by the Chinese. The title game was played at the Rose Bowl in front of 90,185 fans, the largest crowd ever to attend a women’s sporting event.
- 2002 --- Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" sold for $76.2 million at Sotheby's.
- 2010 --- Queen Elizabeth II addressed the United Nations for the first time since 1957. It was her first visit to New York in more than 30 years.
- 2011 --- Britain's best-selling Sunday tabloid the News of the World, brought down by a phone-hacking scandal, published it last issue.
- Birthdays
- Arthur Ashe
- Arlo Guthrie
- Marcel Proust
- Jake LaMotta
- Mavis Staples
- Virginia Wade
- Bela Fleck
- Jessica Simpson
- John Calvin
- Nikola Tesla
- Mary McCloud Bethune
- Kurt Adler
- James Whistler
- Edmund Clerihew Bentley
- David Brinkley
- Adolphus Busch
