- 198th Day of 2014 / 167 Remaining
- Autumn Begins in 67 Days
- Sunrise:6:01
- Sunset:8:29
- 14 Hours 28 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:12:00am(Friday)
- Moon Set:12:12pm
- Moon Phase:64%
- 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:3:05am/4:04pm
- Low:9:18am/10:27pm
- Holidays
- National Ice Cream Day
- Wrong Way Corrigan Day
- National Peach Ice Cream Day
- Constitution Day-South Korea
- Munoz Rivera Day-Puerto Rico
- On This Day In …
- 1861 --- Congress authorizes the Treasury Secretary to issue the first paper currency, called 'Demand Notes,' to finance costs of the Civil War.
- 1862 --- National cemeteries were authorized by the U.S. government on this day. Arlington National Cemetery, located just outside Washington, D.C. in Virginia, is one of the most honored in the country. In addition to those who died in battle, other war veterans, including U.S. Presidents and government leaders, are buried there. Arlington National Cemetery also houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in honor of those who lay unidentified on the battlefields of freedom.
- 1866 --- Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The three-year project cost $512,709.
- 1902 --- Dr. Willis Carrier installed a commercial air conditioning system at a Brooklyn, NY printing plant. The system was the first to provide man-made control over temperature, humidity, ventilation and air quality. It was originally installed to help maintain quality at the printing plant and for the first two decades of the 20th Century, Carrier’s invention was used primarily to cool machines, not people. The development of the centrifugal chiller by Carrier in the early 1920s led to comfort cooling for movie theaters (remember the marquees with “It’s cool inside”?) and, before long, air conditioning came to department stores, office buildings and railroad cars.
- 1917 --- With the country at war with Germany, the British royal family changed its name from the German Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor.
- 1918 --- In Yekaterinburg, Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks, bringing an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty. In March 1917, revolution broke out on the streets of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and Nicholas was forced to abdicate his throne later that month. That November, the radical socialist Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized power in Russia from the provisional government, sued for peace with the Central Powers and set about establishing the world's first communist state. Civil war broke out in Russia in June 1918, and in July the anti-Bolshevik "White" Russian forces advanced on Yekaterinburg, where Nicholas and his family were located, during a campaign against the Bolshevik forces. Local authorities were ordered to prevent a rescue of the Romanovs, and after a secret meeting of the Yekaterinburg Soviet, a death sentence was passed on the imperial family. Late on the night of July 16, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and four servants were ordered to dress quickly and go down to the cellar of the house in which they were being held. There, the family and servants were arranged in two rows for a photograph they were told was being taken to quell rumors that they had escaped. Suddenly, a dozen armed men burst into the room and gunned down the imperial family in a hail of gunfire. Those who were still breathing when the smoked cleared were stabbed to death.
- 1938 --- Douglas Corrigan, an unemployed airplane mechanic, left Floyd Bennett Field in New York, supposedly headed for Los Angeles. He landed his 1929 Curtiss Robin monoplane about 28 hours later - not in California but in Ireland at Dublin’s Baldonnel Field. Corrigan made the 3,150-mile flight without benefit of a radio or navigational equipment other than a compass. His explanation for the monumental mistake was that he was following the wrong end of the compass needle. (Folks were never sure whether his feat was a mistake or moxie.) He was, however, welcomed home as a hero (ticker tape parade and all) and known forever more as ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan.
- 1941 --- The hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio came to an end after 56 games. The Yankee slugger couldn’t get a hit. Since May 16th, he batted at an average of .408. He hit 19 homers during the streak. Two pitchers were responsible for putting the skids on DiMaggio’s hitting streak: Al Smith and Jim Bagby of the Cleveland Indians. After a day off, Joltin’ Joe resumed his hitting ways, in a shorter, but still impressive, 14-game streak.
- 1944 --- An ammunition ship explodes while being loaded in Port Chicago, California, killing 332 people. The United States ' WWII military campaign in the Pacific was in full swing at the time. Poor procedures and lack of training led to the problem. The Port Chicago disaster eventually led to the implementation of far safer procedures for loading ammunition. In addition, greater emphasis was put on proper training in explosives handling and the munitions themselves were altered for greater safety. There is now a national memorial to the victims at the site.
- 1945 --- The final "Big Three" meeting between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain takes place towards the end of WWII. The conference of Allied victors at Potsdam, outside of Berlin, began with U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in attendance. The issues at hand for the Big Three and their staffs were the administration of a defeated Germany; the postwar borders of Poland; the occupation of Austria; the Soviet Union's "place" in Eastern Europe; war reparations; and the continuing war in the Pacific.
- 1950 --- The television show "The Colgate Comedy Hour" debuted featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
- 1954 --- The first Newport Jazz Festival was held on the grass tennis courts of the Newport Casino in Newport RI. Eddie Condon and his band played Muskrat Ramble as the opening number of the world’s first jazz fest.
- 1954 --- The Brooklyn Dodgers took to the field, making history as the first team with a majority of black players.
- 1955 --- Disneyland opened the gates to “The Happiest Place on Earth” in Anaheim, California. In the famous theme park’s first year of operation, some four million people visited Main Street USA, Fantasyland, Frontierland and Tomorrowland. In the early 1950s, Walt Disney began designing a huge amusement park to be built near Los Angeles. He intended Disneyland to have educational as well as amusement value and to entertain adults and their children. Land was bought in the farming community of Anaheim about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and construction began in 1954. In the summer of 1955, special invitations were sent out for the opening of Disneyland on July 17. Unfortunately, the pass was counterfeited and thousands of uninvited people were admitted into Disneyland on opening day. The park was not ready for the public: food and drink ran out, a women's high-heel shoe got stuck in the wet asphalt of Main Street USA, and the Mark Twain Steamboat nearly capsized from too many passengers. Disneyland soon recovered, however, and attractions such as the Castle, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Adventures, Space Station X-1, Jungle Cruise, and Stage Coach drew countless children and their parents.
- 1968 --- The Beatles’ feature-length cartoon, Yellow Submarine, premiered at the London Pavilion. The song, Yellow Submarine, had been a #2 hit for the supergroup (9/17/66) and was the inspiration for the movie.
- 1975 --- As part of a mission aimed at developing space rescue capability, the U.S. spacecraft Apollo 18 and the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 19 rendezvous and dock in space. As the hatch was opened between the two vessels, commanders Thomas P. Safford and Aleksei Leonov shook hands and exchanged gifts in celebration of the first such meeting between the two Cold War adversaries in space.
- 1981 --- Two skywalks suspended from the ceiling over the atrium lobby at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City collapsed, killing 114 people. Five years later, two design engineers were convicted for their gross negligence.
- 1987 --- Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and rear Admiral John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress at the "Iran-Contra" hearings.
- 1998 --- Just after seven in the evening, the inhabitants of the West Sepik area of Papua New Guinea felt the tremors from a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Eye-witnesses reported that minutes later the villages were hit in quick succession by three tsunami (tidal waves) reaching heights of14 meters (45 feet: taller than a four-story building), followed by two smaller waves. More than 2,000 people were killed and some 10,000 left homeless.
- Birthdays
- Angela Merkel
- Diahann Carroll
- Donald Sutherland
- Phyllis Diller
- Peter Schickele
- Phoebe Snow
- Spencer Davis
- Lucie Arnaz
- Erle Stanley Gradner
- John Jacob Astor
- James Cagney
- Elbridge Gerry (5th V.P.)
- Eleanor Steber
- Daryle Lamonica
- Nils Bohlin