Thursday July 19, 2012

• 201^st Day of 2012 / 165 Remaining
• 65 Days Until Autumn Begins

• Sunrise:6:03
• Sunset:8:29
• 14 Hours 26 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:6:42am
• Moon Set:8:41pm
• Moon’s Phase: 0%

• The Next Full Moon
• August 1 @ 8:27pm
• Full Sturgeon Moon
• Full Red Moon
• Full Green Corn Moon
• Full Grain Moon

The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

• Tides
• High:12:46pm/11:30pm
• Low:5:50am/5:42pm

• Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
• This Year:0.01
• Last Year:0.08
• Normal To Date:0.00
• Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80

• Holidays
• Stick Your Tongue Out Day
• National Daiquiri
• Lord of the Rings Day

• Feast of Tammuz-Israel
• National Liberation Day-Nicaragua
• Martyr's Day-Myanmar/Burma
• Sandinista Day-Nicaragua
• Flitch Day- Dunmow, Essex, England. (A married couple who can prove to a mock court with a jury of bachelors and maidens, that they have 'not wished themselves unwed,' are awarded a 'flitch' of bacon (half a pig). The origins of this custom are not certain, but references to it go back to 1104. It has been a regular civic event in Dunmow since 1855. Now held every 4 years, and frequently televised.)

• On This Day In …
• 1553 --- After only nine days as the monarch of England, Lady Jane Grey is deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane, beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on the throne. The decision would result in her execution. Lady Jane Grey was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and the cousin of King Edward VI. Lady Jane and Edward were the same age, and they had almost been married in 1549. In May 1553 she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley, the duke of Northumberland. When King Edward fell deathly ill with tuberculosis soon after, Jane's father-in-law, John Dudley persuaded the dying king that Jane, a Protestant, should be chosen the royal successor over Edward's half-sister Mary, a Catholic. On July 6, 1553, Edward died, and four days later Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England. Lady Jane's ascendance was supported by the Royal Council, but the populace supported Mary, the rightful heir. Two days into Lady Jane's reign, Dudley departed London with an army to suppress Mary's forces, and in his absence the Council declared him a traitor and Mary the queen, ending Jane's nine-day reign. By July 20, most of Dudley's army had deserted him, and he was arrested. The same day, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Her father-in-law was condemned for high treason, and on August 23 he was executed. On November 13, Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were likewise found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, but because of their youth and relative innocence Mary did not carry out the death sentences. However, in early 1554, Jane's father, Henry Grey, joined Sir Thomas Wyatt in an insurrection against Mary that broke out after her announcement of her intention to marry Philip II of Spain. While suppressing the revolt, Mary decided it was also necessary to eliminate all her political opponents, and on February 7 she signed the death warrants of Jane and her husband. On the morning of February 12, Jane watched her husband being carried away to execution from the window of her cell in the Tower of London, and two hours later she was also executed. As British tradition tells the story, after the 16-year-old girl was beheaded, her executioner held Jane's head aloft and recited the words: "So perish all the queen's enemies! Behold, the head of a traitor!"

• 1799 --- During Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been "dead" for nearly 2,000 years. When Napoleon, an emperor known for his enlightened view of education, art and culture, invaded Egypt in 1798, he took along a group of scholars and told them to seize all important cultural artifacts for France. Pierre Bouchard, one of Napoleon's soldiers, was aware of this order when he found the basalt stone, which was almost four feet long and two-and-a-half feet wide, at a fort near Rosetta. When the British defeated Napoleon in 1801, they took possession of the Rosetta Stone. Several scholars, including Englishman Thomas Young made progress with the initial hieroglyphics analysis of the Rosetta Stone. French Egyptologist Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), who had taught himself ancient languages, ultimately cracked the code and deciphered the hieroglyphics using his knowledge of Greek as a guide. Hieroglyphics used pictures to represent objects, sounds and groups of sounds. Once the Rosetta Stone inscriptions were translated, the language and culture of ancient Egypt was suddenly open to scientists as never before. The Rosetta Stone has been housed at the British Museum in London since 1802, except for a brief period during World War I. At that time, museum officials moved it to a separate underground location, along with other irreplaceable items from the museum's collection, to protect it from the threat of bombs.

• 1848 --- At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., a woman's rights convention--the first ever held in the United States--convenes with almost 200 women in attendance. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. As women, Mott and Stanton were barred from the convention floor, and the common indignation that this aroused in both of them was the impetus for their founding of the women's rights movement in the United States.

• 1909 --- The first unassisted triple play in major-league baseball was made by Cleveland Indians shortstop Neal Ball in a game against Boston.

• 1914 --- Boston began what was called its miracle drive as the Braves went from worst to first in the National League. They won the pennant and the World Series as well.

• 1946 --- Marilyn Monroe acted in her first screen test. She passed it with flying colors and was signed to her first contract with Twentieth Century Fox Studios. The first of her 29 films was Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay!

• 1954 --- "The Fellowship of the Ring," the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic, "The Lord of the Rings," was published.

• 1954 --- Sun Records in Memphis released it's first single (Sun 209) by 19-year-old Elvis Presley, "That's All Right (Mama)" backed with "Blue Moon of Kentucky." Both tracks featured guitarist Scotty Moore and bass player Bill Black.

• 1960 --- Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants became the first pitcher to get a one-hitter in his major-league debut. Marichal allowed just one hit (a double in the eighth inning) as the Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies.

• 1969 --- Apollo 11, with Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins on board, went into orbit around the moon.

• 1979 --- In Nicaragua, the dictatorship of the Somozas was overthrown by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN).

• 1980 --- The Summer Olympics began in Moscow with dozens of nations boycotting because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.

• 1984 --- Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democratic Party to become the first woman from a major political party to run for the office of U.S. Vice President. Ferraro, age 48, campaigned with presidential hopeful Walter ‘Fritz’ Mondale of Minnesota. Both lost in a landslide to the GOP ticket of Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

• 1985 --- Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was chosen to be the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the space shuttle. McAuliffe and six other crew members died when the Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff.

• 1989 --- 181 out of 293 passengers and crew survived the crash of a United Airlines DC-10. The pilot of Flight 232, bound for Chicago, reported trouble to the Sioux City, Iowa airport half an hour before it slammed into the Sioux City runway. Prepared emergency personnel were credited with helping many to survive the fiery crash.

• 1996 --- The Centennial Olympics opened in Atlanta, Georgia. In the biggest Olympics staged in the 100-year history of the Games, 197 nations marched in the opening ceremonies. Montreal singer Celine Dion sang "The Power of the Dream," written by David Foster, Kenneth (Babyface) Edmonds and Linda Thompson -- and commissioned for the Olympics. Former heavyweight champ and Atlanta native Evander Holyfield carried the Olympic torch into the stadium. Holyfield handed off to American swimmer Janet Evans Evans, who ran up the aisle with the torch and lighted the torch of heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali. (Evans also swam the 800m in the Olympics and was talking with a German TV crew when the infamous Olympic Centennial Park bomb exploded.)

• 2003 --- A 42-year-old Austrian man received the world's first transplanted tongue at Vienna's General Hospital. During the 14-hour surgery, doctors removed a malignant tumor and successfully attached the new tongue.

• 2011 --- Summoned by British lawmakers to answer for a phone hacking and bribery scandal at one of his tabloids, media mogul Rupert Murdoch said he was humbled and ashamed, but accepted no responsibility for wrongdoing.

• Birthdays
• Edgar Degas
• George McGovern
• Brian May
• Commander Cody
• Ilie Nastase
• George Dzundza
• Samuel Colt
• Lizzie Borden
• Charles Horace Mayo
• Charles Teagarden
• Pat Hingle
• Keith Godchaux
• Allen Collins