- 206th Day of 2013 /159 Remaining
- 59 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:08
- Sunset:8:24
- 14 Hours 16 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:10:13pm
- Moon Set:9:39am
- Moon’s Phase:87 %
- The Next Full Moon
- August 20 @ 6:45 pm
- 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:12:49am/2:05pm
- Low:7:21am/7:49pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:0.0
- This Year:0.0
- Last Year:0.01
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Hot Fudge Sundae Day
- Culinarians Day
- Constitution Day-Puerto Rico
- Republic Day-Tunisia
- Galicia National Day-Spain
- Guanacase Day-Costa Rica
- Yalong Cultural Festival-Tibet
- On This Day In …
- 1854 --- The paper shirt collar was patented by Walter Hunt of New York City. The once-popular collar was very much a part of a clergyman’s wardrobe.
- 1861 --- The Crittenden Resolution, which called for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, was passed by the U.S. Congress.
- 1868 --- Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory.
- 1897 --- Jack London leaves for the Klondike to join the gold rush, where he will write his first successful stories. While in the Klondike, London began submitting stories to magazines. In 1900, his first collection of stories, The Son of the Wolf, was published. Three years later, his story The Call of the Wild made him famous around the country. London continued to write stories of adventure amid the harsh natural elements. During his 17-year career, he wrote 50 fiction and nonfiction books. He settled in northern California about 1911, having already written most of his best work. London, a heavy drinker, died in 1916.
- 1909 --- Louis Bleriot of France crossed the English Channel in a 28-hp monoplane with a wingspan of just 23 feet. It was the first time that trick had been accomplished. Actually, it was the world’s first international, overseas flight.
- 1917 --- Mata Hari is sentenced to death by a French court for spying on Germany's behalf during World War I. Mata Hari was tried in a military court and sentenced, on July 25, 1917, to execution by firing squad. As the Times of London reported on October 15, 1917, the day of her execution, "She was in the habit of meeting notorious
German spy-masters outside French territory, and she was proved to have communicated important information to them, in return for which she had received several large sums of money since May 1916." Her trial was riddled with bias and circumstantial evidence, however, and many believed the French authorities, as well as the press, trumped her up as "the greatest woman spy of the century" as a distraction for the huge losses the French army was suffering on the Western Front. Viewed by many as a victim due to her career as a dancer and courtesan and the French need to find a scapegoat, Mata Hari remains one of the most glamorous figures to come out of the shadowy world of espionage, and the archetype of the female spy.
- 1925 --- Station 2XAG in Schenectady, NY became the first radio station in the U.S. to broadcast with a 50,000-watt transmitter. The station, soon known as WGY Radio, could broadcast with 50,000 watts, since it was owned by the General Electric Company -- a company that knew lots about watts. Today, WGY still broadcasts with its original call letters and is still using 50,000 watts of power.
- 1941 --- Henry Ford sits down at his desk in Dearborn, Michigan and writes a letter to the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The letter effusively praises Gandhi and his campaign of civil disobedience aimed at forcing the British colonial government out of India.
- 1942 --- Capitol Records first number one hit made it to the top this day. It was one of their first six records released on July 1. The new
company’s hit was Cow Cow Boogie, by Ella Mae Morse and Freddy Slack.
- 1943 --- Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in a coup.
- 1946 --- The U.S. detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device.
- 1946 --- Crooner Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis staged their
first show as a team at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ. Actually, the two had met while performing -- separately -- at the Glass Hat in New York City and decided to try an ad-lib act together. The rest is entertainment history.
- 1956 --- 52 of the 1,662 passengers and crew on board the Andrea Doria died in a collision with the Swedish-American liner Stockholm near Cape Cod. Launched on June 16, 1951 and named after a famous Italian admiral, the Andrea Doria was Italy’s most luxurious liner. For three years the Andrea Doria reigned supreme on the Atlantic cruise routes while gaining the moniker ‘Grand Dame of the Sea’. At 11:10 p.m., sixty miles from Nantucket Island, the heavily reinforced bow of the Stockholm tore through the starboard side of the Andrea Doria. Thanks to the
ship’s S.O.S. signals, a group of ships soon arrived and provided much-needed lifeboats to complete the abandonment of the Andrea Doria. Newsmen and cameras caught her eventual fate and the entire world listened on the radio as she slid beneath the waves to settle in 225 feet of water at 10:09 a.m. All of the 52 who were lost died as a direct result of the initial collision.
- 1965 --- Bob Dylan rocks the world of folk music when he performs at the Newport Folk Festival and abandons his acoustic guitar for an electric one. By going electric, Dylan eventually moved rock and folk music closer together. He also infused rock and roll, known then for its mostly lightweight lyrics, with a more intellectual, poetic sensibility. In 1960, Dylan dropped out of school and moved to New York City, where he met his idol, folk musician Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), and became involved in the Greenwich Village coffeehouse folk scene and its social protest music. His first album, featuring his distinct, gravelly-voiced vocals, was released in 1962. Dylan's next album, the following year, included "Blowin' in the Wind" (which became a major hit for the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary) and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," two of the best-known folk songs of the era. With his third album, in 1964, "The Times They Are A-Changin'," Dylan established himself as the pre-eminent folk singer-songwriter of his generation. In 1965, Dylan released "Bringing It All Back Home," a half-acoustic, half-electric recording in which he was backed by a nine-piece band, a departure from his previous pared-down performances. That summer, he made his historic live performance with an electric guitar at the folk festival in
Newport, where he played such songs as "Maggie's Farm" and "Mr. Tambourine Man." Some fans reportedly booed Dylan at the time, although it's long been a topic of debate as to whether the crowd was unhappy with Dylan or the poor sound system.
- 1969 --- President Richard Nixon announces that henceforth the United States will expect its Asian allies to tend to their own military defense. The Nixon Doctrine, as the president's statement came to be known, clearly indicated his determination to "Vietnamize" the Vietnam War.
- 1975 --- The musical "A Chorus Line" opened on Broadway.
- 1978 --- Cincinnati Reds’ first baseman Pete Rose broke the National League record for hitting safely in consecutive games as he hit safely in his 38th straight game. He passed Tommy Holmes who had held the record since 1945. Charlie Hustle, as Rose was known, went on to extend his streak to 44 games (streak dates: June 14-July 31, 1978). Joe DiMaggio set the American League -- and major-league -- record, hitting safely in 56 consecutive games (May 15-July 16, 1941).
- 1978 --- Louise Joy Brown, the world's first baby to be conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) is born at Oldham and District General
Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents Lesley and Peter Brown. The healthy baby was delivered shortly before midnight by caesarean section and weighed in at five pounds, 12 ounces.
- 1984 --- Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first
woman to walk in space. She was aboard the orbiting space station Salyut 7.
- 2008 --- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that will ban trans fats in restaurants and retail food establishments. The ban goes into effect on January 1, 2010. California is the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants. There are several cities that have banned them, and California and Oregon have previously banned trans fats in school meals.
- Birthdays
- Arthur James Balfour
- Iman
- Nate Thurmond
- Maria Weston Chapman
- Maxfield Parrish
- Johnny Hodges
- Walter Brennan
- Jack Gilford
- Verdine White
- Walter Payton