- 212TH Day of the Year / 153 Remaining
- Autumn Begins in 53 Days
- Sunrise:6:13
- Sunset:8:18
- 14 Hours 5 Minutes
- Moon Rise:10:39am
- Moon Set:10:41pm
- Moon’s Phase 4%
- Full Moon August 10 @ 11:10am
- Full Sturgeon 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 Tide:1:37am/2:48pm
- Low Tide:8:03am/8:46pm
- Holidays
- La Hae Hawai’i (Flag Day)-Hawai’i
- National Raspberry Cake Day
- National Chili Dog Day
- Mutt’s Day
- Uncommon Instrument Awareness Day
- Imbolc/Oimelc/Brigid/Paganism (Northern Hemisphere)
- Lunasa/Lammas/Paganism (Southern Hemisphere)
- On This Day
- 1703 --- Daniel Defoe is put in the pillory as punishment for seditious libel, brought about by the publication of a politically satirical pamphlet. Defoe's middle-class father had hoped Defoe would enter the ministry, but Defoe decided to become a merchant instead. After he went bankrupt in 1692, he turned to political pamphleteering to support himself. A deft writer, Defoe's pamphlets were highly effective in moving readers. His pamphlet The Shortest Way with Dissenters was an attack on High Churchman, satirically written as if from the High Church point of view but extending their arguments to the point of foolishness. Both sides of the dispute, Dissenters and High Church alike, took the pamphlet seriously, and both sides were outraged to learn it was a hoax. Defoe was arrested for seditious libel in May 1703. While awaiting his punishment, he wrote the spirited "Hymn to the Pillory." The public sympathized with Defoe and threw flowers, instead of the customary rocks, at him while he stood in the pillory.
- 1715 --- A hurricane strikes the east coast of Florida, sinking 10 Spanish treasure ships and killing nearly 1,000 people, on this day in 1715. All of the gold and silver onboard at the time would not be recovered until 250 years later. From 1701, Spain sent fleets of ships to the Western Hemisphere to bring back natural resources, including gold and silver. These groups of ships were heavily fortified against pirates, but there was little that could be done to protect them from bad weather. On July 24, 10 Spanish ships and one French ship left Havana, Cuba, on their way to Europe, carrying tons of gold and silver coins, about 14 million pesos worth. The Spanish ships stayed very close to the Florida coast, as was the custom, while the French ship, the Grifon, ventured further out from the shore. A week later, as the ships were between Cape Canaveral and Fort Pierce, in modern-day Florida, the winds picked up dramatically. The hurricane advanced quickly and, one by one, the ships were wrecked. The Nuestra Senora de la Regla sank, sending 200 people and 120 tons of coins to a watery grave. The Santa Cristo de San Ramon went down with 120 sailors aboard. In all, somewhere between 700 and 1,000 people lost their lives in the wrecks.
- 1777 --- 19-year-old French aristocrat, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, accepts a commission as a major-general in the Continental Army—without pay.
- 1790 --- The first U.S. patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont. Mr. Hopkins did not get Patent #1 as thousands of patents were issued before someone came up with the bright idea to number them. The inventor patented a process for making potash and pearl ashes.
- 1792 --- The cornerstone of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, PA, was laid. It was the first building to be used only as a U.S. government building.
- 1845 --- The French Army introduced the saxophone to its military band. The musical instrument was the invention of Adolphe Sax of Belgium.
- 1914 --- The New York Stock Exchange closed due to the outbreak of World War I. (Trading didn't resume until December.)
- 1928 --- MGM’s Leo the lion roared for the first time. He introduced MGM’s first talking picture, White Shadows on the South Seas. Leo’s dialogue was more extensive than the film’s, whose only spoken word was, “Hello.”
- 1933 --- Listeners turned up the radio to hear the announcer introduce “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy!” The show was one of the longest-running adventure programs on radio, continuing until 1951.
- 1961 --- The first tie in All-Star Game history was recorded as the second All-Star Game of the year (there were two a year back then) was stopped in the 9th inning due to rain at Boston’s Fenway Park.
- 1962 --- The 'Little Debbie' trademark was registered by McKee Baking Co. for their line of snack cakes (first sold in 1960).
- 1964 --- Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.
- 1969 --- A Moscow police chief reported that thousands of Moscow telephone booths had been made inoperable by thieves who had stolen phone parts in order to convert their acoustic guitars to electric.
- 1971 --- The first men to ride in a vehicle on the moon did so on this day in the LRV (lunar rover vehicle). This example of a lunar dune buggy carried Apollo 15 astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin for five miles on the lunar surface. Their first stop at the rim of Elbow Crater was televised back to Earth to millions of viewers.
- 1972 --- Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, withdrew from the ticket with presidential candidate George McGovern following disclosure that Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment for depression. Eagleton was replaced by Sargent Shriver, who, incidentally, was the only Democratic vice-presidential nominee who did not serve in Congress at any point in his or her career.
- 1974 --- One of the President Nixon’s main men, John Ehrlichman was sentenced to prison for his role in the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Ellsberg was the Pentagon consultant who leaked the "Pentagon Papers" (which purportedly told Americans how and why the U.S. really got into the Vietnam War). Ehrlichman also created the White House unit that was called the ‘plumbers’ because it was intended to plug leaks.
- 1977 --- The "Son of Sam" killer claimed his last victims when he shot and killed Stacy Moskowitz, 20, and seriously wounded her date as they sat in a parked car in Brooklyn, N.Y. (David Berkowitz was arrested less than two weeks later. He is serving six sentences of 25 years to life.)
- 1985 --- Prince was big at the box office with the autobiographical story of the Minneapolis rock star, Purple Rain. The flick grossed $7.7 million in its first three days of release on 917 movie screens. The album of the same name was the top LP in the U.S., as well.
- 1988 --- Willie Stargell became 200th man inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Stargell had 475 career homers, twice leading the NL (48 in 1971, 44 in 1973). He drove in 1540 runs, scored 1195 and had 2232 hits with a lifetime batting average of .282
- 1990 --- Nolan Ryan became the 20th major league pitcher to win 300 games as his Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3.
- 1991 --- U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
- 1999 --- The spacecraft Lunar Prospect crashed into the moon. It was a mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface. The craft had been launched on January 6, 1998.
- 2008 --- Scientists reported the Phoenix spacecraft had confirmed the presence of frozen water in Martian soil.
- Birthdays
- JK Rowling
- Geraldine Chaplin
- Bill Berry (REM)
- Wesley Snipes
- Fatboy Slim
- Milton Friedman
- Hank Jones
- Evonne Goolagong
- Bill Todman
- Curt Gowdy
- Dean Cain
- Ahmet Ertegun
- Louise Smith
