- 171st Day of 2013 / 194 Remaining
- 1 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:5:47
- Sunset:8:34
- 14 Hours 47 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:5:45pm
- Moon Set:3:16am
- Moon’s Phase:89 %
- The Next Full Moon
- June 23 @ 4:33am
- Full Strawberry Moon
- Full Rose Moon
The Strawberry Moon was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!
- Tides
- High:10:36am/9:33pm
- Low:3:37am/3:03pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:23.80
- This Year:16.36
- Last Year:15.77
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Vanilla Milkshake Day
- Ice Cream Soda Day
- World Refugee Day
- World Juggling Day
- Admission Day-West Virginia
- Flag Day-Argentina
- Martyr’s Day-Eritrea
- On This Day In …
- 1789 --- In Versailles, France, the deputies of the Third Estate, which represent commoners and the lower clergy, meet on the Jeu de Paume, an indoor tennis court, in defiance of King Louis XVI's order to disperse. In these modest surroundings, they took a historic oath not to disband until a new French constitution had been adopted.
- 1793 --- Eli Whitney applied for a cotton gin patent. He received the patent on March 14. The cotton gin initiated the American mass-production concept.
- 1837 --- Princess Victoria became Queen Victoria of England on this day, following the death of her uncle, King William IV. The Princess was only 18 when she was called to rule Britannia.
- 1863 --- Virginia’s cessation from the Union gave reason for the birth of West Virginia. 40 western counties of Virginia did not secede, and instead, formed their own government, officially entering the United States of America this day as the 35th state. Charleston is the capital of the Mountain State which boasts of having the most rugged terrain of any state east of the Mississippi. Throughout the forested hills of West Virginia, you’ll also find many cardinals (the state bird) and multitudes of the state flower, the big rhododendron.
- 1893 --- A jury in New Bedford, Mass., found Lizzie Borden innocent of the ax murders of her father and stepmother.
- 1900 --- In response to widespread foreign encroachment upon China's national affairs, Chinese nationalists launch the so-called Boxer Rebellion in Peking. Calling themselves I Ho Ch'uan, or "the Righteous and Harmonious Fists," the nationalists occupied Peking, killed several Westerners, including German ambassador Baron von Ketteler, and besieged the foreign legations in the diplomatic quarter of the city
- 1941 --- After a long and bitter struggle on the part of Henry Ford against cooperation with organized labor unions, Ford Motor Company signs its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO).
- 1947 --- Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the man who brought organized crime to the West Coast, is shot and killed at his mistress Virginia Hill's home in Beverly Hills, California. Siegel had been talking to his associate Allen Smiley when three bullets were fired through the window and into his head, killing him instantly.
- 1948 --- Toast of the Town premiered on CBS-TV. New York entertainment columnist and critic Ed Sullivan was the host. It started his TV career that would span 23 years on a weekly basis. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made their television debut on the show. Also on the guest list: Rodgers & Hammerstein and pianist Eugene List. The first show of Toast of the Town cost $1375 to produce, including just $375 for the talent.
- 1950 --- Willie Mays graduated from high school and immediately signed with the New York Giants for a $6,000 bonus. The ‘Say Hey Kid’ would play most of his career for the Giants -- in both New York and San Francisco -- becoming a baseball legend. As his career came to a close, Mays was traded to the New York Mets. Mays, an all-star center fielder, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
- 1963 --- To lessen the threat of an accidental nuclear war, the United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a "hot line" communication system between the two nations. The agreement was a small step in reducing tensions between the United States and the USSR following the October 1962 Missile Crisis in Cuba, which had brought the two nations to the brink of nuclear war.
- 1967 --- Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.
- 1975 --- Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977's Star Wars. Jaws was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category and took home three Oscars, for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound.
- 1977 --- With a flip of a switch in Prudhoe Bay, crude oil from the nation's largest oil field begins flowing south down the trans-Alaska pipeline to the ice-free port of Valdez, Alaska. The steel pipeline, 48 inches in diameter, winds through 800 miles of Alaskan wilderness, crossing three Arctic mountain ranges and hundreds of rivers and streams. Environmentalists fought to prevent its construction, saying it would destroy a pristine ecosystem, but they were ultimately overruled by Congress, who saw it as a way of lessening America's dependence on foreign oil. The trans-Alaska pipeline was the world's largest privately funded construction project to that date, costing $8 billion and taking three years to build.
- 1979 --- President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter climb to the White House roof to celebrate the installation of solar-energy panels there. Carter presided over a nation still suffering from the fallout of the 1973-74 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo. Carter, a proponent of alternative and sustainable energy sources, put into practice what he preached and, in June 1979, had a $28,000 solar-heating system installed on the White House roof. The system consisted of 32 photovoltaic panels that generated enough energy to provide hot water for the entire White House. During his term Carter also had an energy-efficient wood-burning stove installed in the drafty White House residential quarters.
- 2002 --- A gas explosion in a Chinese coal mine kills 111 workers on this day in 2002. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this tragic incident is that it was not unique. Poor safety regulations in China have long made mining there an extremely hazardous occupation. In the first five years of the 21st century, there were five mining disasters in China that killed more than 100 people. On February 14, 2005, a gas explosion killed more than 200 people at the Sunjiawan mine in Liaoning province. Two months earlier, 166 people lost their lives, 141 by poison gas, at the Chenjiashen mine in Shanxi province. And just one month before that disaster, 148 workers were killed at the Daping mine in Henan. In 2004, approximately 6,300 people were killed in Chinese mines.
- Birthdays
- Lillian Hellman
- Nicole Kidman
- Chet Atkins
- Lionel Richie
- Olympia Dukakis
- Danny Aiello
- Martin Landau
- Brian Wilson
- Anne Murray
- Bob Vila
- Tina Sinatra
- John Goodman
- Errol Flynn