- 156th Day of 2014 / 209 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 16 Days
- Sunrise:5:47
- Sunset:8:28
- 14 Hours 41 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:1:03pm
- Moon Set:1:05am
- First Quarter
- The Next Full Moon
- June 12 @ 4:26 am
- Full Rose Moon
- Full Strawberry Moon
- 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:4:21am/6:02pm
- Low:10:57am
- Rainfall
- This Year:12.65
- Last Year:16.36
- Average Year to Date:23.67
- Holidays
- Gingerbread Day
- Children's Awareness Memorial Day
- National Cancer Survivors Day
- World Environment Day
- Constitution Day-Denmark
- Day of the Rice God-Japan
- Liberation Day-Seychelles
- Dame Lois Browne-Evans Day-Bermuda
- On This Day In …
- 1752 --- Benjamin Franklin flew a kite for the first time to demonstrate that lightning was a form of electricity.
- 1783 --- A hot-air balloon was demonstrated by Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier. It reached a height of 1,500 feet.
- 1851 --- Harriet Beecher Stow published the first installment of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in "The National Era."
- 1870 --- A huge section of the city of Constantinople, Turkey, is set ablaze. When the smoke finally cleared, 3,000 homes were destroyed and 900 people were dead.
- 1876 --- For one thin dime, visitors to Philadelphia’s Centennial Exposition were able to buy foil-wrapped bananas, a popular taste treat in the United States.
- 1927 --- Johnny Weissmuller set a pair of world records in swimming events. Weissmuller, who would soon become Tarzan in the movies, set marks in the 100-yard, and 220-yard,free-style swimming competition.
- 1933 ---The United States went off the gold standard, a monetary system in which currency is backed by gold, when Congress enacted a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold. The United States had been on a gold standard since 1879, except for an embargo on gold exports during World War I, but bank failures during the Great Depression of the 1930s frightened the public into hoarding gold, making the policy untenable.
- 1944 --- More than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries placed at the Normandy assault area, while 3,000 Allied ships cross the English Channel in preparation for the invasion of Normandy—D-Day. The day of the invasion of occupied France had been postponed repeatedly since May, mostly because of bad weather and the enormous tactical obstacles involved. Finally, despite less than ideal weather conditions—or perhaps because of them—General Eisenhower decided on June 5 to set the next day as D-Day, the launch of the largest amphibious operation in history. Ike knew that the Germans would be expecting postponements beyond the sixth, precisely because weather conditions were still poor.
- 1947 --- In one of the most significant speeches of the Cold War, Secretary of State George C. Marshall calls on the United States to assist in the economic recovery of postwar Europe. His speech provided the impetus for the so-called Marshall Plan, under which the United States sent billions of dollars to Western Europe to rebuild the war-torn countries.
- 1956 --- Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounced Josef Stalin to the Soviet Communist Party Congress.
- 1956 --- Elvis Presley made his second appearance on Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theatre. Presley sang Heartbreak Hotel, his number one hit.
- 1959 --- Robert Zimmerman graduated from high school in Hibbing, MN. Zimmerman was known as a greaser to classmates in the remote rural community, because of his long sideburns and leather jacket. Soon, Zimmerman would be performing at coffee houses at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and later, in Greenwich Village in New York City. He would also change his name to Bob Dylan (after poet Dylan Thomas, so the story goes).
- 1963 --- British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns his post following revelations that he had lied to the House of Commons about his sexual affair with Christine Keeler, an alleged prostitute. At the time of the affair, Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny "Eugene" Ivanov, a Soviet naval attache who some suspected was a spy. Although Profumo assured the government that he had not compromised national security in any way, the scandal threatened to topple Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's government.
- 1967 --- Israel responds to an ominous build-up of Arab forces along its borders by launching simultaneous attacks against Egypt and Syria. Jordan subsequently entered the fray, but the Arab coalition was no match for Israel's proficient armed forces. In six days of fighting, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, the Golan Heights of Syria, and the West Bank and Arab sector of East Jerusalem, both previously under Jordanian rule. By the time the United Nations cease-fire took effect on June 11, Israel had more than doubled its size.
- 1967 --- New franchises in the National Hockey League were awarded to the Minnesota North Stars, the California Golden Seals and the Los Angeles Kings. The North Stars moved to Dallas in the mid-1990s and the Golden Seals are now nonexistent.
- 1968 --- Senator Robert F. Kennedy is shot three times in a hail of gunfire in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Five others were wounded. The senator had just completed a speech celebrating his victory in theCalifornia presidential primary. The shooter, Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, had a smoking .22 revolver wrested from his grip and was promptly arrested. Kennedy, critically wounded, was rushed to the hospital, where he fought for his life for the next 24 hours. On the morning of June 6, he died. He was 42 years old. On June 8, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, also the final resting place of his assassinated older brother, President John F. Kennedy. He was urged by many of his supporters to run for president as an anti-war and socially progressive Democratic. Hesitant until he saw positive primary returns for fellow anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on March 16, 1968. Fifteen days later, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the key Democratic hopeful, with McCarthy and Kennedy trailing closely behind. Kennedy conducted an energetic campaign and on June 4, 1968, won a major victory in the California primary. He had won five out of six primaries and seemed a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination and, some thought, the presidency.
- 1971 --- James Taylor's "You've Got A Friend" was released.
- 1975 --- Egypt reopened the Suez Canal to international shipping, eight years after it was closed because of the 1967 war with Israel.
- 1977 --- The Apple II, the first personal computer went on sale.
- 1981 --- The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that five men in Los Angeles were suffering from a rare pneumonia found in patients with weakened immune systems. They were the first recognized cases of what came to be known as AIDS.
- 1993 --- Julie Krone rides 13-to-1 shot Colonial Affair to victory in the Belmont Stakes to become the first female jockey ever to win a Triple Crown race. The race was Krone’s fourth mount in a classic, and the seventh time a woman had jockeyed in a Triple Crown race. The race began tragically, as Prairie Bayou, who placed in the Kentucky Derby and won the Preakness that year, tumbled and broke his shin and ankle; the horse had to be put down after the race. Still, Julie Krone was able to maintain her focus and rode Colonial Affair to a win by two-and-a-quarter lengths over Kissin Kris.
- 1998 --- 3,400 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union walk out on their jobs at a General Motors (GM) metal-stamping factory in Flint, Michigan, beginning a strike that will last seven weeks and stall production at GM facilities nationwide.
- 2007 --- Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation. (President George W. Bush later commuted the prison sentence.)
- Birthdays
- Bill Moyers
- Laurie Anderson
- Suze Orman
- Kenny G
- Pancho Villa
- Ruth Benedict
- Mark Wahlberg
- Thomas Chippendale
- William Boyd
- Spalding Gray
