Thursday March 13, 2014

•  72^nd Day of 2014 / 293 Remaining
• 7 Days Until The First Day of Spring

• Sunrise:7:22
• Sunset:7:15
• 11 Hours 53 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:4:48pm
• Moon Set:5:32am
• Moon’s Phase: 92 %

• The Next Full Moon
• March 16 @ 10:10am
• Full Crow Moon
• Full Crust Moon
• Full Sap Moon
• Full Lenten Moon

As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

• Tides
• High:9:27am/10:42pm
• Low:3:43am/4:08pm

• Rainfall
• This Year:8.68
• Last Year:14.59
• Average Year to Date:19.78

• Holidays
• National Cocoanut Torte Day
• Check Your Batteries Day
• Good Samaritan Involvement Day
• National Open an Umbrella Indoors Day
• Planet Uranus Day

• Bretzelsonndeg-Luxembourg
• World Kidney Day

• On This Day In …
• 1639 --- New College was renamed Harvard College for clergyman John Harvard.
  

  

• 1781 ---The German-born English astronomer William Hershel discovers Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. Herschel's discovery of a new planet was the first to be made in modern times,

  

  and also the first to be made by use of a telescope, which allowed Herschel to distinguish Uranus as a planet, not a star, as previous astronomers believed. Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.

• 1852 --- The New York Lantern newspaper published an Uncle Sam cartoon for the first time. The drawing was the work of Frank Henry Bellew. Through the years, the caricature changed with Uncle Sam becoming symbolic of the U.S. being just like a favorite uncle. A prime example of this symbolism were U.S. Army posters that

  

  portrayed Uncle Sam pointing and saying, “I want you!” As a result, many of us joined his ranks. Uncle Sam always wore a nifty suit of red, white and blue, a hat with stars and stripes down the trousers of both of his long legs. The origins of how he became known as Uncle Sam are varied, but include a dock worker wondering what the words “From U.S.” meant on shipping crates. Reportedly, he was told jokingly, “Oh, this is from your Uncle Sam.”

• 1868 --- For the first time in U.S. history, the impeachment trial of an American president gets underway in the U.S. Senate. President Andrew Johnson, reviled by the Republican-dominated Congress for his views on Reconstruction, stood accused of having violated the controversial Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress over his veto in 1867.

• 1877 --- Chester Greenwood of Farmington, ME patented the earmuff. Of course, being in very Northern Maine, he picked the right

  

  place to patent such much-needed outdoor gear, as it is extremely cold in upstate Maine for, oh, about 10 months a year.

• 1881 --- Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, is killed in the streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary "People's Will" group. The People's Will, organized in

  

  1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russia's czarist autocracy. They murdered officials and made several attempts on the czar's life before finally assassinating him on March 13, 1881.

• 1891 --- Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen had written his play Ghosts in 1881. The play, which dealt with syphilis, was swiftly and universally reviled by conventionally minded critics. However, Ibsen's works had caught on with progressive theater companies across Europe. A decade after it was written, the play opens in London, where it continued to be treated harshly by critics. Today, however, the play is one of Ibsen's most commonly performed works.

• 1893 --- The original Waldorf Hotel opened. It had 450 rooms and almost 1,000 employees.
  

  

• 1901 --- Andrew Carnegie announced that he was retiring from business and that he would spend the rest of his days giving away his fortune. His net worth was estimated at $300 million.

• 1923 --- A great improvement in radio receivers was advertised. The new models had a concealed speaker and eliminated the need for headphones, which were considered a nuisance because they were so heavy to wear and messed up hairdos.

• 1930 --- It was announced that the planet Pluto had been discovered by scientist Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory.
  

  

• 1935 --- Three-thousand-year-old archives were found in Jerusalem confirming some biblical history.

• 1961 --- President John F. Kennedy proposes a 10-year, multibillion-dollar aid program for Latin America. The program came to be known as the Alliance for Progress and was designed to improve U.S. relations with Latin America, which had been severely damaged in recent years.

• 1964 --- Kitty Genovese, 28, was stabbed to death near her Queens, New York, home. The case came to be a symbol of urban apathy, though initial reports that 38 neighbors ignored Genovese's calls for help have been disputed.

• 1969 --- The Apollo 9 astronauts returned to Earth after the conclusion of a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module.
  

  

• 1973 --- Pink Floyd released "Dark Side of the Moon".
  

  

• 1992 --- A 6.8-magnitude earthquake near Erzincan, Turkey, and an unusually powerful aftershock two days later kill at least 500 people and leave 50,000 people homeless.
  

  

• 1996 --- At Dunblane, a 13th-century village on the edge of the Scottish Highlands, 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton bursts into the gymnasium of the Dunblane Primary School with four guns and opens fire on a kindergarten class. Sixteen children and their

  

  teacher, Gwenne Mayor, were fatally shot before Hamilton turned the gun on himself. Twelve other children in the class, along with one other adult, were injured.

• 2002 --- Fox aired "Celebrity Boxing." Tonya Harding beat Paula Jones, Danny Banaduce beat Barry Williams and Todd Bridges defeated Vanilla Ice.

• 2003 --- A report in the journal "Nature" reported that scientists had found 350,000-year-old human footprints in Italy. The 56 prints were

  

  made by three early, upright-walking humans that were descending the side of a volcano.

• 2004 --- Luciano Pavarotti gave his final opera performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He still had concerts planned up until October 12, 2005.
  

  

• Birthdays
• Percival Lowell
• Charles (Earl) Grey
• William H Macy
• Dana Delaney
• Neil Sedaka
• Adam Clayton (U2)
• L Ron Hubbard
• Rosalind Elias