- 82nd Day of 2012 / 284 Remaining
- 90 Days Until Summer Begins
- Sunrise:7:09
- Sunset:7:25
- 12 Hr 16 Min
- Moon Rise:6:53am
- Moon Set:7:53pm
- Moon’s Phase: New Moon
- The Next Full Moon
- April 6 @ 2:20pm
- Full Pink Moon
- Full Fish Moon
- Full Sprouting Grass Moon
- Full Full Fish Moon
This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Full Fish Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.
- Tides
- High:11:44am/11:50pm
- Low:5:34am/5:35pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:10.35
- Last Year:21.43
- Normal To Date19.58:
- Annual Average: 22.28
- Holidays
- American Diabetes Association Alert Day
- As Young As You Feel Day
- National Bavarian Crepes Day
- National Letting Go of Stuff Day
- Laser Day
- International Goof Off Day
- International Day of the Seal
- UN World Day for Water
- Emancipation Day-Puerto Rico
- New Years Day-India
- Arab League Day-Syria
- Nauryz Meyrami (Traditional Spring Holiday)-Kazakhstan
- Novruz Bayram-Azerbaijan
- On This Day In …
- 1457 --- Gutenberg Bible became the first printed book.
- 1765 --- Britain enacted the Stamp Act to raise money from the American colonies.
- 1841 --- Cornstarch patented. The Englishman Orlando Jones patented cornstarch in 1841.
- 1894 --- Competition for the coveted hockey award known as Lord Stanley’s Cup began. Montreal and Ottawa played for the first championship honors on this day. Montreal took home the trophy. The original trophy cost $48.67 and was purchased the previous year by Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston. He then donated it to the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. The inaugural champion was the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association. From 1894 on, the winner of the Stanley Cup has had to win a series of playoff games first. In 1926, the playoff format took the order that remains in place today. The National Hockey League has been the permanent forum. The teams with the most Stanley Cup titles since 1927 include the Detroit Red Wings (9) and Toronto Maple Leafs (11), with the Montreal Canadiens outdistancing the rest of the NHL (24 championship trophies). Larry Robinson holds the record for playing in the most Stanley Cup games (203 for Montreal and 24 for the LA Kings).
- 1901 --- Japan proclaimed that it was determined to keep Russia from encroaching on Korea.
- 1933 --- President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Beer and Wine Revenue Act. This law levies a federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to raise revenue for the federal government and gives individual states the option to further regulate the sale and distribution of beer and wine. With the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act in 1919, temperance advocates in the U.S. finally achieved their long sought-after goal of prohibiting the sale of alcohol or "spirits." Together, the new laws prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of liquor and ushered in the era known as "Prohibition," defining an alcoholic beverage as anything containing over 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. President Woodrow Wilson had unsuccessfully tried to veto the Volstead Act, which set harsh punishments for violating the 18th Amendment and endowed the Internal Revenue Service with unprecedented regulatory and enforcement powers. In the end, Prohibition proved difficult and expensive to enforce and actually increased illegal trafficking without cutting down on consumption. In one of his first addresses to Congress as president, FDR announced his intention to modify the Volstead Act with the Beer and Wine Revenue Act. No fan of temperance himself, FDR had developed a taste for alcohol when he attended New York cocktail parties as a budding politician. (While president, FDR refused to fire his favorite personal valet for repeated drunkenness on the job.) FDR considered the new law "of the highest importance" for its potential to generate much-needed federal funds and included it in a sweeping set of New Deal policies designed to vault the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. The Beer and Wine Revenue act was followed, in December 1933, by the passage of the 21st Amendment, which officially ended Prohibition.
- 1941 --- The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington began operations.
- 1945 --- Representatives from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Yemen meet in Cairo to establish the Arab League, a regional organization of Arab states. Formed to foster economic growth in the region, resolve disputes between its members, and coordinate political aims, members of the Arab League formed a council, with each state receiving one vote. When the State of Israel was created in 1948, the league countries jointly attacked but were repulsed by the Israelis. Two years later, Arab League nations signed a mutual defense treaty. Fifteen more Arab nations eventually joined the organization, which established a common market in 1965.
- 1956 --- Singer Carl Perkins was critically injured, his brother Jay killed, in a Wilmington, Delaware, car crash. They were driving to New York to perform Carl's hit, "Blue Suede Shoes," on TV's Perry Como Show.
- 1960 --- The first laser patent issued to Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes. (Laser = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation)
- 1969 --- UCLA defeated Purdue 92-72 to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championship. The Bruins were the first team to win three consecutive championships -- all under legendary head coach John Wooden. UCLA went on to dominate the college basketball title through the 1973 season.
- 1972 --- The Equal Rights Amendment is passed by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states for ratification. First proposed by the National Woman's political party in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. More than four decades later, the revival of feminism in the late 1960s spurred its introduction into Congress. Under the leadership of U.S. Representative Bella Abzug of New York and feminists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, it won the requisite two-thirds vote from the U.S. House of Representatives in October 1971. In March 1972, it was approved by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states. Hawaii was the first state to ratify what would have been the 27th Amendment, followed by some 30 other states within a year. However, during the mid-1970s, a conservative backlash against feminism eroded support for the Equal Rights Amendment, which ultimately failed to achieve ratification by the a requisite 38, or three-fourths, of the states. Because of the rejection of the Equal Rights Amendment, sexual equality, with the notable exception of when it pertains to the right to vote, is not protected by the U.S. Constitution. However, in the late 20th century, the federal government and all states have passed considerable legislation protecting the legal rights of women. The Equal Rights Amendment, in its most recently proposed form, reads, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex."
- 1975 --- 'Lady Marmalade' by LaBelle is #1 on the charts.
- 1990 --- A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, found former tanker captain Joseph Hazelwood innocent of three major charges in connection with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but convicted him of a minor charge of negligent discharge of oil.
- 1997 --- Tara Lipinski of the United States became the youngest women's world figure skating champion at age 14 years, 10 months.
- Birthdays
- George Benson
- Marcel Marceau
- Chico (Leonard) Marx
- Wolf Blitzer
- Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Lena Olin
- Stephanie Mills
- Louis L'Amour
- Ruth Page
- Ross Martin
- Werner Klemperer
- Karl Malden
- Wilfrid Brambell
- M. Emmet Walsh
- Sen Orrin Hatch
- Reese Witherspoon
- Tom Flores
- Glen Campbell
- William Shatner
- Pat Robertson
- Stephen Sondheim