- 145th Day of 2012 / 221 Remaining
- 27 Days Until Summer Begins
- Sunrise:5:53
- Sunset:8:21
- 14 Hours 28 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:8:58am
- Moon Set:11:26pm
- Moon’s Phase: 13 %
- The Next Full Moon
- June 4 @ 4:11am
- Full Strawberry Moon
- Full Rose Moon
- Full Milk Moon
This name 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:12:42am/3:06pm
- Low:7:46am/7:49pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:15.67
- Last Year:26.86
- Normal To Date:23.50
- Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
- Holidays
- Brother's Day
- Hug Your Cat Day
- National Escargot Day
- Play Kick the Can With A Kid Day
- Mudbug Madness-Riverfront in Shreveport, Louisiana. The 4-day festival celebrates the crawfish and the Cajun heritage.
- Commonwealth Day-Belize
- Culture Day-Bulgaria
- Independence Day-Eritrea
- Bermuda Day-Bermuda
- World Schizophrenia Day
- International Tiara Day
- On This Day In …
- 1543 --- Nicolaus Copernicus published proof of a sun-centered solar system.
- 1607 --- Captain Christopher Newport and 105 followers found the colony of Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the coast of Virginia.
- 1626 --- Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island for $24 worth of beads, knives, axes, and clothes. He bought it from the Canarsees, who did not own it. The Canarsees inhabited what is now Brooklyn. The Weckquaesgeeks inhabited most of Manhattan, so the Canarsees made quite a deal.
- 1764 --- Boston lawyer James Otis denounced "taxation without representation" and called for the colonies to unite in demonstrating their opposition to Britain’s new tax measures.
- 1844 --- Samuel F.B. Morse formally opened America's first telegraph line. The first message was sent from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, MD. The message was "What hath God wrought?"
- 1883 --- After 14 years and 27 deaths while being constructed, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is opened, connecting the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date. Just before construction began in 1869, Roebling was fatally injured while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of tetanus. He was the first of more than two dozen people who would die building his bridge. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer. Roebling had worked with his father on several bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge, with its unprecedented length and two stately towers, was dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world." The connection it provided between the massive population centers of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed the course of New York City forever. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn formally merged with New York City, Staten Island, and a few farm towns, forming Greater New York.
- 1913 --- The U.S. Department of Labor entered into its first strike mediation. The dispute of the Railroad Clerks of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was settled nine days later.
- 1929 --- The first Marx Brothers film, 'Cocoanuts' premiered.
- 1931 --- B&O Railroad began service with the first passenger train to have air conditioning throughout. The run was between New York City and Washington, DC.
- 1935 --- The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 on this night in 1935 in Major League Baseball’s first-ever night game, played courtesy of recently installed lights at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The first-ever night game in professional baseball took place May 2, 1930, when a Des Moines, Iowa, team hosted Wichita for a Western League game. The game drew 12,000 people at a time when Des Moines was averaging just 600 fans per game. Evening games soon became popular in the minors: As minor league ball clubs were routinely folding in the midst of the Great Depression, adaptable owners found the innovation a key to staying in business. The major leagues, though, took five years to catch up to their small-town counterparts. The first big league night game on this day in 1935 drew 25,000 fans, who stood by as President Roosevelt symbolically switched on the lights from Washington, D.C. To capitalize on their new evening fan base, the Reds played a night game that year against every National League team--eight games in total--and despite their lousy record of 68-85, paid attendance rose 117 percent. Though baseball owners had a well-deserved reputation for being old-fashioned, most teams soon followed suit, as they knew night games would benefit their bottom line. Teams upgraded their facilities to include lights throughout the 1930s and 40s, and before long, most of the league had night games on the schedule. Wrigley Field, on Chicago’s North Side--the second oldest major league park after Boston’s Fenway--was the last of the parks to begin hosting night games. Wrigley’s tradition of hosting only day games held for 74 seasons until August 8, 1988, when the Cubs hosted the Philadelphia Phillies. That game was rained out in the third inning, so Wrigley’s first night game is officially recorded as a 6-4 win over the New York Mets on August 9, 1988. The Cubs are the only major league team that still plays the majority of their home games during the day.
- 1950 --- ‘Sweetwater’ (Nat) Clifton’s contract was purchased by the New York Knicks. Sweetwater played for the Harlem Globetrotters and was the first black player in the NBA.
- 1958 --- United Press International was formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
- 1964 --- A referee's call in a soccer match between Peru and Argentina sparks a riot on this day in 1964. More than 300 fans were killed and another 500 people were injured in the violent melee that followed at National Stadium in Lima, Peru. The match was a qualifier for the 1964 Olympics and the Peruvian fans were fiercely cheering on their team with only a few minutes left in a close game. When the referee disallowed an apparent goal for Peru, the stadium went wild. The resulting panic and crowd-control measures taken caused stampedes in which people were crushed and killed. The extent of this disaster has only been surpassed once. In 1982, 340 people died at a match in Moscow when a late goal caused fans who had exited the game to attempt to return suddenly. Meanwhile, police were forcing people to exit; those caught in the middle were crushed.
- 1964 --- Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona), running for the Republican Party nomination in the upcoming presidential election, gives an interview in which he discusses the use of low-yield atomic bombs in North Vietnam to defoliate forests and destroy bridges, roads, and railroad lines bringing supplies from communist China. During the storm of criticism that followed, Goldwater tried to back away from these drastic actions, claiming that he did not mean to advocate the use of atomic bombs but was "repeating a suggestion made by competent military people." Democrats painted Goldwater as a warmonger who was overly eager to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Though he won his party's nomination, Goldwater was never able to shake his image as an extremist in Vietnam policies. This image was a key factor in his crushing defeat by opponent Lyndon B. Johnson, who took about 61 percent of the vote to Goldwater's 39 percent.
- 1982 --- Jefferson Starship, the Grateful Dead, Boz Scaggs, and Country Joe McDonald played at San Francisco's Moscone Center to raise money for the Vietnam Veterans Project.
- 1988 --- Snow fell on the Syrian desert and Damascus had ten hours of snowfall for the first time in 50 years.
- 2011 --- Egyptian authorities ordered former President Hosni Mubarak tried on charges of corruption and conspiracy in the deadly shooting of protesters who'd driven him from power.
- Birthdays
- Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
- Robert Allen Zimmerman/Bob Dylan
- Priscilla Presley
- Gary Burghoff
- Tommy Chong
- Patti LaBelle
- Queen Victoria
- John C. Reilly
- Sam Giancana
- Alfred Molina
- Rosanne Cash
- Heavy D
- Joseph Brodsky