- 150th Day of 2013 / 215 Remaining
- 23 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:5:49
- Sunset:8:25
- 14 Hours 36 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:12:32am
- Moon Set:12:01pm
- Moon’s Phase:61 %
- The Next Full Moon
- June 23 @ 4:33am
- Full Strawberry Moon
- Full Rose 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:3:12am/5:01pm
- Low:9:55am/10:56pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:16.36
- Last Year:15.64
- Normal To Date:23.61
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Mint Julep Day
- Loomis Day
- Memorial Day (Traditional)
- Prayer For Peace, Memorial Day
- Saint Joan of Arc Feast Day
- Canary Islands Day-Spain
- Harvest Festival-Malaysia
- Mother’s Day-Nicaragua
- Parliament Day-Crotia
- On This Day In …
- 1431 --- At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy. As a source of military inspiration, Joan of Arc helped turn the Hundred Years War firmly in France's favor. By 1453, Charles VII had reconquered all of France except for Calais, which the English relinquished in 1558. In 1920, Joan of Arc, one of the great heroes of French history, was recognized as a Christian saint by the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1783 --- The first daily American newspaper was published in Philadelphia, 'The Pennsylvania Evening Post'
- 1806 --- In Logan County, Kentucky, future president Andrew Jackson participates in a duel, killing Charles Dickinson, a lawyer regarded as one of the best pistol shots in the area. The proud and volatile Jackson, a former senator and representative of Tennessee, called for the duel after his wife Rachel was slandered as a bigamist by Dickinson, who was referring to a legal error in the divorce from her first husband in 1791. Jackson met his foe at Harrison's Mills on Red River in Logan, Kentucky, on May 30, 1806. In accordance with dueling custom, the two stood 24 feet apart, with pistols pointed downward. After the signal, Dickinson fired first, grazing Jackson's breastbone and breaking some of his ribs. However, Jackson, a former Tennessee militia leader, maintained his stance and fired back, fatally wounding his opponent. It was one of several duels Jackson was said to have participated in during his lifetime, the majority of which were allegedly called in defense of his wife's honor. None of the other rumored duels were recorded, and whether he killed anyone else in this manner is not known. In 1829, Rachel died, and Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States.
- 1868 --- Memorial Day was observed for the first time in the United States -- at the request of General John A. Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. It was first called Decoration Day because the General had seen women decorating graves of Civil War heroes.
- 1896 --- The first documented auto accident occurred -- in New York City. A Duryea Motor Wagon, driven by Henry Wells from Springfield, MA collided with a bicycle ridden by Evylyn Thomas of NYC.
- 1911 --- Ray Harroun drives his single-seater Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, now one of the world's most famous motor racing competitions. The Indiana automobile dealer Carl Fisher first proposed building a private auto testing facility in 1906, in order to address car manufacturers' inability to test potential top speeds of new cars due to the poorly developed state of the public roadways. The result was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other in order to showcase their full power and entice spectators to check out the new models themselves. In 1911, Fisher and his partners decided to focus on one long race per year, as opposed to numerous shorter events, in order to attract more publicity. The purse for the grueling 500-mile race would be the richest in racing. On May 30, 1911, 40 cars lined up at the starting line for the first Indy 500. A multi-car accident occurred 13 laps into the race, and the ensuing chaos temporarily disrupted scoring, throwing the finish into dispute when the eventual runner-up, Ralph Mulford, argued that he was the rightful winner. It was Ray Harroun, however, who took home the $14,250 purse, clocking an average speed of 74.59 mph and a total time of 6 hours and 42 minutes. The Wasp was the first car with a rear-view mirror, which Harroun had installed in order to compensate for not having a mechanic in the seat next to him to warn of other cars passing. Impressive as it was, Harroun's 1911 speed would have finished him 10th in the 1922 Indy 500. Barely a decade later, nearly all the cars that started in the race were smaller, lighter, more efficient and far more expensive than consumer cars. Their aerodynamic bodies featured narrow grills and teardrop-shaped tails; knock-off wire wheels made for quick, efficient tire changes; and the new straight-sided tires lasted much longer than their early pneumatic counterparts. The best cars were equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes and inline 3.0-liter V-8 engines made of aluminum. By the mid-1920s, the Indy 500 had become what it is today--a high-paying event for the world's most expensive cars.
- 1922 --- Daniel Chester French created the famous sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, titled Seated Lincoln. Lincoln is in meditation, seated in a large armchair. Both French and the Piccirilli brothers completed the sculpture. The memorial in which the statue is permanently seated was dedicated, although the cornerstone was laid in 1915. The Lincoln Memorial, with Doric columns on the exterior and Ionic columns on the interior, was designed by architect Henry Bacon. Marble was brought from Colorado and Tennessee, and limestone from Indiana to complete the stately memorial to one of the United States’ most revered presidents. Bronze ceiling beams picture murals and ornamentation created by Jules Guerin. An engraved stone tablet in the south chamber bears Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address; his second inaugural speech, also engraved on a stone tablet, is in the north chamber. The Lincoln Memorial stands opposite the Washington Monument, in Washington, D.C.’s West Potomac Park on 109.63 acres of land. Today, it also stands prominently among new memorials, the World War II Memorial, and one to honor another president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- 1922 --- Max Flack and Clifton Heathcote became the first major-league baseball players to play on two teams in the same day! Here’s how it went down: Between games of a doubleheader, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals made the switcheroo, with Flack putting on a Cubs uniform and Heathcote trading his Cubs uniform for that of the Cardinals. The outfielders both played in the nightcap of the twin-bill.
- 1933 --- Sally Rand made a name for herself as she introduced her exotic and erotic fan dance to audiences at Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition. Twisting and turning behind two huge fans, one might wonder just how exciting the fan dance could possibly be. It is important to realize that Ms. Rand was, um, naked during the performance.
- 1966 --- The Jefferson Airplane performed at a benefit for the Haight-Ashbury Legal Organization.
- 1971 --- The U.S. unmanned space probe Mariner 9 is launched on a mission to gather scientific information on Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. The 1,116-pound spacecraft entered the planet's orbit on November 13, 1971, and circled Mars twice each day for almost a year, photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere with infrared and ultraviolet instruments. It gathered data on the atmospheric composition, density, pressure, and temperature of Mars, and also information about the surface composition, temperature, and topography of the planet.
- 1990 --- Midnight Oil closed down 6th Avenue in New York City as they played a protest concert in front of Exxon's offices. The protest was in reaction to the Exxon Valdez disaster.
- 1990 --- Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Washington, D.C., for three days of talks with President George Bush. The summit meeting centered on the issue of Germany and its place in a changing Europe.
- 2005 --- Vice President Dick Cheney predicted the Iraq war would end before the Bush administration left office, saying "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency," on CNN's "Larry King Live.".
- 2011 --- Germany announced plans to abandon nuclear power over the next 11 years, outlining an ambitious strategy in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources.
- Birthdays
- Mel Blanc
- Wynonna Judd
- Cee Lo Green
- Gayle Sayers
- Colm Meaney
- Tom Morello
- Benny Goodman
- Irving Thalberg
- Stepin Fetchit
- Johnny Gimble
- Meredith MacRae
- Nicky “Topper” Headron
- Peter the Great
- Cornelia Otis Skinner