- 129th Day of 2013 / 236 Remaining
- 43 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:6:03
- Sunset:8:08
- 14 Hours 5 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:5:52am
- Moon Set:8:08pm
- Moon’s Phase:Last Quarter
- The Next Full Moon
- May 24 @ 9:27pm
- Full Flower Moon
- Full Corn Planting Moon
- Full Milk Moon
In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.
- Tides
- High:12:07pm/11:03pm
- Low:5:23am/5:07pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:16.32
- Last Year:15.64
- Normal To Date:23.20
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Butterscotch Brownie Day
- Bike To Work Day
- Yom Ha'Atzma'ut (Independence Day)- Israel
- Mother’s Day-Belarus
- National Heroes Day-Moldova
- On This Day In …
- 1429 --- Joan of Arc defeated the besieging English at Orleans.
- 1671 --- Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as "Captain Blood," is captured attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Blood, a Parliamentarian during the English Civil War, was deprived of his estate in Ireland with the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1663, he put himself at the head of a plot to seize Dublin Castle from supporters of King Charles II, but the plot was discovered and his accomplices executed. He escaped capture. In 1671, he hatched a bizarre plan to steal the new Crown Jewels, which had been refashioned by Charles II because most of the original jewels were melted down after Charles I's execution in 1649. On May 9, 1671, Blood, disguised as a priest, managed to convince the Jewel House keeper to hand over his pistols. Blood's three accomplices then emerged from the shadows, and together they forced their way into the Jewel House. However, they were caught in the act when the keeper's son showed up unexpectedly, and an alarm went out to the Tower guard. One man shoved the Royal Orb down his breeches while Blood flattened the Crown with a mallet and tried to run off with it. The Tower guards apprehended and arrested all four of the perpetrators, and Blood was brought before the king. Charles was so impressed with Blood's audacity that, far from punishing him, he restored his estates in Ireland and made him a member of his court with an annual pension. Captain Blood became a colorful celebrity all across the kingdom, and when he died in 1680 his body had to be exhumed in order to persuade the public that he was actually dead. Thomas "Captain" Blood stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London.
- 1754 --- The first cartoon appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette, the newspaper published at the time in Philadelphia, PA, Benjamin Franklin’s hometown. The cartoon appeared as part of an editorial by Franklin commenting on “the present disunited state of the British Colonies.” The title of the featured cartoon is “JOIN, or DIE.” The drawing is of a snake, chopped into eight pieces. Each of the pieces are labeled with the abbreviation for one of the colonies. The message was that the colonies’ continued failure to join together would result in their eventual doom.
- 1868 --- A little town in Northwestern Nevada was officially named, Reno (after General Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer of the Civil War). Actually, the town that was just over the border from California, already existed before this date. It was first settled by the Washoe Indians who used the area for festivals and ceremonies. Then, as settlers moved in, it was known as Fuller’s Ferry, and later, as Lake’s Crossing. In the mid 1800s, Reno was just another settlement of silver miners. When the Comstock Lode was discovered in the Virginia City area, intrigued fortune hunters throughout the world came to the area to strike it rich. Today, they still come to strike it rich at Reno’s glitzy gambling casinos. Reno, also a haven for quickie divorces (only a six-week residency is required), is known as the biggest little city in the world, the winning slogan from a contest held in 1929.
- 1914 --- President Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first national Mother's Day holiday to celebrate America's mothers.
- 1930 --- For the first time, a starting gate was used to start a Triple Crown race. The gate was rolled into place at the Preakness at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, MD. Gallant Fox, the winner, had no problem with the new contraption. Prior to that time, this horse race began from a standing start at the start/finish line with the drop of a flag.
- 1937 --- Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy started their own radio show on NBC -- only months after they had debuted on Rudy Vallee’s radio program. W.C. Fields, Don Ameche and Dorothy Lamour were a few of the stars that helped Bergen and the little blockhead, McCarthy, jump to the top of radio’s hit parade.
- 1960 --- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world's first commercially produced birth-control bill--Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois. Development of "the pill," as it became popularly known, was initially commissioned by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katherine McCormick. Sanger, who opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, hoped to encourage the development of a more practical and effective alternative to contraceptives that were in use at the time. In the early 1950s, Gregory Pincus, a biochemist at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and John Rock, a gynecologist at Harvard Medical School, began work on a birth-control pill. Clinical tests of the pill, which used synthetic progesterone and estrogen to repress ovulation in women, were initiated in 1954. On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved the pill, granting greater reproductive freedom to American women
- 1961 --- Jim Gentile (Baltimore Orioles) set a major league baseball record when he hit a grand slam home run in two consecutive innings. The game was against the Minnesota Twins.
- 1961 --- Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned TV programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
- 1962 --- A laser beam was successfully bounced off Moon for the first time.
- 1962 --- The Beatles inked their first recording contract. George Martin was hired to be the group’s producer and the band would record for EMI Parlophone.
- 1964 --- Following the ascension of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to #1 in early February, the Beatles held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for three and a half solid months—longer than any popular artist before or since. Over the course of those months, the Fab Four earned three consecutive #1 singles (a record); held all five spots in the top five in early April (a record); and had a total of 14 songs in the Billboard Hot 100 in mid-April (yet another record). But just when it seemed that no homegrown act would ever stand up to the British invaders, one of least likely American stars imaginable proved himself equal to the task. On May 9, 1964, the great Louis Armstrong, age 63, broke the Beatles' stranglehold on the U.S. pop charts with the #1 hit "Hello Dolly."
- 1970 --- Between 75,000 and 100,000 young people, mostly from college campuses, demonstrate peacefully in Washington, D.C., at the rear of a barricaded White House. They demanded the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations. Afterwards, a few hundred militants spread through surrounding streets, causing limited damage. Police attacked the most threatening crowds with tear gas.
- 1974 --- The House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
- 1994 --- South Africa's newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country's first black president.
- 1994 --- Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire, was placed under quarantine after an outbreak of Ebola virus.
- 2004 --- Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov and 23 other people were killed in a bombing in the capital Grozny.
- 2010 --- Dallas Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in major league history, leading the Oakland Athletics in a 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
- Birthdays
- Howard Carter
- Mike Wallace
- Rosario Dawson
- Glenda Jackson
- Albert Finney
- John Ashcroft
- Billy Joel
- Candace Bergen
- Tony Gwynn
- Ghostface Killah
- John Brown
- Sir James Barrie
- Henry J Kaiser
- Pancho Gonzales
- Hank Snow
- Dave Prater