- 257th Day of 2012 /109 Remaining
- 9 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:50
- Sunset:7:20
- 12 Hours 30 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:4:19am
- Moon Set:5:45pm
- Moon’s Phase: 7 %
- The Next Full Moon
- September 29 @ 8:18pm
- Full Corn Moon
- Full Harvest Moon
This full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked when corn was supposed to be harvested. Most often, the September full moon is actually the Harvest Moon, which is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.
- Tides
- High:10:09am/9:34pm
- Low:3:30am/3:40pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:0.03
- Last Year:0.11
- Normal To Date:0.00
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Peanut Day
- National Celiac Awareness Day
- Fortune Cookie Day
- Librarians Day-Argentina
- International Chocolate Day
- On This Day In …
- 1788 --- The Constitutional Convention decided that the first federal election was to be held on Wednesday the following February. On that day George Washington was elected as the first president of the United States. In addition, New York City was named the temporary national capital.
- 1789 --- The United States Government took out its first loan. The money was borrowed from the Bank of North America at 6% interest. The national debt has grown a little over the years. Americans now owe about $65,000 each, as their share of the debt.
- 1899 --- Henry M. Bliss became the first known automobile fatality. As Mr. Bliss stepped off a streetcar at Central Park West and 74th Street, he was hit by a car driven by Arthur Smith. Bliss was rushed to the hospital but died a short time later. Smith was arrested, but was not held.
- 1922 --- The highest temperature, to date, ever recorded in the shade, 136.4 degrees F was recorded in a village 25 miles south of Tripoli, Libya.
- 1948 --- Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
- 1948 --- The School of Performing Arts opened in New York City. It was the first public school to specialize in performing arts.
- 1960 --- The U.S. Federal Communications Commission banned payola. A scandal, investigated by a Congressional committee, involved some of the biggest names in radio, including popular New York DJ Alan Freed. He lost his job at WABC for allegedly accepting gifts and money for playing certain records. There was substantial evidence to prove that the practice was quite widespread.
- 1969 --- John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, presented the Plastic Ono Band (featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar) in concert for the first time. The appearance at the Toronto Peace Festival was Lennon’s first in four years. The first hit by the new group, Give Peace a Chance, made it to number 14 on the charts.
- 1971 --- A four-day riot at Attica Prison comes to a violent end as law enforcement officials open fire, killing 29 inmates and 10 hostages and injuring many more. The prison insurrection was the bloodiest in U.S. history. On the morning of September 9, 1971, a group of inmates at the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in western New York, assaulted a prison guard and began rioting. They took prison employees hostage and gained control of portions of the facility. Negotiations between inmates and prison officials followed. The inmates demanded better living conditions at the overcrowded prison, which had been built in the 1930s. At the inmates’ request, a committee of observers that included politicians and journalists was formed to oversee the talks. When negotiations broke down, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered Attica to be taken by force. Rockefeller was planning to run for the Republican presidential nomination and reportedly wanted to combat the perception in some circles that he was soft on crime. On the morning of September 13, tear gas was dropped over the prison and state troopers opened fired on a group of over 1,200 inmates. In the chaos, 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed by police gunfire and another 80 people were seriously wounded, the majority of them inmates, in what became the bloodiest prison uprising in U.S. history. Adding to the death toll were three inmates and a guard who had been killed earlier during the riot. Some inmates later claimed that police took brutal revenge on them and that they were denied medical care for hours afterward. An investigation into the Attica revolt resulted in over 60 inmates being indicted and eight eventually convicted. One prison guard was charged with reckless endangerment, but his case was later dropped. A class-action suit filed in the 1970s on behalf of over 1,200 Attica inmates was settled in 2000 when a federal judge ordered New York State to pay $8 million to the surviving inmates. In 2005, the state also agreed to pay $12 million to the survivors and families of employees killed at Attica.
- 1980 --- Willie Nelson and his band perform at the White House with President Jimmy Carter in attendance. Later that night, unbeknownst to the president, Nelson allegedly retired to the White House roof to smoke a marijuana cigarette. A fan of Nelson's music, Carter frequently attended the singer's concerts and invited Nelson to stay at the White House during his presidency. The two formed a friendship that continued after Carter left the White House in 1980. In 2004, Carter told reporter Beverly Keel from Rolling Stone magazine that while under immense pressure as president he would relax in his study, tying flies for fishing while listening to Nelson's music. "All the good things I did as president, all the mistakes I made -- you can blame half of that on Willie," said the former president. He and Nelson shared a common background: both grew up in the South and worked as blacksmiths and at picking cotton. Nelson felt equal admiration for Carter and told Keel that Carter was his "favorite president...he did a great job." In 1980, Carter invited Nelson to perform on the South Lawn of the White House. A week later, The New York Times reported on an unusual event that raised a few eyebrows among Washington's conservative set: first lady Rosalynn Carter had joined Nelson for a duet. Her "soft soprano" complemented Nelson's "nasal baritone." The president and many in the audience joined in heartily as Nelson and Rosalynn sang "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother." Nelson, whom The New York Times dubbed the "king of outlaw country," had never made a secret of his use of illegal marijuana and supported the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). In his biography, Nelson admitted to lighting up a "big fat Austin torpedo" (slang for a marijuana cigarette) whenever he stayed overnight at the White House. Carter claimed not to have known of Nelson's after-hours tokes on the White House roof, saying he and Willie never discussed the singer's drug use. (During the 1976 campaign, Carter had called for the decriminalization of marijuana.) However, as Nelson himself admitted in later interviews, Secret Service agents kept a close eye on Nelson whenever he indulged in his nightly habit at the White House.
- 1992 --- The first puntless game in NFL history happened this day. The Buffalo Bills (quarterback Jim Kelly: 403 yards and three TDs) and San Francisco 49ers (QB Steve Young: 449 yards and three touchdowns) combined for 1,086 yards of total offense -- without punting the ball once. The Bills beat the 49ers 34-31.
- 1993 --- After decades of bloody animosity, representatives of Israel and Palestine meet on the South Lawn of the White House and sign a framework for peace. The "Declaration of Principles" was the first agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians towards ending their conflict and sharing the holy land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea that they both claim as their homeland. On the South Lawn of the White House that day, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO foreign policy official Mahmoud Abbas signed the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. The accord called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho and the establishment of a Palestinian government that would eventually be granted authority over much of the West Bank. President Bill Clinton presided over the ceremony, and more than 3,000 onlookers, including former presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter, watched in amazement as Arafat and Rabin sealed the agreement with a handshake. The old bitter enemies had met for the first time at a White House reception that morning.
- Birthdays
- Bill Monroe
- Walter Reed
- Grigory Potemkin
- Roald Dahl
- Milton S. Hershey
- John J. Pershing
- Larry Speakes
- Don Was
- Zak Starkey
- Fiona Apple
- David Clayton-Thomas
- Nell Carter
- Jacqueline Bisset