- 92nd Day of 2013 / 273 Remaining
- 80 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:6:51
- Sunset:7:34
- 12 Hours 43 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:1:39am
- Moon Set:11:55am
- Moon’s Phase: Last Quarter
- The Next Full Moon
- April 25 @ 12:59pm
- Full Pink Moon
- Full Sprouting Grass Moon
- Full Egg Moon
- Full Fish Moon
This moon’s 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 Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.
- Tides
- High:3:45am/6:03pm
- Low:10:48am/11:06pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:15.77
- Last Year:12.88
- Normal To Date:21.54
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Love Our Children Day
- Pascua Florida Day-Florida
- Reconciliation Day
- Tangible Karma Day
- National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day
- International Children's Book Day
- UN World Autism Awareness Day
- Sizdah-Bedar/National Picnic Day-Iran
- On This Day In …
- 1513 --- Near present-day St. Augustine, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon comes ashore on the Florida coast, and claims the territory for the Spanish crown. Although other European navigators may have sighted the Florida peninsula before, Ponce de Leon is credited with the first recorded landing and the first detailed exploration of the Florida coast. The Spanish explorer was searching for the "Fountain of Youth," a fabled water source that was said to bring eternal youth. Ponce de Leon named the peninsula he believed to be an island "La Florida" because his discovery came during the time of the Easter feast, or Pascua Florida.
- 1792 --- The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act to regulate the coins of the United States. The act authorized $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle & 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins & silver dollar, dollar, quarter, dime & half-dime to be minted.
- 1863 --- Shortages of food caused hundreds of angry women gathered in Richmond, Virginia to march on the governor's office and then on the government commissary to demand bread. It ended in a riot when they broke into the commissary and then other shops & buildings and carried out anything they could carry. Even the hospital reported losing over 300 pounds of beef. Arrests were made, but at the request of authorities, the newspapers downplayed the incident, and records were later destroyed when the Confederate government fled and burned much of the town behind them.
- 1889 --- Charles Hall patented aluminum.
- 1896 --- Madison Square Garden in New York City hosted the season premiere of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The circus featured a Duryea horseless carriage.
- 1917 --- Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress, takes her seat in the U.S. Capitol as a representative from Montana. Born on a ranch near Missoula, Montana Territory, in 1880, Rankin was a social worker in the states of Montana and Washington before joining the women's suffrage movement in 1910. Working with various suffrage groups, she campaigned for the women's vote on a national level and in 1914 was instrumental in the passage of suffrage legislation in Montana. Two years later, she successfully ran for Congress in Montana on a progressive Republican platform calling for total women's suffrage, legislation protecting children, and U.S. neutrality in the European war. Following her election as a representative, Rankin's entrance into Congress was delayed for a month as congressmen discussed whether a woman should be admitted into the House of Representatives. Finally, on April 2, 1917, she was introduced in Congress as its first female member. The same day, President Woodrow Wilson addressed a joint session of Congress and urged a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted for war by a wide majority, and on April 6 the vote went to the House. Citing public opinion in Montana and her own pacifist beliefs, Jeannette Rankin was one of only 50 representatives who voted against the American declaration of war. For the remainder of her first term in Congress, she sponsored legislation to aid women and children, and advocated the passage of a federal suffrage amendment.
- 1917 --- President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, "The world must be made safe for democracy."
- 1963 --- Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King began the first non-violent campaign in Birmingham, AL.
- 1972 --- Burt Reynolds appeared nude in "Cosmopolitan" magazine.
- 1982 --- Argentina invades the Falklands Islands, a British colony since 1892 and British possession since 1833. Argentine amphibious forces rapidly overcame the small garrison of British marines at the town of Stanley on East Falkland and the next day seized the dependent territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich group. The 1,800 Falkland Islanders, mostly English-speaking sheep farmers, awaited a British response. Britain was outraged, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher assembled a naval task force of 30 warships to retake the islands. As Britain is 8,000 miles from the Falklands, it took several weeks for the British warships to arrive. On April 25, South Georgia Island was retaken, and after several intensive naval battles fought around the Falklands, British troops landed on East Falkland on May 21. After several weeks of fighting, the large Argentine garrison at Stanley surrendered on June 14, effectively ending the conflict. Britain lost five ships and 256 lives in the fight to regain the Falklands, and Argentina lost its only cruiser and 750 lives. Humiliated in the Falklands War, the Argentine military was swept from power in 1983, and civilian rule was restored.
- 1984 --- John Thompson became the first African-American coach to lead his team to the NCAA college basketball championship. Georgetown’s Hoyas defeated Houston 84-75 in Seattle for the win. Thompson’s team in 1982 had finished second to North Carolina for the championship.
- 1992 --- A jury in New York finds mobster John Gotti, nicknamed the Teflon Don for his ability to elude conviction, guilty on 13 counts, including murder and racketeering. In the wake of the conviction, the assistant director of the FBI’s New York office, James Fox, was quoted as saying, “The don is covered in Velcro, and every charge stuck.” On June 23 of that year, Gotti was sentenced to life in prison, dealing a significant blow to organized crime.
- 1995 --- The costliest strike in professional sports history ended when baseball owners agreed to let players play without a contract.
- 1996 --- Lech Walesa resumed his old job as an electrician at the Gdansk shipyard. He was the former Solidarity union leader who became Poland's first post-war democratic president.
- 2007 --- The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
- 2009 --- A 19-count federal racketeering indictment was returned against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who denied doing anything illegal.
- Birthdays
- Emmy Lou Harris
- Leon Russell
- Walter Chrysler
- Kurt Adler (SF Opera)
- Emile Zola
- Max Ernst
- Hans Christian Andersen
- Giovanni Casanova
- Buddy Ebsen
- Herbert Mills
- Jack Webb
- Marvin Gaye Jr
- Charlemagne-(Charles I, Charles the Great, King of the Franks, Charles le Grand, Carolus Magnus, Karl Der Grosse, King of the Lombards, master of Western Europe, Emperor.)