- 119th Day of 2014 246 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 53 Days
- Sunrise 6:14
- Sunset 7:58
- 13 Hours 44 Minutes
- Moon Rise 6:38am
- Moon Set 8:44pm
- Phase 0%
- Next Full Moon May14 @12:18pm
- High Tide 12:22pm/11:37pm
- Low Tide 5:42am/5:35pm
- Rainfall
- This Year 12.62
- Last Year 16.32
- Avg YTD 22.92
- Holidays
- National Dream Hotline Day
- National Hairball Awareness Day
- National Shrimp Scampi Day
- Cheng Cheng Kung Landing Day-Taiwan
- Showa Day-Japan
- Ninth Day of Ridvan-Baha’i
- On This Day In …
- 1429 --- During the Hundred Years' War, the 17-year-old French peasant Joan of Arc leads a French force in relieving the city of Orleans, besieged by the English since October. At the age of 16, "voices" of Christian saints told Joan to aid Charles, the French dauphin, in gaining the French throne and expelling the English from France. Convinced of the validity of her divine mission, Charles furnished Joan with a small force of troops. She led her troops to Orleans, and on April 29, as a French sortie distracted the English troops on the west side of the city, Joan entered unopposed by its eastern gate. Bringing needed supplies and troops into the besieged city, she also inspired the French to a passionate resistance and through the next week led the charge during a number of skirmishes and battles. On one occasion, she was even hit by an arrow, but after dressing her wounds she returned to the battle. On May 8, the siege of Orleans was broken, and the English retreated.
- 1852 --- The first edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus was published.
- 1856 --- A shipment of 33 camels arrived at the Texas port of Indianola. They had been purchased on the North African Coast, for the U.S. army to use in the deserts of the Southwest.
- 1862 --- New Orleans fell to Union forces during the Civil War.
- 1875 --- American writer Henry James' collection of travel pieces, Transatlantic Sketches, is published. The same year, James publishes a collection of stories, A Passionate Pilgrim, and a novel, Roderick Hudson. These three works herald the beginning of James' long and influential writing career.
- 1879 --- Electric arc lights were used for the first time, in Cleveland, OH
- 1913 --- The zipper was patented by Gideon Sundback.
- 1916 --- The Easter uprising in Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British authorities.
- 1945 --- The U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany's Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division.
- 1952 --- IBM President Thomas J. Watson, Jr., informed his company's stockholders that IBM was building "the most advanced, most flexible high-speed computer in the world." The computer was unveiled April 7, 1953, as the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine.
- 1960 --- Dick Clark told a House of Representatives investigating committee looking into the payola scandal that he, the host of American Bandstand, never took payola for records featured on his daily TV show. Clark would, however, relinquish rights to music publishing that he owned. The value of those rights, Clark indicated 30 years later, amounted to about $80 million.
- 1961 --- “Spanning the globe ... to bring you the constant variety of sport, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition. This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports.” A Saturday afternoon sports program began its long run on ABC-TV. The show, featuring Jim McKay as host, along with Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, Al Michaels, Jack Whitaker, Heywood Hale Brun and others, was not an immediate hit. Although Roone Arledge’s vision of a worldwide window on televised sports got off to a slow start, ABC’s Wide World of Sports became one of TV’s most popular and enduring programs.
- 1967 --- Aretha Franklin's "Respect" was released.
- 1968 --- In a year marked by as much social and cultural upheaval as 1968, it was understandable that the New York Times review of a controversial musical newly arrived on Broadway would describe the show in political terms. "You probably don't have to be a supporter of Eugene McCarthy to love it," wrote critic Clive Barnes, "but I wouldn't give it much chance among the adherents of Governor Reagan." The show in question was “Hair”, the now-famous "tribal love-rock musical" that introduced the era-defining song "Aquarius" and gave New York theatergoers a full-frontal glimpse of the burgeoning 60s-counterculture esthetic.
- 1970 --- U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launch a limited "incursion" into Cambodia. The campaign included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967.
- 1974 --- President Richard Nixon announces to the public that he will release transcripts of 46 taped White House conversations in response to a Watergate trial subpoena issued in July 1973. The House Judiciary committee accepted 1,200 pages of transcripts the next day, but insisted that the tapes themselves be turned over as well.
- 1975 --- The U.S. embassy in Vietnam was evacuated as North Vietnamese forces fought their way into Saigon.
- 1976 --- Bruce Springsteen climbed the wall of Graceland to meet Elvis Presley. Elvis wasn't home.
- 1981 --- Steve Carlton, the Philadelphia Phillies pitcher, became just the sixth pitcher, and the first left hander, in the major leagues to get 3,000 career strikeouts. He fanned Montreal’s Tim Wallach in the first inning of a game that saw the Phillies beat the Expos 6-2.
- 1984 --- In California, the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor went online after a long delay due to protests.
- 1985 --- George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, fired manager Yogi Berra. Berra was canned after only 16 games into the young baseball season. In his place, Steinbrenner brought Billy Martin back ... for the fourth time.
- 1988 --- The Baltimore Orioles set a new major league baseball record by losing their first 21 games of the season.
- 1991 --- A devastating cyclone hits Bangladesh, killing more than 135,000 people. Even though there had been ample warning of the coming storm and shelter provisions had been built in the aftermath of a deadly 1970 storm, this disaster was one of the worst of the 20th century.
- 1992 --- In Los Angeles Californaia, four Los Angeles police officers that had been caught beating an unarmed African-American motorist in an amateur video are acquitted of any wrongdoing in the arrest. Hours after the verdicts were announced, outrage and protest turned to violence, as rioters in south-central Los Angeles blocked freeway traffic and beat motorists, wrecked and looted numerous downtown stores and buildings, and set more than 100 fires.
- 1996 --- The musical "Rent" opened on Broadway.
- 1997 --- Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and was dishonorably discharged.
- 1998 --- Brazil announced a plan to protect a large area of Amazon forest. The area was about the size of Colorado.
- 2004 --- The last Oldsmobile comes off the assembly line at the Lansing Car Assembly plant in Michigan, signaling the end of the 106-year-old automotive brand, America's oldest. Factory workers signed the last Oldsmobile, an Alero sedan, before the vehicle was moved to Lansing's R.E. Olds Transportation Museum, where it went on display. The last 500 Aleros ever manufactured featured "Final 500" emblems and were painted dark metallic cherry red.
- 2009 --- NATO expelled two Russian diplomats from NATO headquarters in Brussels over a spy scandal in Estonia. Russia's Foreign Ministry criticized the expulsions.
- Birthdays
- Duke Ellington
- Willie Nelson
- Uma Thurman
- Jerry Seinfeld
- Rod McKuen
- Zubin Mehta
- Sen Debbie Stabenow
- Kate Mulgrew
- Daniel Day-Lewis
- Michelle Pfeiffer
- Eve Plumb
- Carrie Wilson
- Andre Agassi
- William Randolph Hearst
- Lonnie Donegan
- Otis Rush
- Emperor Hirohito