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Tuesday August 14, 2012

  • 227th Day of 2012 / 139 Remaining
  • 39 Days Until Autumn Begins
  • Sunrise:6:25
  • Sunset:8:04
  • 13 Hours 41 Minutes of Daylight
  • Moon Rise:3:30am
  • Moon Set:6:01am
  • Moon’s Phase: 9 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • August 31st @ 6:57am
  • Blue Moon

But it’s Blue in name only. That’s because a Blue Moon is sometimes defined as the second full moon in a calendar month. The first full moon was August 1. The second full moon is August 31, 2012. There are two more definitions for Blue Moon. It can be the third of four full moons in a single season. Or, someday, you might see an actual blue-colored moon.

  • Tides
  • High:10:31am/9:06pm
  • Low:3:38am/3:21pm
  • 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
  • Navajo Code Talkers Day
  • V.J. Day
  • National Creamsicle Day
  • Wiffle Ball Day
  • National Financial Awareness Day
  • Festival of Hungry Ghosts-China
  • Independence Day-Pakistan
  • Honey Spas-Russia
  • National Flag Day-Paraguay
  • Oued Ed-Dahab Day-Morocco
  • World Lizard Day
  • International Nagging Day
  • On This Day In …
  • 1848 --- The U.S. Congress created the Oregon Territory, made up of today’s Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming.
  • 1873 --- The first issue of 'Field & Stream' was published.
  • 1880 --- Exactly 632 years after rebuilding began, the Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany, was completed ... only to be damaged again during WWII. The largest Gothic style cathedral in Northern Europe was first built on the same site in 873 A.D., but was destroyed by fire in 1248. Rebuilding began on this day in 1248.
  • 1896 --- Gold was discovered in Canada's Yukon Territory. Within the next year more than 30,000 people rushed to the area to look for gold.
  • 1935 --- U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, creating a system of federal income insurance for the elderly.
  • 1941 --- The U.S. Congress appropriated the funds to construct the Pentagon (approximately $83 million). The building was the new home of the U.S. War Department.
  • 1945 --- An official announcement of Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies is made public to the Japanese people. Even though Japan's War Council, urged by Emperor Hirohito, had already submitted a formal declaration of surrender to the Allies, via ambassadors, on August 10, fighting continued between the Japanese and the Soviets in Manchuria and between the Japanese and the United States in the South Pacific. In fact, two days after the Council agreed to surrender, a Japanese submarine sank the Oak Hill, an American landing ship, and the Thomas F. Nickel, an American destroyer, both east of Okinawa. In the afternoon of August 14, Japanese radio announced that an Imperial Proclamation was soon to be made, accepting the terms of unconditional surrender drawn up at the Potsdam Conference. That proclamation had already been recorded by the emperor. The news did not go over well, as more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers stormed the Imperial Palace in an attempt to find the proclamation and prevent its being transmitted to the Allies. Soldiers still loyal to Emperor Hirohito repulsed the attackers. That evening, General Anami, the member of the War Council most adamant against surrender, committed suicide. His reason: to atone for the Japanese army's defeat, and to be spared having to hear his emperor speak the words of surrender.
  • 1953 --- The whiffle ball was invented by David N. Mullany at his home in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1953 when he designed a ball that curved easily for his 12-year-old son. It was named when his son and his friends would refer to a strikeout as a "whiff". A classic wiffle ball is about the same size as a regulation baseball, but is hollow plastic no more than 1/8 inch thick. One hemisphere is perforated with eight .75-inch (19 mm) oblong holes, with a solid second hemisphere. This construction allows pitchers to throw a tremendous variety and size of curveballs, sinkers, and risers.
  • 1969 --- The New York Mets were 9-1/2 games behind the league-leading Chicago Cubs. The Amazing Mets began a comeback that launched the phrase, “You Gotta Believe,” as they began a drive that took them to the National League pennant and the World Series Championship (over the Baltimore Orioles). It was the first championship for the Mets franchise which began in 1962.
  • 1971 --- Elton John put the finishing touches to his Madman Across the Water LP at Trident Studios, London. He recorded Indian Sunset, Rotten Peaches and the title song, Madman Across the Water. Tiny Dancer, Levon, Razor Face, Holiday Inn, All the Nasties and Goodbye had been recorded earlier. Since the album’s release on Feb 2, 1972, it has sold over two million copies in the U.S. alone.
  • 1980 --- Workers in Gdansk, Poland, seize the Lenin Shipyard and demand pay raises and the right to form a union free from communist control. The massive strike also saw the rise to prominence of labor leader Lech Walesa, who would be a key figure in bringing an end to communist rule in Poland. Gdansk had been a center of labor agitation in Poland since the 1960s. When the Polish government announced new economic austerity policies and higher food prices in 1980, workers at the Lenin Shipyard exploded in anger. Lech Walesa, a veteran of Poland's labor disputes, joined the workers and on August 14, 1980, they took over the shipyard. The workers' first demand was that Walesa be reinstated to his position as a labor leader. Walesa had been fired from his position at the shipyard in 1976, but remained active in labor protests and agitation against the communist government of Poland. For these actions, he was arrested numerous times. A few days after the workers had seized the shipyard, Walesa announced the formation of an organization designed to tie workers from different fields together into one labor movement, known as Solidarity. The strikers were finally able to wring some concessions from the Polish government, but in 1981 the communist regime struck back and arrested Walesa. He was released in November 1982. Solidarity continued to grow, and in 1989, the crumbling and desperate communist government agreed to recognize Solidarity and to have open elections. In 1990, Walesa was elected as the first noncommunist president of Poland since the end of World War II.
  • 1987 --- Mark McGwire set the record for home runs by a rookie, as he connected for his 39th round-tripper of the season. He got the homer off of 317-game winner Don Sutton of the California Angels. McGwire led the the Oakland Athletics to a 7-6 win -- in 12 innings. He finished the season with 49 homers.
  • 1988 --- Guitarist Roy Buchanan died after hanging himself in a jail in Fairfax, VA.
  • 1995 --- Shannon Faulkner became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina's state military college. She quit the school less than a week later.
  • 2003 --- A major outage knocked out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Beginning at 4:10 p.m. ET, 21 power plants shut down in just three minutes. Fifty million people were affected, including residents of New York, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. Although power companies were able to resume some service in as little as two hours, power remained off in other places for more than a day. The outage stopped trains and elevators, and disrupted everything from cellular telephone service to operations at hospitals to traffic at airports. In New York City, it took more than two hours for passengers to be evacuated from stalled subway trains. Small business owners were affected when they lost expensive refrigerated stock. The loss of use of electric water pumps interrupted water service in many areas. There were even some reports of people being stranded mid-ride on amusement park roller coasters. At the New York Stock Exchange and bond market, though, trading was able to continue thanks to backup generators.
  • 2009 --- Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a Charles Manson follower who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, was released from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars.
  • Birthdays
  • John Brodie
  • Larry Graham
  • Magic Johnson
  • Steve Martin
  • Halle Berry
  • David Crosby
  • Gary Larson
  • Lynne Cheney
  • Tim Tebow
  • Earl Weaver
  • Susan Saint James
  • Susan Olsen
  • Ernest Thayer