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Tuesday December 16, 2014

  • Boston Tea Party Day
  • Underdog Day
  • National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
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  • Las Posadas (9 days)-Mexico
  • Independence Day-Bahrain
  • Independence Day-Kazakhstan
  • Reconciliation Day-South Africa
  • Victory Day-Bangladesh
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  • On This Day
  • 1773 --- In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, popularly known as the "Boston Tea Party," was in protest of the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.
  • 1811 --- In the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, the greatest series of earthquakes in U.S. history begins when a quake of an estimated 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale slams the region. Although the earthquake greatly altered the topography of the region, the area was only sparsely inhabited at the time, and there were no known human fatalities. The earthquake raised and lowered parts of the Mississippi Valley by as much as 15 feet and changed the course of the Mississippi River. At one point, the Mississippi momentarily reversed its direction, giving rise to Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee. A 30,000-square-mile area was affected, and tremors were felt as far away as the eastern coast of the United States, where the shock was reported to have rung church bells. Additional earthquakes and aftershocks continued throughout the winter and into the spring, and of the approximately 2,000 seismic vibrations felt during the period, five were estimated to be at an 8.0 or greater magnitude.
  • 1893 --- The Philharmonic Society of New York gave the world premiere performance of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World" at Carnegie Hall. In his review of the performance the following day, New York Times music critic W.J. Henderson called the piece better known today as the New World Symphony, "A vigorous and beautiful work" that "must take the place among the finest works in this form produced since the death of Beethoven." But in a review that ran close to 2,000 words, Henderson devoted perhaps 90 percent of his attention not to praising the artistic merit and craftsmanship of the New World Symphony, but rather to defending the controversial and ultimately political choices made by its composer. At a time when composers and critics in the United States were straining to identify and foster a uniquely American sound, the Czech immigrant Dvorak's work suggested that the basis for such a sound was to be found not in the European tradition, but in the music of African Americans. 
  • 1901 --- Rejected by several publishers, Beatrix Potter privately printed 250 copies of 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit' for family and friends. With color illustrations added, a trade edition was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902 and was an immediate success.
  • 1912 --- The first postage stamp to depict an airplane was issued was a 20-cent parcel-post stamp. 
  • 1944 --- Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.
  • 1950 --- In the wake of the massive Chinese intervention in the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency. Proclaiming that "Communist imperialism" threatened the world's people, Truman called upon the American people to help construct an "arsenal of freedom."
  • 1951 --- NBC-TV debuted “Dum-de-dum-dum. Dum-de-dum-dum-daa.” Dragnet made it to TV, in a special preview, on Chesterfield Sound Off Time. The Jack Webb (Sgt. Joe Friday) police drama opened its official TV run on January 3, 1952.
  • 1960 --- Two airplanes collide over New York City, killing 134 people on the planes and on the ground. The improbable mid-air collision is the only such accident to have occurred over a major city in U.S. history.
  • 1971 --- Don McLean’s eight-minute-plus (8:32) version of American Pie was released. It became one of the longest songs with some of the most confusing (pick your favorite interpretation) lyrics to ever hit the pop charts. It was a disc jockey favorite since there were few songs long enough for potty breaks at the time.American Pie hit #1 on January 15, 1972.
  • 1971 --- Melanie (Safka) received a gold record for the single, Brand New Key, about roller skates and love and stuff like that. This one made it to #1 on Christmas Day, 1971.
  • 1976 --- On the 'Barney Miller' TV show, Wojo's hippie girlfriend baked a batch of ‘special’ brownies for the precinct.
  • 1977 --- Saturday Night Fever, a movie that ignites the disco dance craze across America, along with the movie career of its star, John Travolta, opens in theaters. 
  • 1985 --- Paul (Big Paul) Castellano, the aging and beleaguered kingpin of American organized crime, was shot to death in front of a midtown steak house. Also killed with Castellano, 70, was Thomas Bilotti, 47, a reputed captain in the Gambino crime family, which Castellano had controlled since 1976. The two victims were both shot in the face by an execution team of three unidentified men who pulled semi-automatic handguns from their trenchcoats, according to investigators.
  • 1990 --- Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti in the country's first democratic elections.
  • 2000 --- President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first African-American secretary of state.
  • 2000 --- Researchers announced that information from NASA's Galileo spacecraft indicated that Ganymede appeared to have a liquid saltwater ocean beneath a surface of solid ice. Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, is the solar system's largest moon.
  • 2004 --- Country Music singer Willie Nelson opened his own restaurant, the Texas Roadhouse Grill, in Austin, Texas.
  • Birthdays
  • Jane Austen
  • Margaret Mead
  • Catherine of Aragon
  • Ludwig Von Beethoven
  • Paul Butterfield
  • Arthur C Clarke
  • Sir Noel Coward
  • Arthur Fiedler
  • Turk Murphy
  • Philip K Dick
  • Liv Ullman
  • Leslie Stahl
  • Robben Ford
  • Benjamin Bratt

  • 350th Day of 2014 / 15 Remaining
  • Winter Begins in 5 Days

  • Sunrise:7:19
  • Sunset:4:52
  • 9 Hours 33 Minutes

  • Moon Rise:1:44am
  • Moon Set:1:21pm
  • Moon Phase:29%
  • Full Moon January 4 @ 8:54pm
  • Wolf Moon
  • Old Moon
  • Moon After Yule

Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.

  • Tides:
  • High Tide:6:02am/7:06pm
  • Low Tide:1:03pm

  • Rainfall
  • This Year to Date:12.27 (12.54in./2013-2014))
  • Last Year:2.09
  • Avg YTD:6.77
  • Annual Avg:23.80