- 339th Day of 2012 /27 Remaining
- 17 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:7:09
- Sunset:4:51
- 9 Hours 42 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:10:39pm
- Moon Set:11:11am
- Moon’s Phase: 68 %
- The Next Full Moon
- December 28 @ 5:21 am
- Full Cold Moon
- Full Long Nights Moon
During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.
- Tides
- High:4:11am/2:47pm
- Low:9:25am/9:18pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- This Year:7.44
- Last Year:3.20
- Normal To Date:5.06
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Cookie Day
- National Dice Day
- Wear Brown Shoes Day
- Santa's List Day
- Rake Leaves into the World's Largest Pile Day
- Ashura-Islam
- On This Day In ---
- 1780 --- A force of Continental dragoons commanded by Colonel William Washington--General George Washington's second cousin once removed--corners Loyalist Colonel Rowland Rugeley and his followers in Rugeley's house and barn near Camden, South Carolina, on this day in 1780. After nearly a year of brutal backcountry conflict between Washington and the fierce British commander Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton (who was infamous for Tarleton's Quarter, the murder of colonial POWs on May 29, 1780 at Waxhaws), Washington had retreated to North Carolina the previous October. Commanded to return to the South Carolina theater by Brigadier General Daniel The Old Wagoner Morgan, Colonel Washington still lacked the proper artillery to dislodge the Loyalists. He told his cavalrymen to dismount and surround the barn. While out of Rugeley's sight, Washington's men fabricated a pine log to resemble a cannon. This Quaker gun trick, named so because Quakers used it to be intimidating without breaching their pacifist vow of non-violence, worked beautifully. Washington faced the cannon toward the buildings in which the Loyalists had barricaded themselves and threatened bombardment if they did not surrender. Shortly after, Rugeley surrendered his entire force without a single shot being fired.
- 1812 --- Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, patented the power mower.
- 1917 --- Well-known psychiatrist W.H. Rivers presents his report The Repression of War Experience, based on his work at Britain s Craiglockhart War Hospital for Neurasthenic Officers, to the Royal School of Medicine, on this day in 1917. Craiglockhart, near Edinburgh, was one of the most famous hospitals used to treat soldiers who suffered from psychological traumas as a result of their service on the battlefield. By the end of World War I, the army had been forced to deal with 80,000 cases of "shell shock," a term first used in 1917 by a medical officer named Charles Myers to describe the physical damage done to soldiers on the front lines during exposure to heavy bombardment. It soon became clear, however, that the various symptoms of shell shock?including debilitating anxiety, persistent nightmares, and physical afflictions ranging from diarrhea to loss of sight?were appearing even in soldiers who had never been directly under bombardment, and the meaning of the term was broadened to include not only the physical but the psychological effects produced by the experience of combat.
- 1945 --- In an overwhelming vote of 65 to 7, the U.S. Senate approves full U.S. participation in the United Nations. The United Nations had officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, when its charter was ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and a majority of other signatories. Senate approval meant the U.S. could join most of the world's nations in the international organization, which aimed to arbitrate differences between countries and stem military aggression.
- 1956 --- The modest storefront recording studio at 760 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, played an outsize role in rock-and-roll history. And of the many historic moments that occurred there, none is more famous than the impromptu jam session by four young rock-and-roll giants that took place on this day in 1956—a session enshrined in rock-and-roll legend as the one-and-only gathering of the "Million Dollar Quartet." The studio at 760 Union was run by Sam Phillips, the legendary producer whose Sun Records had launched Elvis Presley on his path toward stardom two years earlier with the release of his first single, "It's Alright Mama" (1954). Phillips' decision to sell Presley's contract to RCA Victor in 1955 for only $35,000 is easy to question in retrospect, but it provided Sun Records with the operating capital it needed in order to record and promote the parade of future stars who had descended on Memphis hoping to follow in Elvis' footsteps. Among those stars was Carl Perkins, the rockabilly legend who was in the studio on December 4, 1956, to record a follow-up to his smash hit from earlier that year: "Blue Suede Shoes." Hanging out in the booth was Perkins' good friend Johnny Cash, already a star in his own right after his breakthrough hits, "Folsom Prison Blues" (1955) and "I Walk The Line" (1956). And playing piano for a $15 session fee was the brash, wild, but not-yet-famous Jerry Lee Lewis, whose career-making Sun single "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" was set for release just a few weeks later. Four songs into Perkins' session, all work came to an end with the arrival of an unexpected drop-in guest: Elvis Presley himself. While recording engineer Jack Clement ran a tape that would not be discovered for more than 20 years, Sam Phillips—ever the promoter—had the presence of mind to summon a photographer from the local paper to capture images of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins gathered around a piano singing the kind of music they'd all grown up on: gospel. The caption under the photo that ran in the next day's Memphis Press-Scimitar was "Million Dollar Quartet." The label quickly caught on among rock-and-roll fans who would not actually get the chance to hear the recording made on this day in 1956 until 1981, when the first portions of the lost tapes were discovered and released.
- 1970 --- Cesar Chavez was jailed in California for refusing to cancel a United Farm Workers lettuce boycott.
- 1978 --- Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been assassinated.
- 1981 --- Reds, a movie about an American Communist and the Russian Revolution written by, directed and starring Warren Beatty--an actor who became a prominent Hollywood leading man in the 1960s with such movies as Bonnie and Clyde--premieres in U.S. theaters. Reds, based on a true story, received 12 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Beatty) and Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor for Beatty's co-stars Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Beatty took home an Oscar for Best Director, his inaugural win in that category. He had received his first Best Director Oscar nomination several years earlier for his directorial debut, 1978's Heaven Can Wait.
- 1984 --- The discovery of a Bronze Age shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey was announced by the National Geographic Society. The find dated back to when King Tutankhamen (Tut, to you) ruled Egypt.
- 1997 --- The National Basketball Association suspended Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo.
- 2009 --- 22-year-old American exchange student Amanda Knox is convicted of murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007 in Perugia, Italy. Knox received a 26-year prison sentence, while her 25-year-old Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaelle Sollecito, who also was convicted in the slaying, was sentenced to 25 years behind bars. The sensational, high-profile case raised questions in the United States about whether Knox, who always maintained her innocence, received a fair trial. Then, in October 2011, in a decision that made international headlines, an Italian court reversed the murder convictions of both Knox and Sollecito and they were freed from prison.
- Birthdays
- Crazy Horse
- Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon
- Jeff Bridges
- Mariwsa Tomei
- Tyra Banks
- Francisco Franco
- Wink Martindale
- Cassandra Wilson
- Jay-Z
- Pappy Boyington
- Max Baer Jr
- John Cale
- Dennis Wilson