- 38th Day of 2012 / 328 Remaining
- 42 Days Until Spring Begins
- Sunrise:7:08
- Sunset:5:40
- 10 Hr 32 Min
- Moon Rise:5:55pm
- Moon Set:6:42am
- Moon’s Phase: 100 %
- Full Moon
- Today, February 7 @ 1:56pm
- Full Snow Moon
- Full Hunger Moon
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:9:50am/11:19pm
- Low:3:56am/4:35pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:6.09
- Last Year:12.67
- Normal To Date:13.92
- Annual Average: 22.28
- Holidays
- Ballet Day
- Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbors Day
- National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
- National Fettucine Alfredo Day
- African American Coaches Day
- Independence Day (Grenada)
- Risk Awareness Week and Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week begin today
- On This Day In …
- 1795 --- The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Eleventh Amendment, the first time the Constitution was amended after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, was adopted following the Supreme Court's ruling in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793). In Chisholm, the Court ruled that federal courts had the authority to hear cases in law and equity brought by private citizens against states and that states did not enjoy sovereign immunity from suits made by citizens of other states. Thus, the amendment clarified Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, which gave diversity jurisdiction to the judiciary to hear cases "between a state and citizens of another state."
- 1812 --- The most violent of a series of earthquakes near Missouri causes a so-called fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River, actually making the river run backward for several hours. The series of tremors, which took place between December 1811 and March 1812, were the most powerful in the history of the United States.
- 1882 --- The last bareknuckle fight for the heavyweight boxing championship took place in Mississippi City. John L. Sullivan punched Paddy Ryan’s lights out and sent him to nighty-night land in round nine.
- 1893 --- Elisha Gray patented a machine called the telautograph. It automatically signed autographs to documents.
- 1914 --- Silent film Kid Auto Races at Venice premieres in theaters, featuring the actor Charlie Chaplin in his first screen appearance as the “Little Tramp,” the character that would become his best-known onscreen alter ego.
- 1940 --- Movie fans watched the world premiere of the Walt Disney animation, Pinocchio, at the Center Theatre in Manhattan. The showing followed that of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as Disney’s second feature-length film.
- 1944 --- Bing Crosby and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded "Swinging on a Star" for Decca Records in Los Angeles.
- 1954 --- At Chess Records' Chicago studios, Muddy Waters recorded "I'm Your Hootchie-Coochie Man."
- 1962 --- President John F. Kennedy imposed a full trade embargo on Cuba.
- 1964 --- Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London Heathrow lands at New York's Kennedy Airport--and "Beatlemania" arrives. It was the first visit to the United States by the Beatles, a British rock-and-roll quartet that had just scored its first No. 1 U.S. hit six days before with "I Want to Hold Your Hand." At Kennedy, the "Fab Four"--dressed in mod suits and sporting their trademark haircuts--were greeted by 3,000 screaming fans who caused a near riot when the boys stepped off their plane and onto American soil. Two days later, Paul McCartney, age 21, Ringo Starr, 23, John Lennon, 23, and George Harrison, 20, made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, a popular television variety show. Although it was difficult to hear the performance over the screams of teenage girls in the studio audience, an estimated 73 million U.S. television viewers, or about 40 percent of the U.S. population, tuned in to watch. Sullivan immediately booked the Beatles for two more appearances that month. The group made their first public concert appearance in the United States on February 11 at the Coliseum in Washington, D.C., and 20,000 fans attended. The next day, they gave two back-to-back performances at New York's Carnegie Hall, and police were forced to close off the streets around the venerable music hall because of fan hysteria.
- 1979 --- Burglars blew a safe in Bielefeld, Germany, and the whole building collapsed around them. It seems the safe was filled with dynamite.
- 1979 --- The Clash kick off their first American tour at the Berkeley Community Theatre.
- 1984 --- While in orbit 170 miles above Earth, Navy Captain Bruce McCandless becomes the first human being to fly untethered in space when he exits the U.S. space shuttle Challenger and maneuvers freely, using a bulky white rocket pack of his own design. McCandless orbited Earth in tangent with the shuttle at speeds greater than 17,500 miles per hour and flew up to 320 feet away from the Challenger. After an hour and a half testing and flying the jet-powered backpack and admiring Earth, McCandless safely reentered the shuttle. Later that day, Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert Stewart tried out the rocket pack, which was a device regarded as an important step toward future operations to repair and service orbiting satellites and to assemble and maintain large space stations. It was the fourth orbital mission of the space shuttle Challenger.
- 1985 --- "New York, New York" became the official anthem of the Big Apple
- 1991 --- Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti's first democratically elected president
- 1998 --- The XVIIIth Winter Olympic games opened at Nagano, Japan. Wind, rain, fog and lightning, with a mild earthquake thrown in, played havoc with Alpine skiing during the first five days. Then, good weather moved in and, when the games ended, the Japanese were hailed for their excellent show.
- Birthdays
- Charles Dickens
- Frederick Douglas
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Ruth Sager
- Eubie Blake
- Sinclair Lewis
- Chris Rock
- Buster Crabbe
- Ashton Kutcher
- John Deere
- Gay Talese
- James Spader
- Garth Brooks
- Eddie Izzard
- Sir Thomas More
- King Curtis