- 184th Day of 2012 / 182 Remaining
- 81 Days Until Autumn Begins
- Sunrise:5:53
- Sunset:8:36
- 14 Hours 43 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:8:35pm
- Moon Set:5:52am
- Moon’s Phase: 100 %
- The Next Full Moon
- July 3 @ 11:51am
- Full Buck Moon
- Full Thunder Moon
- Full Hay Moon
July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon.
- Tides
- High:12:12pm/10:58pm
- Low:5:12am/4:59pm
- Holidays
- Air Conditioning Appreciation Days (07/03-08/15)
- Compliment Your Mirror Day
- Dog Days (07/03-08/11 - Blamed by our ancient ancestors on Sirius, the Dog Star.)
- Stay Out of the Sun Day
- Admission Day-Idaho
- National Chocolate Wafer Day
- National Eat Beans Day
- Independence Day-Belarus
- Danish West Indies Emancipation Day-US Virgin Islands
- Day of the Child-Argentina
- Independence Celebration-Bahamas
- Heroes Day-Zambia
- On This Day In …
- 1608 --- The city of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain.
- 1863 --- On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end. In June 1863, following his masterful victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Lee launched his second invasion of the Union in less than a year. He led his 75,000-man Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River, through Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, seeking to win a major battle on Northern soil that would further dispirit the Union war effort and induce Britain or France to intervene on the Confederacy's behalf. The 90,000-strong Army of the Potomac pursued the Confederates into Maryland, but its commander, General Joseph Hooker, was still stinging from his defeat at Chancellorsville and seemed reluctant to chase Lee further. Meanwhile, the Confederates divided their forces and investigated various targets, such as Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania capital. On June 28, President Abraham Lincoln replaced Hooker with General George Meade, and Lee learned of the presence of the Army of the Potomac in Maryland. Lee ordered his army to concentrate in the vicinity of the crossroads town of Gettysburg and prepare to meet the Federal army. At the same time, Meade sent ahead part of his force into Pennsylvania but intended to make a stand at Pipe Creek in Maryland. On July 1, a Confederate division under General Henry Heth marched into Gettysburg hoping to seize supplies but finding instead three brigades of Union cavalry. Thus began the Battle of Gettysburg, and Lee and Meade ordered their massive armies to converge on the impromptu battle site. The Union cavalrymen defiantly held the field against overwhelming numbers until the arrival of Federal reinforcements. Later, the Confederates were reinforced, and by mid-afternoon some 19,000 Federals faced 24,000 Confederates. Lee arrived to the battlefield soon afterward and ordered a general advance that forced the Union line back to Cemetery Hill, just south of the town. During the night, the rest of Meade's force arrived, and by the morning Union General Winfield Hancock had formed a strong Union line. On July 2, against the Union left, General James Longstreet led the main Confederate attack, but it was not carried out until about 4 p.m., and the Federals had time to consolidate their positions. Thus began some of the heaviest fighting of the battle, and Union forces retained control of their strategic positions at heavy cost. After three hours, the battle ended, and the total number of dead at Gettysburg stood at 35,000. On July 3, Lee, having failed on the right and the left, planned an assault on Meade's center. A 15,000-man strong column under General George Pickett was organized, and Lee ordered a massive bombardment of the Union positions. The 10,000 Federals answered the Confederate artillery onslaught, and for more than an hour the guns raged in the heaviest cannonade of the Civil War. At 3 p.m., Pickett led his force into no-man's-land and found that Lee's bombardment had failed. As Pickett's force attempted to cross the mile distance to Cemetery Ridge, Union artillery blew great holes in their lines. Meanwhile, Yankee infantry flanked the main body of "Pickett's charge" and began cutting down the Confederates. Only a few hundred Virginians reached the Union line, and within minutes they all were dead, dying, or captured. In less than an hour, more than 7,000 Confederate troops had been killed or wounded. Both armies, exhausted, held their positions until the night of July 4, when Lee withdrew. The Army of the Potomac was too weak to pursue the Confederates, and Lee led his army out of the North, never to invade it again. The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War, costing the Union 23,000 killed, wounded, or missing in action. The Confederates suffered some 25,000 casualties. On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address during the dedication of a new national cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg.
- 1871 --- The Jesse James gang robbed the bank at Corydon, Iowa, and escaped with $45-thousand.
- 1880 --- "Science" began publication. Thomas Edison had provided the principle funding.
- 1890 --- The Spud State, the Potato State, the Gem State are all synonymous with Idaho, which entered the United States of America on this day. The capital of the 43rd state is Boise. The official state bird is the mountain bluebird; the state flower is the syringa ... or lilac, to the non-botanists among us.
- 1922 --- "Fruit Garden and Home" magazine was introduced. It was later renamed "Better Homes and Gardens."
- 1924 --- Clarence Birdseye, with the financial backing of W. Hodges, W. Gamage, B. Jones, I.L. Rice and J.J. Barry, founded the General Seafood Corporation. The birth of the frozen food industry.
- 1930 --- Congress created the Veterans Administration.
- 1941 --- Cab Calloway and his orchestra recorded the standard, "St. James Infirmary."
- 1954 --- Food rationing ended in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.
- 1957 --- Nikita Khrushchev takes control in the Soviet Union by orchestrating the ouster of his most serious opponents from positions of authority in the Soviet government. Khrushchev's action delighted the United States, which viewed him as a more moderate figure in the communist government of Russia. Khrushchev had been jockeying for ultimate control in the Soviet Union since the death of long-time Russian dictator Joseph Stalin in March 1953. Following Stalin's demise, the Soviet Union was ruled by a 10-member presidium. Khrushchev was only one member of this presidium, but during the following four years he moved steadily to seize total control. In June 1957, Khrushchev survived an attempt by his political opponents to remove him from the government. In July, he had his revenge. Since 1953, he had worked tirelessly to gain allies in the Soviet military and to gain control of the all-important Communist Party apparatus. On July 3, 1957, his years of work paid off as he used his important political connections and alliances to remove the three main challengers to his authority. Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgi M. Malenkov, and Lazar Kaganovich were voted off the presidium and relegated to minor government positions. Khrushchev then reigned supreme, and ruled the Soviet Union until his own ouster in 1964. In the United States, the news of Khrushchev's "housecleaning" was greeted with optimism. Malenkov and Molotov, in particular, had been viewed as communist "hard-liners" in the Stalinist mold. Khrushchev, on the other hand, was seen as a "moderate" who might be receptive to a more amenable relationship with the United States. In the coming years, U.S. officials were often disappointed with the newest Soviet leader, who seemed to vacillate between warm words about "peaceful coexistence" between the United States and the Soviet Union and aggressive talk about "burying" the capitalist system. Khrushchev's power began seriously to wane in 1962. Many Soviet officials characterized his behavior as "cowardly" during the October 1962 missile crisis in Cuba and he was pushed from power in 1964. Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev.
- 1962 --- Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
- 1966 --- Tony Cloninger had a good day. His Braves beat the Giants in Candlestick Park 17 to 3, and Cloninger not only was the winning pitcher, he also hit two grand slam homers and drove in a 9th run with a single.
- 1976 --- 103 hostages were rescued by an Israeli commando unit in a raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda. 106 hostages had been taken from a hijacked Air France airliner on its way to Paris from Tel Aviv. Seven pro-Palestinian guerrilla hijackers, 20 Ugandan soldiers and 3 hostages were killed in the raid.
- 2009 --- Sarah Palin announced she would resign as Alaska governor with 16 months left in her term.
- Birthdays
- M.F.K. Fisher
- Tom Criuse
- Montel Williams
- Pete Fountain
- Moises Alou
- George M. Cohan
- Tom Stoppard
- Yeardley Smith
- Franz Kafka
- Dorothy Kilgallen
- Paul Barrere