- 161st Day of 2014 / 204 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 11 Days
- Sunrise:5:47
- Sunset:8:31
- 14 Hours 43 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:6:04pm
- Moon Set:3:54am
- Moon’s Phase: 93 %
- The Next Full Moon
- June 12 @ 4:26 am
- Full Rose Moon
- Full Strawberry Moon
- Strawberry Moon was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!
- Tides
- High:10:18am/9:19pm
- Low:3:37am/3:06pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:12.65
- Last Year:16.36
- Average Year to Date:23.72
- Holidays
- National Iced Tea Day
- National Brown Cow Day
- Day of National Reconciliation-Republic of Congo
- National Day-Portugal
- On This Day In …
- 1692 --- In Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget Bishop, the first colonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, is hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft. On March 1, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, became the first Salem residents to be charged with the capital crime of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba confessed to the crime and subsequently aided the authorities in identifying more Salem witches. With encouragement from adults in the community, the girls, who were soon joined by other "afflicted" Salem residents, accused a widening circle of local residents of witchcraft, mostly middle-aged women but also several men and even one four-year-old child. During the next few months, the afflicted area residents
incriminated more than 150 women and men from Salem Village and the surrounding areas of satanic practices. In June 1692, the special Court of Oyer and Terminer ["to hear and to decide"] convened in Salem under Chief Justice William Stoughton to judge the accused. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem, who was accused of witchcraft by more individuals than any other defendant. Bishop, known around town for her dubious moral character, frequented taverns, dressed flamboyantly (by Puritan standards), and was married three times. She professed her innocence but was found guilty and executed by hanging on June 10. Thirteen more women
and five men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows, and one man, Giles Corey, was executed by crushing. Most of those tried were condemned on the basis of the witnesses' behavior during the actual proceedings, characterized by fits and hallucinations that were argued to have been caused by the defendants on trial.
- 1752 --- Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm and collects a charge in a Leyden jar when the kite is struck by lightning, enabling him to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was still unknown on the topic, and spent almost a decade conducting electrical experiments.
- 1776 --- The Continental Congress appointed a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.
- 1801 --- The North African State of Tripoli declared war on the U.S. The dispute was over merchant vessels being able to travel safely through the Mediterranean.
- 1865 --- Richard Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" premiered in Munich, Germany.
- 1881 --- Count Leo Tolstoy sets off on a pilgrimage to a monastery disguised as a peasant. Tolstoy had already produced his two greatest masterpieces War and Peace (1865-1869) and Anna Karenina (1875-1877). The Russian nobleman was engaged in a spiritual struggle and felt torn between his responsibility as a wealthy landlord to improve the lot of the people, and his desire to give up his property and wander the land as an ascetic.
- 1902 --- The "outlook" or "see-through" envelope was patented by Americus F. Callahan.
- 1909 --- The SOS distress signal was used for the first time. The Cunard liner SS Slavonia used the signal when it wrecked off the Azores.
- 1920 --- The Republican convention in Chicago endorsed woman suffrage.
- 1925 --- The state of Tennessee adopted a new biology text book that denied the theory of evolution.
- 1935 --- After completing one full day without imbibing liquor, Dr. Robert Smith, better known as Doctor Bob, and his friend William G. Wilson founded Alcoholics Anonymous. This was the beginning of a lifetime without booze for the two ... and for thousands more throughout the years.
- 1944 --- 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall becomes the youngest person ever to play Major League Baseball when he pitches in a game for the Cincinnati Reds. Nuxhall threw two-thirds of the ninth inning in an 18-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals; he was pulled only after one wild pitch and allowing five runs on five walks and two hits. The game was played during World War II, when it became common for adolescent and older players to fill in for big leaguers fighting overseas.
- 1952 --- Mylar was registered as a DuPont trademark. Mylar is a very strong polyester film that has gradually replaced cellophane. It is used as a food wrap in addition to many other non-food uses.
- 1953 --- In a forceful speech, President Eisenhower strikes back at critics of his Cold War foreign policy. He insisted that the United States was committed to the worldwide battle against communism and that he would maintain a strong U.S. defense.
- 1963 --- President Kennedy announces that the U.S. may cease atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Before the day was out, he had also signed a bill prohibiting wage discrimination toward women and sent a telegram to Governor George Wallace of Alabama asking him not to prevent black students from registering at the University of Alabama.
- 1967 --- The Six-Day War ended as Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.
- 1972 --- Sammy Davis Jr. earned his place at the top of the popular music charts for the first time, after years in the entertainment business. His number one song, The Candy Man, stayed at the top for three consecutive weeks. The Candy Man was truly a song of fate for Sammy. He openly did not want to record the song, but did so as a favor to MGM Records head Mike Curb, since it was to be used in the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Davis said he would give the tune one take, "and that’s it!" The Candy Man stayed on the pop charts for 16 weeks.
- 1977 --- James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee with six others. (He was recaptured three days later.)
- 1980 --- In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) makes public a statement by Nelson Mandela, the long imprisoned leader of the anti-apartheid movement. The message, smuggled out of Robben Island prison under great risk, read, "UNITE! MOBILISE! FIGHT ON! BETWEEN THE ANVIL OF UNITED MASS ACTION AND THE HAMMER OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE WE SHALL CRUSH APARTHEID!"
- 1984 --- The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in 117 years.
- 1985 --- A ‘Most Embarrassing Moment’: Coca Cola announced it was bringing back the old formula Coke, to replace the New Coke nobody wanted.
- 1985 --- Socialite Claus von Bulow was acquitted by a jury in Providence, R.I., on charges he'd tried to murder his heiress wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow.
- 1985 --- Frank Sinatra was portrayed as a friend of organized crime in a "Doonesbury" comic strip. Over 800 newspapers carried the panel.
- 1990 --- Bulgaria's former Communist Party won the country's first free elections in more than four decades.
- 1998 --- The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that poor children in Milwaukee could attend religious schools at taxpayer expense.
- Birthdays
- Judy Garland
- Hattie McDaniel
- Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett)
- Maurice Sendak
- Kim Deal
- Gov Bobby Jindal
- Prince Philip
- Faith Evans
- F Lee Bailey
- Gina Gershon
- Dan Fouts
- Elizabeth Hurley
- Eliot Spitzer
- Tara Lipinski
- Andre Marie Ampere
- Nat Hentoff
- Elisabeth Shue
- Linda Evangelista