- Day of 2015 Remaining
- Spring Begins in Days
- Sunrise:7:16
- Sunset:7:19
- 12 Hours 3 Minutes
- Moon Rise:5:17am
- Moon Set:4:32pm
- Phase:10%
- Full Moon April 4 @ 5:07am
The name Full Pink Moon came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.
- Tides
- High:8:50am/10:09pm
- Low:2:52am/3:27pm
- Rainfall:
- This Year to Date:17.04
- Last Year:8.68
- Avg YTD:20.20
- Annual Avg:23.80
- Holidays
- St. Patrick’s Day
- Evacuation Day-Boston
- Submarine Day
- Campfire Girls Day
- On This Day
- 0461 --- Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland. Much of what is known about Patrick’s legendary life comes from the Confessio, a book he wrote during his last years. Born in Great Britain, probably in Scotland, to a well-to-do Christian family of Roman citizenship, Patrick was captured and enslaved at age 16 by Irish marauders. For the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland, turning to a deepening religious faith for comfort. Following the counsel of a voice he heard in a dream one night, he escaped and found passage on a ship to Britain, where he was eventually reunited with his family. According to the Confessio, in Britain Patrick had another dream, in which an individual named Victoricus gave him a letter, entitled “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, Patrick seemed to hear the voices of Irishmen pleading him to return to their country and walk among them once more. After studying for the priesthood, Patrick was ordained a bishop. He arrived in Ireland in 433 and began preaching the Gospel, converting many thousands of Irish and building churches around the country. After 40 years of living in poverty, teaching, traveling and working tirelessly, Patrick died on March 17, 461 in Saul, where he had built his first church.
- 1762 --- The first St. Patrick's Day parade held in New York City by Irish soldiers serving in the British army.
- 1776 --- British forces are forced to evacuate Boston following General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks the city from the south. During the evening of March 4, American Brigadier General John Thomas, under orders from Washington, secretly led a force of 800 soldiers and 1,200 workers to Dorchester Heights and began fortifying the area. To cover the sound of the construction, American cannons, besieging Boston from another location, began a noisy bombardment of the outskirts of the city. By the morning, more than a dozen cannons from Fort Ticonderoga had been brought within the Dorchester Heights fortifications. British General Sir William Howe hoped to use the British ships in Boston Harbor to destroy the American position, but a storm set in, giving the Americans ample time to complete the fortifications and set up their artillery. Realizing their position was now indefensible, 11,000 British troops and some 1,000 Loyalists departed Boston by ship.
- 1845 --- Stephen Perry and and Thomas Barnabas Daft patented a method for manufacturing rubber bands using vulcanized rubber.
- 1884 --- In Otay, California, John Joseph Montgomery made the first manned, controlled, heavier-than-air glider flight in the United States.
- 1901 --- Paintings by the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. The 71 paintings, which captured their subjects in bold brushstrokes and expressive colors, caused a sensation across the art world. Eleven years before, while living in Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris, van Gogh had committed suicide without any notion that his work was destined to win acclaim beyond his wildest dreams.
- 1905 --- Franklin D. Roosevelt married his distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, in New York City. President Theodore Roosevelt, FDR's fifth cousin, gave his niece away.
- 1906 --- A powerful earthquake and a full day of aftershocks rock Taiwan, killing over 1,200 people. This terrifying day of tremors destroyed several towns and caused millions of dollars in damages.
- 1910 --- The Camp Fire Girls organization was founded by Luther and Charlotte Gulick. It was formally presented to the public exactly 2 years later.
- 1930 --- Al Capone was released from jail.
- 1942 --- Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.
- 1956 --- Carl Perkins appeared on ABC-TV's "Ozark Jubilee" and performed "Blue Suede Shoes." It was his first television appearance. Elvis Presley performed the song the same night on CBS-TV's "Stage Show."
- 1958 --- The Coasters recorded "Yakety Yak."
- 1958 --- Written on the spot and recorded as an afterthought near the end of a session at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, the song ”Tequila” hit #1 on the Billboard pop chart. It was the Champs’ one, and only, pop hit.
- 1959 --- The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India in the wake of a failed uprising by Tibetans against Chinese rule.
- 1964 --- President Lyndon B. Johnson presides over a session of the National Security Council during which Secretary of Defense McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor present a full review of the situation in Vietnam. During the meeting, various secret decisions were made, including the approval of covert intelligence-gathering operations in North Vietnam; contingency plans to launch retaliatory U.S. Air Force strikes against North Vietnamese military installations and against guerrilla sanctuaries inside the Laotian and Cambodian borders; and a long-range “program of graduated overt military pressure” against North Vietnam. President Johnson directed that planning for the bombing raids “proceed energetically.”
- 1967 --- Snoopy and Charlie Brown of "Peanuts" were on the cover of "LIFE" magazine.
- 1969 --- Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel.
- 1973 --- The first American prisoners of war (POWs) were released from the "Hanoi Hilton" in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
- 1995 --- Gerry Adams became the first leader of Sinn Fein to be received at the White House.
- 1990 --- The former Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania steadfastly rejects a demand from the Soviet Union that it renounce its declaration of independence. The situation in Lithuania quickly became a sore spot in U.S.-Soviet relations.
- 2005 --- Baseball players Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa testified before Congress that they hadn't used steroids; Mark McGwire refused to say whether he had.
- Birthdays
- Gottlieb Daimler
- Mercedes McCambridge
- Nat “King” Cole
- Rudolf Nureyev
- Melissa Auf Der Maur
- Bobby Jones
- Caroline Corr
- Paul Kantner
- Rob Lowe
- Billy Corgan
- Mia Hamm
