- 90th Day of 2015 275 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 82 Days
- Sunrise:6:55
- Sunset:7:32
- 12 Hours 37 Minutes
- Moon Rise:4:24pm
- Moon Set:4:56am
- Phase:88%
- 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:9:06am/10:10pm
- Low:3:20am/3:335pm
- Rainfall:
- This Year to Date:17.13
- Last Year:10.90
- Avg YTD:21.40
- Annual Avg:23.80
- Holidays
- Cesar Chavez Day
- Dance Marathon Day
- Eiffel tower Day
- National “She’s Funny That Way” Day
- National Bunsen Burner Day
- Clams On The Half Shell Day
- National Crayola Crayon Day
- National Tater Day
- Oranges and Lemons Day
- World Backup Day
- Pohnpei/Culture Day-Micronesia
- National Day-Malta
- On This Day
- 1492 --- King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued an edict expelling Jews unwilling to convert to Christianity.
- 1776 --- Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, urging him and the other members of the Continental Congress not to forget about the nation’s women when fighting for America’s independence from Great Britain. The future First Lady wrote in part, “I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
- 1836 --- The first monthly installment of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, by 24-year-old writer Charles Dickens, is published under the pseudonym Boz. The short sketches were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings by caricaturist Robert Seymour, but Dickens’ whimsical stories about the kindly Samuel Pickwick and his fellow club members soon became popular in their own right. Only 400 copies were printed of the first installment, but by the 15th episode, 40,000 copies were printed. When the stories were published in book form in 1837, Dickens quickly became the most popular author of the day.
- 1889 --- The Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower’s designer, and attended by French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, a handful of other dignitaries, and 200 construction workers. The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall and consists of an iron framework supported on four masonry piers, from which rise four columns that unite to form a single vertical tower. Platforms, each with an observation deck, are at three levels. Elevators ascend the piers on a curve, and Eiffel contracted the Otis Elevator Company of the United States to design the tower’s famous glass-cage elevators.The elevators were not completed by March 31, 1889, however, so Gustave Eiffel ascended the tower’s stairs with a few hardy companions and raised an enormous French tricolor on the structure’s flagpole. Fireworks were then set off from the second platform. Eiffel and his party descended, and the architect addressed the guests and about 200 workers. In early May, the Paris International Exposition opened, and the tower served as the entrance gateway to the giant fair.
- 1903 --- Binney & Smith, Inc. began selling their Crayola Crayons to the public. They came up with the brand name Crayola when they put the French Words Craie (chalk) and ola (oily) together. The first Crayola crayons came in a box of 8 and sold for 5 cents. Today, Binney & Smith produce about 7 million crayons every day in 120 colors. The average American child uses 730 crayons by his 10th birthday. It’s no surprise that a study shows the smell of Crayola crayons is one of the twenty top scents recognized by adults in the U.S.
- 1906 --- The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was founded to set rules in amateur sports. The organization became the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1910.
- 1923 --- In New York City, the first U.S. dance marathon was held. Alma Cummings set a new world record of 27 hours.
- 1943 --- The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma!" opened on Broadway.
- 1945 --- "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.
- 1958 --- Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was released.
- 1959 --- The Dalai Lama (Lhama Dhondrub, Tenzin Gyatso) began exile by crossing the border into India where he was granted political asylum. Gyatso was the 14th Daila Lama.
Dalai Lama (left) - 1966 --- An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City.
- 1966 --- The Soviet Union launched Luna 10, which became the first spacecraft to enter a lunar orbit.
- 1968 --- In a televised speech to the nation, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces a partial halt of bombing missions over North Vietnam and proposes peace talks. He said he had ordered “unilaterally” a halt to air and naval bombardments of North Vietnam “except in the area north of the Demilitarized Zone, where the continuing enemy build-up directly threatens Allied forward positions.” He also stated that he was sending 13,500 more troops to Vietnam and would request further defense expenditures–$2.5 billion in fiscal year 1968 and $2.6 billion in fiscal year 1969–to finance recent troop build-ups, re-equip the South Vietnamese Army, and meet “responsibilities in Korea.” In closing, Johnson shocked the nation with an announcement that all but conceded that his own presidency had become another wartime casualty: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
- 1969 --- Led Zeppelin's debut album was released in the U.K.
- 1973 --- The Mississippi River reaches its peak level in St. Louis during a record 77-day flood. During the extended flood, 33 people died and more than $1 billion in damages were incurred. The roots of the 1973 flood go back to October 1972, when above-average rain began falling in the river basins that feed the Mississippi River. With more precipitation than normal coming down through the winter, the stage was set for flooding when hard rain came down in March. With most of the Midwest already saturated, the Mississippi began rising slowly to flood levels.
- 1976 --- The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Anne Quinlan could be disconnected from a respirator. Quinlan remained comatose until 1985 when she died.
- 1994 --- "Nature" magazine announced that a complete skull of Australppithecus afarensis had been found in Ethiopia. The finding is of humankind's earliest ancestor.
- 1995 --- Singer Selena, 23, was shot to death in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the founder of her fan club.
- 1995 --- Major League Baseball players are sent back to work after the longest strike in baseball history ends. Because of the strike, the 1994 World Series was cancelled; it was the first time baseball did not crown a champion in 89 years.
- 1999 --- Four New York City police officers were charged with murder for killing Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, in a hail of bullets.
- 2000 --- Officials in Uganda set the number of deaths linked to a doomsday religious cult, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, at more than 900. In Kanungu, a March 17 fire at the cult's church killed more than 530 and authorities subsequently found mass graves at various sites linked to the cult.
- 2014 --- The International Court of Justice rules that the Japanese government must halt its whaling program in the Antarctic. Japan said it would abide by the decision.
- Birthdays
- Cesar Chavez
- Rene Descartes(I think therefore I am)
- Franz Joseph Haydn
- Octavia Paz (poet)
- Mary Chestnut
- Lefty Frizzell
- Shirley Jones
- Richard Chamberlain
- Herb Alpert
- Christopher Walken
- Rhea Peralman
- Al Gore
Tuesday March 31, 2015
