- 122nd Day of 2012 / 244 Remaining
- 50 Days Until Summer Begins
- Sunrise:6:13
- Sunset:8:01
- 13 Hr 48 Min
- Moon Rise:3:15pm
- Moon Set:3:09am
- Moon’s Phase: 75 %
- The Next Full Moon
- May 5 @ 8:36pm
- Full Flower Moon
- Full Corn Planting Moon
- Full Milk Moon
In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.
- Tides
- High:7:15am/8:11pm
- Low:1:37am/1:28pm
- Rainfall
- This Year:15.65
- Last Year:25.17
- Normal To Date:22.98
- Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
- Holidays
- May Day - A traditional holiday celebration since ancient times. On this day, spring festivals and Maypoles are common. The Maypole is a tall pole that is covered with streamers, flowers and other decorations of spring. People grab hold of a streamer and dance around the pole to ward off ol’ man Winter for good. It is a way to shake the dreary winter blues once and for all. Since the 1880s, May Day has been celebrated in some countries, particularly socialist nations, as a labor holiday. In Hawaii, May Day is Lei Day. It’s a day when friends, lovers, bosses, relatives ... just about anyone and everyone ... gives the gift of a lei to another, putting it around the receiver’s neck and accompanying it with the traditional kiss. This custom of sharing the aloha spirit with a beautiful floral lei on Lei Day began in 1928. There are many celebrations throughout the Hawaiian islands; some complete with pageants, a Lei Queen and her court, Hawaiian music and hula dances.
- Executive Coaching Day
- Keep Kids Alive - Drive 25 Day
- Labor Day (The U.S., Canada, and Bermuda are the only countries that observe Labor Day in September. The Bahamas celebrates in June.)
- Law Day USA
- Lei Day
- Loyalty Day
- Mother Goose Day
- National Dance Day
- National Infertility Survival Day
- New Homeowner's Day
- School Principal's Day
- Stepmothers Day
- Save The Rhino Day
- National Chocolate Parfait Day
- International Labor Day
- Festival of Saint Efisio-Italy
- Agriculture and Labor Day-Haiti
- Constitution Day-Latvia
- Youth & Sports Day-Cyprus
- Beltane/Samhain-Celticism
- May is:
- National Bike Month, National Barbecue Month, Clean Air Month, Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month, Arthritis Month, Family Wellness Month, Heal the Children Month, Get Caught Reading Month, National Mental Health Month, National Hamburger Month, Egg Month, Moving Month, Motorcycle Safety Month, Womens Health Care Month, Victorious Woman Month, Older Americans Month, Teen Self-Esteem Month, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, Haitian Heritage Month, Jewish American Heritage Month, Vinegar Month, Salad Month, Salsa Month, and Smile Month.
- On This Day In …
- 1486 --- Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella to fund an expedition to the West Indies.
- 1751 --- America’s first cricket tournament was held in New York City. Cricket is a popular European sport, played by teams of 11 players who use bats, balls and wickets.
- 1786 --- In Vienna, the hothead composer Mozart threatened to burn "The Marriage of Figaro" unless it was performed ahead of another composer's latest opera. Mozart won.
- 1883 --- William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) had his first Wild West Show.
- 1889 --- The Bayer company of Germany introduced aspirin in powdered form.
- 1889 --- Asa Candler published a full-page advertisement in The Atlanta Journal, proclaiming his wholesale and retail drug business as "sole proprietors of Coca-Cola ... Delicious. Refreshing. Exhilarating. Invigorating."
- 1920 --- The longest baseball game (by innings) was played. The Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers played an incredible 26 innings -- with the same pitchers! Leon Cadore of Brooklyn and Boston’s Joe Oeschger went the distance and saw the game end in a 1-1 tie.
- 1931 --- President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building's lights. Hoover's gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York. The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building. Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Not to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The group chose the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the building. The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly: The entire building went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule. During certain periods of building, the frame grew an astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.
- 1941 --- Citizen Kane, now revered as one of the greatest movies in history, made its debut at the smaller RKO Palace Theater. By the time he began working on Citizen Kane, the 24-year-old Welles had already made a name for himself as Hollywood’s enfant terrible. He first found success on Broadway and on the radio; his October 1938 broadcast version of the science-fiction classic The War of the Worlds was so realistic that many listeners actually believed Martians had invaded New Jersey. Having signed a lucrative contract with RKO studios, Welles was struggling to find a subject for his first feature film when his friend, the writer Herman Mankiewicz, suggested that he base it on the life of the publishing baron William Randolph Hearst. Hearst presided over the country’s leading newspaper empire, ruling it from San Simeon, a sprawling estate perched atop a hill along California’s central coastline. A preview of Citizen Kane in early February 1941 had drawn almost universally favorable reviews from critics. However, one viewer, the leading Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, was incensed by the film and Welles’ portrayal of its protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. She took her concerns to Hearst himself, who soon began waging a full-scale campaign against Welles and his film, barring the Hearst newspapers from running ads for it and enlisting the support of Hollywood bigwigs such as Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was said Hearst was particularly angry over the movie’s depiction of a character based on his companion, Marion Davies, a former showgirl whom he had helped become a popular Hollywood actress. For his part, Welles threatened to sue Hearst for trying to suppress the film and also to sue RKO if the company did not release the film. When Citizen Kane finally opened in May 1941, it was a failure at the box office. Although reviews were favorable, and it was nominated for nine Academy Awards, Welles was booed at that year’s Oscar ceremony, and RKO quietly archived the film. It was only years later, when it was re-released, that Citizen Kane began to garner well-deserved accolades for its pioneering camera and sound work, as well as its complex blend of drama, black comedy, history, biography and even fake-newsreel or “mockumentary” footage that has informed hundreds of films produced since then. It consistently ranks at the top of film critics’ lists, most notably grabbing the No. 1 spot on the American Film Institute’s poll of America’s 100 Greatest Films.
- 1960 --- An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. The U-2 spy plane was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was a sophisticated technological marvel. Traveling at altitudes of up to 70,000 feet, the aircraft was equipped with state-of-the-art photography equipment that could, the CIA boasted, take high-resolution pictures of headlines in Russian newspapers as it flew overhead. Flights over the Soviet Union began in mid-1956. The CIA assured President Eisenhower that the Soviets did not possess anti-aircraft weapons sophisticated enough to shoot down the high-altitude planes. On May 1, 1960, a U-2 flight piloted by Francis Gary Powers disappeared while on a flight over Russia. The CIA reassured the president that, even if the plane had been shot down, it was equipped with self-destruct mechanisms that would render any wreckage unrecognizable and the pilot was instructed to kill himself in such a situation. Based on this information, the U.S. government issued a cover statement indicating that a weather plane had veered off course and supposedly crashed somewhere in the Soviet Union. With no small degree of pleasure, Khrushchev pulled off one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War by producing not only the mostly-intact wreckage of the U-2, but also the captured pilot-very much alive. A chagrined Eisenhower had to publicly admit that it was indeed a U.S. spy plane.
- 1970 --- Students at Kent State University riot in downtown Kent, OH, in protest of the American invasion of Cambodia.
- 1970 --- Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin combined for the first time on Elton’s first American album simply titled, Elton John. The LP contained Elton’s first hit, Your Song, which made it to the top ten on the music charts in December.
- 1971 --- The National Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak) went into service. It was established by the U.S. Congress to run the nation's intercity railroads.
- 1999 --- On Mount Everest, a group of U.S. mountain climbers discovered the body of George Mallory. Mallory had died in June of 1924 while trying to become the first person to reach the summit of Everest. At the time of the discovery it was unclear whether or not Mallory had actually reached the summit.
- 2002 --- A Christchurch, New Zealand, man received a phone call from police saying there were armed officers surrounding his house. The 33-year-old was told to walk out with his arms in the air and no weapons. When he got outside there was no one there and he went back in. A police negotiator still on the phone then realized he had the wrong telephone number.
- Birthdays
- Rita Coolidge
- Ray Parker Jr
- Judy Collins
- Kate Smith
- Scott Carpenter
- Wes Anderson
- Jack Paar
- Harry Caray
- Joseph Heller
- Ollie Matson
- Martha Jane Canary