- 274th Day of 2013 / 181 Remaining
- 81 Days Until The First Day of Winter
- Sunrise:7:06
- Sunset:6:51
- 11 Hours 45 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:3:48am
- Moon Set:4:57pm
- Moon’s Phase: 11 %
- The Next Full Moon
- October 18 @ 4:37pm
- Full Barley Moon
- Full Hunter’s Moon
This full Moon is often referred to as the Full Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon, or Sanguine Moon. Many moons ago, Native Americans named this bright moon for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer are fattened, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. Because the fields were traditionally reaped in late September or early October, hunters could easily see fox and other animals that come out to glean from the fallen grains. Probably because of the threat of winter looming close, the Hunter’s Moon is generally accorded with special honor, historically serving as an important feast day in both Western Europe and among many Native American tribes.
- Tides
- High:9:32am/9:12pm
- Low:2:58am/3:23pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:0.26
- This Year:0.44
- Last Year:0.02
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- Fall Astronomy Day
- Agricultural Fair Day
- International Music Day
- International Day of Older Persons
- International Raccoon Appreciation Day
- World Card Making Day
- World Vegetarian Day
- Armed Forces Day-South Korea
- Independence Day-Cyprus
- Independence Day-Nigeria
- National Day-China
- Independence Day-Tuvalu
- Unification Day-Cameroon
- On This Day In …
- 1856 --- On this day, the Revue de Paris publishes the first segment of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. The novel was published in installments from this day until December 15, 1856.
- 1880 --- A new director of the United States Marine Corps Band
was named. John Philip Sousa became the band’s 17th leader. In 1888 he composed Semper Fidelis, traditionally known as the official march of the Marine Corps.
- 1890 --- An act of Congress creates Yosemite National Park, home of such natural wonders as Half Dome and the giant sequoia trees. Environmental
trailblazer John Muir (1838-1914) and his colleagues campaigned for the congressional action, which was signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison and paved the way for generations of hikers, campers and nature lovers, along with countless "Don't Feed the Bears" signs.
- 1896 --- Rural Free Delivery was established by the U.S. Post Office.
- 1903 --- Cy Young played in his (and everyone else’s) first World Series baseball game. The game was held in Boston. Cy and
Boston lost the game; the score was Pittsburgh 7, Boston 3; however, Boston came back to win the series, five games to three.
- 1908 --- The first production Model T Ford is completed at the company's Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit. Between 1908 and 1927, Ford would build some 15 million Model T cars. It was the longest production run of any automobile model in history until the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed it in 1972. Before the Model T, cars were a luxury item: At the beginning of 1908, there were fewer than 200,000 on the road. Though the Model T was fairly expensive at
first (the cheapest one initially cost $825, or about $18,000 in today's dollars), it was built for ordinary people to drive every day. It had a 22-horsepower, four-cylinder engine and was made of a new kind of heat-treated steel, pioneered by French race car makers, that made it lighter (it weighed just 1,200 pounds) and stronger than its predecessors had been. It could go as fast as 40 miles per hour and could run on gasoline or hemp-based fuel. (When oil prices dropped in the early 20th century, making gasoline more affordable, Ford phased out the hemp option.) "No car under $2,000 offers more," ads crowed, "and no car over $2,000 offers more except the trimmings."
- 1913 --- A monument to honor sea gulls was erected in Salt Lake City. The gulls had eaten the plague of grasshoppers that threatened the Mormon settlers crops in 1848.
- 1918 --- A combined Arab and British force captures Damascus from the Turks during World War I, completing the liberation of Arabia. An instrumental commander in the Allied campaign was T.E. Lawrence, a legendary British soldier known as Lawrence of Arabia.
- 1933 --- Babe Ruth made his final pitching appearance. He pitched all nine innings and hit a home run in the 5th inning.
- 1939 --- Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" during a radio broadcast.
- 1946 --- 12 high-ranking Nazis are sentenced to death by the
International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior. Seven others, including Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. Three others were acquitted.
- 1949 --- Naming himself head of state, communist revolutionary Mao Zedong officially proclaims the existence of the People's Republic of China; Zhou Enlai is named premier. The proclamation was the climax of years of battle between Mao's communist forces and the regime of Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek, who had
been supported with money and arms from the American government. The loss of China, the largest nation in Asia, to communism was a severe blow to the United States, which was still reeling from the Soviet Union's detonation of a nuclear device one month earlier.
- 1961 --- Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 61st home run of the season, breaking Babe Ruth's record of 60 set in 1927.
- 1962 --- “From New York ... heeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!” Ed McMahon introduced the new host of NBC’s Tonight Show for the first time. Johnny Carson entertained late-night America for nearly three decades.
- 1971 --- Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida, USA. The opening was planned for October when the crowds were slower. Disney planners wanted everything to move slowly at first, so any problems that sprang up could be fixed with minimal guest inconvenience.
- 1977 --- 77,691 fans saw world-famous soccer player Pele in the last game of his career, at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. He
played the first half with the New York Cosmos and the second half with his former team, Santos of Brazil.
- 1988 --- Having forced the resignation of Soviet leader Andrei Gromyko, Mikhail Gorbachev names himself head of the Supreme Soviet. Within two years, he was named "Man of the Decade" by Time magazine for his role in bringing the Cold War to a close. Beginning in 1985, when he became general secretary of the Communist Party in the USSR,
- 1996 --- Theodore Kaczynski was charged by a U.S. federal grand jury with mailing a bomb that killed advertising executive Thomas Mosser in 1994. Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, pleaded
guilty in January 1998 to mail bombings that killed three people and injured 23. He was sentenced in July 1997 to life without possibility of parole by a federal court in Sacramento, California.
- 2001 --- The Supreme Court suspended former President Bill Clinton from practicing before the high court.
- 2001 --- San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban Internet filters designed to keep pornography away from children at city libraries. The board left the decision up to the Library Commission to decide whether to install filtering software in children's areas. A federal law in the U.S. mandated the use of the filters.
- 2008 --- A $700 billion financial industry bailout won lopsided passage in the Senate, 74-25, after it was loaded with tax breaks and other sweeteners.
- Birthdays
- Julie Andrews
- Rod Carew
- Albert Collins
- James Earl “Jimmy” Carter-39th President
- Donny Hathaway
- Randy Quaid
- Walter Matthau
- Vladimir Horowitz
- Youssou N’Dour
- Esai Morales
- Mark McGwire
- William Boeing
- Bonnie Parker
- Tom Bosley
- Richard Harris
- James Whitmore
- George Peppard