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Wednesday April 17, 2013

  • 107th Day of 2013 / 258 Remaining
  • 65 Days Until The First Day of Summer

  • Sunrise:6:29
  • Sunset:7:48
  • 13 Hours 19 Minutes of Daylight

  • Moon Rise:11:53am
  • Moon Set:1:28am
  • Moon’s Phase:43 %

  • The Next Full Moon
  • April 25 @ 12:59pm
  • Full Pink Moon
  • Full Sprouting Grass Moon
  • Full Egg Moon
  • Full Fish Moon

This moon’s  name 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:
  • Low:

  • Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
  • This Year:16.32
  • Last Year:15.30
  • Normal To Date:22.43
  • Annual Seasonal Average:23.80

  • Holidays
  • Library of Congress Day
  • Mother, Father Deaf Day
  • National Pet Parent's Day
  • National Cheeseball Day

  • Orthodox Easter Sunday / Pascha (Orthodox)
  • Independence Day-Cambodia
  • Independence Day-Syria

  • On This Day In …
  • 1521 --- Martin Luther went before the Diet of Worms to face charges stemming from his religious writings.

  • 1524 --- New York Harbor was discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.

  • 1629 --- The first horses were imported to the American colonies by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

  • 1704 --- John Campbell, known by many as America’s first news vendor, published what would eventually become the first successful American newspaper, the Boston News-Letter.

  • 1810 --- Pineapple cheese was patented by Lewis M. Norton. Mr. Norton lived nowhere near pineapples. He was from Troy, PA.

  • 1815 --- Heavy eruptions of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia are letting up by this day in 1815. The volcano, which began rumbling on April 5, killed almost 100,000 people directly and indirectly. The eruption was the largest ever recorded and its effects were noted throughout the world. On April 10, the first of a series of eruptions that month sent ash 20 miles into the atmosphere, covering the island with ash to a height of 1.5 meters. Five days later, Tambora erupted violently once again. This time, so much ash was expelled that the sun was not seen for several days. Flaming hot debris thrown into the surrounding ocean caused explosions of steam. The debris also caused a moderate-sized tsunami. In all, so much rock and ash was thrown out of Tambora that the height of the volcano was reduced from 14,000 to 9,000 feet.

  • 1860 --- New Yorkers learned of a new law that required fire escapes to be provided for tenement houses.

  • 1937 --- Daffy Duck makes his debut appearance in 'Porky,s Duck Hunt’

  • 1941 --- Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter (or heliocopter as it was called then) lift-off from water near Stratford, CT.

  • 1956 --- Two of the greats began their major-league baseball careers this day: Luis Aparicio played for the Chicago White Sox and Don Drysdale began work with the Brooklyn (later, LA) Dodgers. Aparicio became the American League Rookie of the Year. Drysdale won 209 games before he retired. Both were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY on the same day, August 12, 1984.

  • 1961 --- The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure.The failure at the Bay of Pigs cost the United States dearly. Castro used the attack by the "Yankee imperialists" to solidify his power in Cuba and he requested additional Soviet military aid. Eventually that aid included missiles, and the construction of missile bases in Cuba sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows over the issue. Further, throughout much of Latin America, the United States was pilloried for its use of armed force in trying to unseat Castro, a man who was considered a hero to many for his stance against U.S. interference and imperialism. Kennedy tried to redeem himself by publicly accepting blame for the attack and its subsequent failure, but the botched mission left the young president looking vulnerable and indecisive. The CIA and JFK's administration blamed each other for the plan's failure. The CIA cited JFK's failure to order prolonged offensive air strikes against Cuba's air force at the same time as the land operation, while JFK and his advisors blamed the CIA for keeping information from the president, including several analysts' conclusions that the plan's success was dubious. The ensuing tension between the president and his military and intelligence advisors prompted JFK to rely even more heavily on the advice of his brother, Robert F. Bobby Kennedy, who was also his attorney general, when making future foreign-policy decisions. A former special assistant to JFK, Arthur Schlesinger, has since recorded Bobby Kennedy's recollections of the Bay of Pigs invasion. In a memorandum written in June 1961, Bobby Kennedy concluded that the mission broke down from the incompetency of the CIA and a complete lack of communication. He also noticed that the disaster weighed heavily on his brother, who was concerned about how it would reflect upon his leadership and the nation's credibility. In an oral history interview, Bobby Kennedy recounted that he and his brother had been through a lot of things together, and he was more upset [by the Bay of Pigs failure] than any other.

  • 1964 --- The Ford Mustang, a two-seat, mid-engine sports car, is officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, on April 17, 1964.

    That same day, the new car also debuted in Ford showrooms across America and almost 22,000 Mustangs were immediately snapped up by buyers. Named for a World War II fighter plane, the Mustang was the first of a type of vehicle that came to be known as a “pony car.” Ford sold more than 400,000 Mustangs within its first year of production, far exceeding sales expectations. The Mustang was conceived as a “working man’s Thunderbird,” according to Ford. The first models featured a long hood and short rear deck and carried a starting price tag of around $2,400.

  • 1969 --- Alexander Dubcek, the communist leader who launched a broad program of liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia, is forced to resign as first secretary by the Soviet forces occupying his country. The staunchly pro-Soviet Gustav Husak was appointed Czechoslovak leader in his place, reestablishing an authoritarian communist dictatorship in the Soviet satellite state.

  • 1970 --- Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth. On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the spacecraft. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth, "Houston, we've had a problem here," and it was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply, as well as providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Navigation was another problem, and Apollo 13's course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers. On April 17, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

  • 1970 --- Johnny Cash performed at the White House at the invitation of President Richard M. Nixon. He played "A Boy Named Sue."

  • 1970 --- The breakup of the most influential rock group in music history was official when Paul McCartney’s solo LP, McCartney, was released. Paul played all the instruments himself on this Apple album

  • 1975 --- The Khmer Rouge troops capture Phnom Penh and government forces surrender. The war between government troops and the communist insurgents had been raging since March 1970, when Lt. Gen. Lon Nol had ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk in a bloodless coup and proclaimed the establishment of the Khmer Republic.

  • 1980 --- Bob Marley and the Wailers performed as the official guests of State at Zimbabwe's Independence festival.

  • Birthdays
  • Barbra Streisand
  • Nikita S. Khrushchev
  • Jennifer Garner
  • Victoria Beckham
  • Liz Phair
  • JP Morgan
  • Thornton Wilder
  • Harry Reasoner
  • William Holden
  • Don Kirshner
  • Jan Hammer