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Wednesday August 27, 2014

  • 239th Day of the Year / 126 Remaining
  • Autumn Begins in 26 Days

  • Sunrise:6:36
  • Sunset:7:45
  • 13 Hours 9 Minutes

  • Moon Rise:8:34am
  • Moon Set:8:45pm
  • Moon’s Phase 4%
  • Full Moon September 8 @ 6:38pm
  • Full Corn Moon
  • Full Harvest Moon

This full moon’s name is attributed to Native Americans because it marked when corn was supposed to be harvested. Most often, the September full moon is actually the Harvest Moon, which is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.

  • Tides
  • High Tide:12:05am/12:55pm
  • Low Tide:6:26am/6:47pm

  • Holidays
  • Banana Lovers Day
  • Petroleum Day-Texas
  • “The Duchess” Who Wasn’t Day
  • Just Because Day
  • National Pots de Crème Day
  • Burger Day

  • Independence Day-Moldova
  • Anniversary of the Women’s Revolt-Guinea
  • 'La Tomatina' Tomato Fight-Bunol, Valencia, Spain. (30,000 people throw 240,000 pounds of tomatoes at each other)

  • On This Day
  • 1660 --- The books of John Milton were burned in London due to his attacks on King Charles II. 

  • 1776 --- British forces under General William Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard viscount Howe, defeat Patriot forces under General George Washington at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights in New York.

  • 1789 --- The Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted by the French National Assembly. 

  • 1858 --- The first cabled news dispatch was sent and was published by "The New York Sun" newspaper. The story was about the peace demands of England and France being met by China. 

  • 1859 --- A shaft was being sunk deep in the ground and the drill had reached 69 feet, 6 inches. W.A. Smith, better known to the drillers and other folk in the small town in Western Pennsylvania as Uncle Billy, saw a dark film floating on the water. The water was below the 
    derrick floor. Colonel Edwin Drake kept drilling, because what Uncle Billy saw was oil. Soon, the first commercial oil well was pumping out 20 barrels of crude oil a day. This wasn’t Texas crude. It wasn’t Oklahoma gold. This was Pennsylvania oil, folks; Titusville, PA: home of the first oil well.

  • 1883 --- The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatau (also called Krakatoa), a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on this day in 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people. Krakatau exhibited its first stirrings in more than 200 years on May 20, 1883. A German warship passing by reported a seven-mile high cloud of ash and dust over Krakatau. For the next two months, similar explosions would be witnessed by commercial 
    liners and natives on nearby Java and Sumatra. With little to no idea of the impending catastrophe, the local inhabitants greeted the volcanic activity with festive excitement. On August 26 and August 27, excitement turned to horror as Krakatau literally blew itself apart, setting off a chain of natural disasters that would be felt around the world for years to come. An enormous blast on the afternoon of August 26 destroyed the northern two-thirds of the island; as it plunged into the Sunda Strait, between the Java Sea and Indian Ocean, the gushing mountain generated a series of pyroclastic flows (fast-moving fluid bodies of molten gas, ash and rock) and monstrous tsunamis that swept over nearby coastlines. Four more eruptions beginning at 5:30 a.m. the following day proved cataclysmic. The explosions could be heard as far as 3,000 miles away, and ash was propelled to a height of 50 miles. Fine dust from the explosion drifted around the earth, causing spectacular sunsets and forming an atmospheric veil that lowered temperatures worldwide by several degrees.

  • 1889 --- Charles G. Conn of Elkhart, IN patented the metal clarinet. More than 100 years later the name, Conn, still represents one of 
    the most popular musical instrument names -- especially for clarinets.

  • 1912 --- Edgar Rice Burroughs' first Tarzan novel, 'Tarzan of The Apes' was first published in 'All Story' magazine (October issue, published August 27).

  • 1921 --- J.E. Clair, who owned the Acme Packing Company, bought a pro football franchise for Green Bay, WI. Cheeseheads could have been their name, but he decided to pay 
    tribute to those who packed the meat at his processing plant. Hence the name: the Green Bay Packers.

  • 1938 --- At a poetry reading by Archibald MacLeish, another poet, in a fit of jealousy, set fire to some papersin order to disrupt the recital. That jealous poet, incidentally, was Robert Frost.

  • 1940 --- Nestle registered the trademark 'Toll House' for chocolate chip cookies.

  • 1953 --- “Roman Holiday”, featuring Audrey Hepburn in her first starring movie role, premieres in New York City. Hepburn’s performance in “Roman Holiday”, as a European princess who 
    ditches her official duties and falls for an American journalist (played by Gregory Peck) while on tour in Rome, earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress and instantly established her as a leading Hollywood star.

  • 1962 --- Mariner 2 was launched by the United States. In December of the same year the spacecraft flew past Venus. It was the first space probe to reach the vicinity of another planet. 

  • 1965 --- Elvis Presley played host to the Beatles at his home in Bel-Air, CA.

  • 1967 --- Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead of an accidental drug overdose in his Sussex, England, home. The following day, the headline in the London Daily Mirror read "EPSTEIN (The Beatle-Making Prince of Pop) DIES AT 32." Brian Epstein was, by all accounts, the man who truly got the Beatles off the ground, and in John Lennon's estimation, it was difficult to see how they'd manage to go on without the man who had managed every aspect of the Beatles' business affairs up until his unexpected 
    death. "I knew that we were in trouble then," John later recalled. "I didn't really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music. I was scared. I thought, 'We've ******* had it.'"

  • 1971 --- Alice Waters' Chaz Panisse restaurant opened in Berkeley, California.

  • 1981 --- Divers probing the wreckage of the luxury cruise ship Andrea Doria recovered two safes from the purser’s office. The Andrea Doria sank in a collision with the Swedish liner Stockholm (July 25, 1956). What was in the safes? Oh, only about a million dollars in cash and jewelry.

  • 1982 --- Oakland Athletics outfielder Rickey Henderson steals his 119th base of the year, breaking Hall of Famer Lou Brock's 1979 record for stolen bases in a season. In the third inning, Henderson walked on four pitches to reach first base. The Brewers knew he 
    would look to steal, so they pitched out to catcher Ted Simmons, who threw to shortstop Robin Yount. Henderson had indeed taken off, and he proved too fast for the Brewers' battery, stealing his 119th base on the year. The game was stopped and Brock and American League President Lee MacPhail joined the teams on the field to congratulate the new record-holder.

  • 1984 --- U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the first citizen to go into space would be a teacher. The teacher that was eventually chosen was Christa McAuliffe. She died in the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986.

  • 1990 --- Stevie Ray Vaughan and three members of Eric Clapton's band were killed in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin. 

  • 1992 --- John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to "A Day In The Life" sold for $87,000 at an auction.

  • 1999 --- The final crew of the Russian space station Mir departed the station to return to Earth. Russia was forced to abandon Mir for financial reasons.

  • 2003 --- The world's largest battery was connected to provide emergency power in Fairbanks, Alaska. The $35 million rechargable battery weighs 1,300 tonnes and in the event of a blackout, it can 
    provide 40 megawatts of power for up to 7 minutes, while backup generators are being started.  Total city blackouts occur every 2 or 3 years due to the extreme weather conditions.

  • 2007 --- Michael Vick, a star quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, formally pleads guilty before a Richmond, Virginia, judge to a federal 
    felony charge related to running a dogfighting ring. That December, the 27-year-old Vick, once the highest-paid player in the NFL, was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison.

  • 2008 --- Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
  • Birthdays
  • Lyndon Baines Johnson (36th President)
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hagel
  • Sen Bob Kerry
  • Chandra Wilson
  • Hannibal Hamlin (VP 1861-65)
  • Charles Dawes (VP 1925-29)
  • Man Ray
  • Carl Bosch
  • Charles Rolls
  • Martha Raye
  • Ira Levin
  • Daryl Dragon
  • Tuesday Weld
  • Barbara Bach
  • Pee Wee Herman (Paul Rubens)