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Wednesday February 1, 2012

  • The word "February" comes from the Latin word februare, meaning "to purify." The ancient Romans had their annual purification ceremony during this time each year.
  • 32nd Day of 2012 / 334 Remaining
  • 48 Days Until Spring Begins
  • Sunrise:7:14
  • Sunset:5:33
  • 10 Hr 17 Min
  • Moon Rise:12:06pm
  • Moon Set:2:04am
  • Moon’s Phase: 65 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • February 7 @ 1:56pm
  • Full Snow Moon
  • Full Hunger Moon

Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.

  • Tides
  • High:4:55am/7:46pm
  • Low:12:40pm/11:56pm
  • Rainfall
  • This Year:6.06
  • Last Year:12.67
  • Normal To Date:12.81
  • Annual Average: 22.21
  • Holidays
  • African-American Coaches Day
  • Freedom Day
  • Hula in the Coola Day
  • Robinson Crusoe Day
  • Working Naked Day
  • National Baked Alaska Day
  • Tupperware Sculpting Day
  • National Girls and Women in Sports Day
  • Spunky Old Broads Day
  • Solo Diners Eat Out Week
  • Confederal Agreement Day-Senegal
  • Federal Territory Day-Malaysia
  • Imbolc/Oimelc (Northern Hemisphere)-Paganism
  • Lunasa/Lammas (Southern Hemisphere)-Paganism
  • On This Day In …
  • 1862 --- "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," a poem by Julia Ward Howe, was published in the Atlantic Monthly.
  • 1884 --- The first portion, or fascicle, of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, is published. Today, the OED is the definitive authority on the meaning, pronunciation and history of over half a million words, past and present.
  • 1887 --- Harvey Wilcox of Kansas started selling off 120 acres he owned in Southern California as a real estate development. His wife, Daeida, named it Hollywood.
  • 1896 --- By the time the first of his three career-defining operas had its premiere, Giacomo Puccini was no longer living a life of impoverished artistic struggle. His previous opera, Manon Gascaut, had made his name in the world of Italian opera, and, more important, it had earned him a significant advance on his next work. With his debts repaid and a country villa acquired, Puccini was no longer a starving artist, but rather an up-and-coming star embraced by the artistic establishment. It was, perhaps, the perfect vantage point from which to create a work that so famously romanticizes the passionate struggles of the artistic class: La bohème, which was performed for the very first time on this day in 1896, at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy.
  • 1898 --- The Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, CT, issued the first automobile insurance policy. Dr. Truman Martin of Buffalo, NY, paid $11.25 for the policy, which gave him $5,000 in liability coverage.
  • 1913 --- Grand Central Terminal in New York City opens. It is the largest railroad station in the world, with 44 platforms and 67 tracks on 2 levels.
  • 1920 --- The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties, were created.
  • 1939 --- State Assemblyman Seeder introduced a bill to the Maine Legislature to make it illegal to use tomatoes in clam chowder.
  • 1949 --- RCA Victor introduced the 45, a smaller record with a larger hole than the long-play 33-and-a-third disc introduced earlier by Columbia Records.
  • 1954 --- Edwin Armstrong leaped to his death from his Manhattan apartment. He had invented stereo FM radio, but AM broadcasters had kept his patents tied up in court.
  • 1960 --- Four African-American students from the Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina sat down at the lunch counter in Woolworth's and ordered coffee. They were refused service, but made history.
  • 1964 --- The governor of Indiana declared the Kingsmen's hit "Louie Louie" was pornographic. He asked the state's radio stations not to play it.
  • 1968 --- During the Vietnam War, South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head. The scene was captured in a news photograph.
  • 1974 --- The first mass-marketed doll for boys was introduced. Hasbro sold G.I. Joe for $2.49. The action figure's name came from the 1945 film "The Story of G.I. Joe," which starred Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith.
  • 1996 --- Both houses of the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly approved a rewrite of the 1934 Communications Act. Some highlights: allowed local and long-distance telephone companies, as well as cable TV providers, to offer a mixture of goods and services; Deregulate cable TV rates; allowed consumers access to a greater variety of cable, telephone and other communications services; and, in one of the most controversial changes, it revised the National Multiple Radio Ownership Rule and Local Radio Ownership Rule, allowing most of the stations in the U.S. to be snatched up by a few corporations
  • 2001 --- Sparks generated by bottom static may have caused two gas station fires in Hannibal, Missouri. Experts think the energy built up when drivers slid from their seats and sparks flew from their fingers. Nobody was hurt but both cars were burned. A fire department spokesman said static should be removed by touching the car's body before picking up the pump handle.
  • 2003 --- NASA's space shuttle Columbia exploded while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. All seven astronauts on board were killed The Columbia's 28th space mission, designated STS-107, was originally scheduled to launch on January 11, 2001, but was delayed numerous times for a variety of reasons over nearly two years. Columbia finally launched on January 16, 2003, with a crew of seven. Eighty seconds into the launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the shuttle's propellant tank and hit the edge of the shuttle's left wing. Cameras focused on the launch sequence revealed the foam collision but engineers could not pinpoint the location and extent of the damage. Although similar incidents had occurred on three prior shuttle launches without causing critical damage, some engineers at the space agency believed that the damage to the wing could cause a catastrophic failure. Their concerns were not addressed in the two weeks that Columbia spent in orbit because NASA management believed that even if major damage had been caused, there was little that could be done to remedy the situation. Columbia reentered the earth's atmosphere on the morning of February 1. It wasn't until 10 minutes later, at 8:53 a.m.--as the shuttle was 231,000 feet above the California coastline traveling at 23 times the speed of sound--that the first indications of trouble began. Because the heat-resistant tiles covering the left wing's leading edge had been damaged or were missing, wind and heat entered the wing and blew it apart.
  • Birthdays
  • Langston Hughes
  • Don Everly
  • Lisa Marie Presley
  • Garrett Morris
  • Terry Jones
  • Bill Mumy
  • Sherilyn Fenn
  • Clark Gable
  • S.J. Perelman
  • Boris Yeltsin
  • Rick James
  • Mike Campbell
  • Exene Cervenka
  • February is …
  • American Heart Month
  • National Black History Month
  • Bake for Family Fun Month
  • Bird Feeding Month
  • Care About Your Indoor Air Month
  • Children's Dental Health Month
  • Grapefruit Month
  • Humpback Whale Awareness Month
  • Creative Romance Month
  • National Laugh Friendly Month
  • Library Lovers Month
  • Mend a Broken Heart Month
  • Pet Dental Health Month
  • Pull Your Sofa Off the Wall Month
  • Spooky Old Broads Month
  • Youth Leadership Month
  • Women's Heart Month
  • Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month.