Wednesday February 26, 2014

• 57^th Day of 2014 / 308 Remaining
• 22 Days Until The First Day of Spring

• Sunrise:6:43
• Sunset:6:00
• 11 Hours 17 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:4:33am
• Moon Set:3:23pm
• Moon’s Phase: 17 %

• The Next Full Moon
• March 16 @ 10:10am
• Full CrowMoon
• Full Crust Moon
• Full Sap Moon
• Full Lenten Moon

As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

• Tides
• High:7:46am/9:23pm
• Low:1:45am/2:35pm

• Rainfall
• This Year:5.89
• Last Year:14.35
• Average Year to Date:17.79

• Holidays
• For Pete's Sake Day
• International Sword Swallowers Day
• Open That Bottle Night
• National Pistachio Day
• National Personal Chefs Day

• Liberation Day-Kuwait

• On This Day In …
• 1815 --- Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from the island of Elba to begin his second conquest of France.

• 1870 --- In New York City, the first pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to the public.
  

  

• 1895 --- Michael Joseph Owens of Toledo, Ohio patented an automatic glass blowing machine that could make multiple bottles

  

  at the same time. A big advance in bottle making. He founded the Owens Bottle Machine Co., and the Libbey-Owens Glass Company.

• 1908 --- At midnight (Feb 25/26), service through the Hudson & Manhattan railway tunnels opened to the public, carrying passengers between Manhattan and Hoboken New Jersey. It was the first railroad tunnel under a major river in the U.S.

• 1919 --- The Grand Canyon was established as a National Park on this day in 1919 by an act of the U.S. Congress. The gigantic gorge that cuts through the high plateaus of the northwest corner of Arizona was formed by thousands of years of erosion. The raging

  

  Colorado River was the culprit. Called one of the most spectacular natural wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon National Park covered 1,218,375 acres ... and still does. It measures 18 miles across, over two hundred miles long, and is a mile from its rim to the Colorado River below. The Grand Canyon, home to American Indian tribes for many hundreds of years, was first discovered by

  

  European explorers on the Coronado expedition of 1540. An inspiration for artists, musical compositions, amusement park attractions, novels and more, it remains one of nature’s most magnificent displays, attracting over two million sightseers a year.

• 1922 --- Dancing to jazz music and tango bands was criticized in Paris. It seems that dancing was detracting the French from their postwar reconstruction, according to La Revue Mondiale. We guess that the cancan was not detrimental to France’s economy since it wasn’t an imported dance craze.

• 1929 --- In a controversial move that inspires charges of eastern domination of the West, the Congress establishes Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Home to some of the most stunning alpine scenery in the United States, the territory in and around Grand Teton National Park also has a colorful human history. The

  

  first Anglo-American to see the saw-edged Teton peaks is believed to be John Colter. After traveling with Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, Colter left the expedition during its return trip down the Missouri in 1807 to join two fur trappers headed back into the wilderness. He spent the next three years wandering through the northern Rocky Mountains, eventually finding his way into the valley at the base of the Tetons, which would later be called Jackson Hole.

• 1939 --- Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of F.D.R. resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution in support of African

  

  American opera singer Marian Anderson. Anderson had encountered racism, discrimination, and segregation in the U.S.

• 1949 --- From Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, the Lucky Lady II, a B-50 Superfortress, takes off on the first nonstop round-the-world flight. Under the command of Captain James

  

  Gallagher, and featuring a crew of 14 men, the aircraft averaged 249 miles per hour on its 23,452-mile trek. The Lucky Lady II was refueled four times in the air by B-29 tanker planes and on March 2 returned to the United States after 94 hours in the air.

• 1951 --- Minnesota was the 36th (of 41 total) state to ratify the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (At the time, ratification required 36 states out of 48. Today, ratification would require 38 states out of 50.) The amendment limited a U.S. president to two terms in office.

• 1968 --- Allied troops who had recaptured the imperial capital of Hue from the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive discover the first mass graves in Hue. It was discovered that communist troops who had held the city for 25 days had massacred about 2,800 civilians whom they had identified as sympathizers with the government in Saigon. One authority estimated that communists might have killed as many as 5,700 people in Hue.

• 1972 --- Harry Nilsson started his second week at number one with that toe-tapping ditty, Without You. The whiny love song stayed at the top for a total of four weeks.

• 1972 --- A dam collapses in West Virginia on this day in 1972, flooding a valley and killing 118 people. Another 4,000 people were left homeless.
  

  

• 1978 --- Vladimir Horowitz marked the 50th anniversary of his U.S. debut with a performance at the White House.
  

  

• 1983 --- Michael Jackson’s Thriller hit #1 in the U.S. The album spent a total of 37 weeks at number one. The tracks: Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, Baby Be Mine, The Girl is Mine (w/Paul McCartney), Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean, Human Nature, P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), The Lady in My Life.

• 1986 --- Corazon Aquino was inaugurated president of the Philippines. Long time President Ferdinand Marcos went into exile.
  

  

• 1987 --- The Tower Commission issued its report on the Iran-Contra affair, rebuking President Ronald Reagan for failing to control his national security staff.

• 1990 --- A year after agreeing to free elections, Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government loses at the polls. The elections brought an end to more than a decade of U.S. efforts to unseat the Sandinista government.

• 1993 --- Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured in New York City. A van packed with a 1,210-pound bomb exploded in the parking garage underneath the World Trade Center. The explosion left a gigantic crater 200 feet wide and caused over 591

  

  million dollars in damage. Fourteen of his followers and Dr. Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman were accused of the bombing. Rahman is now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

• 1998 --- A Texas jury rejected an $11 million lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey for price drop after on-air comment about mad-cow disease.

• 2005 --- If the Academy Awards celebrate the best of what Hollywood has to offer each year, the Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards take a distinct pleasure in celebrating the worst. On February 26, 2005, the Razzies held their 25th annual ceremony at Hollywood’s historic Ivar Theatre. Making a surprise appearance was Halle Berry, an Oscar winner for Best Actress in Monster’s Ball

  

  (2001), who showed up to accept that year’s Razzie for Worst Actress for the title role in the poorly received action extravaganza Catwoman.

• 2009 --- The Pentagon reversed its 18-year policy of not allowing media to cover returning war dead. The reversal allowed some media coverage with family approval.
  

  

• 2012 --- Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen walking home from a trip to a convenience store, is fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer patrolling the townhouse community of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman later claimed to have shot the unarmed 17-year-old out of self-defense during a physical altercation. After police initially opted not to arrest Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother is Hispanic, the case sparked protests and ignited national debates about racial profiling and self-defense laws. Zimmerman later was charged with second-degree murder; following a high-profile trial that riveted America, he was acquitted of the charges against him.

• Birthdays
• John Harvey Kellogg
• Buffalo Bill Cody
• Johnny Cash
• Levi Strauss
• Fats Domino
• Mitch Ryder
• Erykah Badu
• King Wenceslas
• Victor Hugo
• Jackie Gleason