- 212TH Day of 2013 /153 Remaining
- 53 Days Until The First Day of Autumn
- Sunrise:6:13
- Sunset:8:18
- 14 Hours 5 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:1:11AM
- Moon Set:3:40PM
- Moon’s Phase:31 %
- The Next Full Moon
- August 20 @ 6:45 pm
- Full Sturgeon Moon
- Full Red Moon
- Full Green Corn Moon
- Full Grain Moon
The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.
- Tides
- High:8:02am/6:47pm
- Low:1:20am/12:40pm
- Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
- Normal To Date:0.0
- This Year:0.0
- Last Year:0.01
- Annual Seasonal Average:23.80
- Holidays
- National Raspberry Cake Day
- Flag Day-Hawaii
- Imbolc/Oimelc/Brigid(Southern Hemisphere)-Paganism
- Lunasa/Lammas(Northern Hemisphere)-Paganism
- On This Day In …
- 1703 --- Daniel Defoe is put in the pillory as punishment for seditious libel, brought about by the publication of a politically satirical pamphlet. Defoe's middle-class father had hoped Defoe would enter the ministry, but Defoe decided to become a merchant instead. After he went bankrupt in 1692, he turned to political pamphleteering to support himself. A deft writer, Defoe's pamphlets were highly effective in moving readers. His pamphlet The Shortest Way with Dissenters was an attack on High Churchman, satirically written as if from the High Church point of view but extending their arguments to the point of foolishness. Both sides of the dispute, Dissenters and High Church alike, took the pamphlet seriously, and both sides were outraged to learn it was a hoax. Defoe was arrested for
seditious libel in May 1703. While awaiting his punishment, he wrote the spirited "Hymn to the Pillory." The public sympathized with Defoe and threw flowers, instead of the customary rocks, at him while he stood in the pillory. He was sent back to Newgate Prison, from which Robert Harley, the future Earl of Oxford, obtained his release. Harley hired Defoe as a political writer and spy. To this end, Defoe set up the Review, which he edited and wrote from 1704 to 1713. It wasn't until he was nearly 60 that he began writing fiction. In 1719, The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe's fictional account of a shipwrecked sailor who spent 28 years on a desert island, was published. His other works include Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724). He died in London in 1731.
- 1790 --- The first U.S. patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont. Mr. Hopkins did not get Patent #1 as thousands of patents were issued before someone came up with the bright idea to number them. The inventor patented a process for making potash and pearl ashes.
- 1792 --- Construction started with the laying of the cornerstone in the first building to be used solely as a U.S. Government building. It was the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.
- 1845 --- The French Army introduced the saxophone to its military band. The musical instrument was the invention of Adolphe Sax of Belgium.
- 1928 --- MGM’s Leo the lion roared for the first time. He introduced
MGM’s first talking picture, White Shadows on the South Seas. Leo’s dialogue was more extensive than the film’s, whose only spoken word was, “Hello.”
- 1933 --- Listeners turned up the radio to hear the announcer introduce “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy!” The show was one of the longest-running adventure programs on radio, continuing
until 1951. Armstrong was Hudson High School’s football hero and the hero who saved the day from dastardly villains. Somehow, these adventures would take Jack and his cousins, Betty and Bill Fairfield, to exotic locales where they would make use of industrialist Uncle Jim’s yacht and a hydroplane they referred to as the Silver Albatross. The first actor to play Armstrong was Jim Ameche, the brother of actor Don Ameche. The series, created by Robert Hardy Andrews, portrayed Jack Armstrong as loyal, brave, honest, and yes, all-American; obvious in this excerpt from one of the scripts. Jack Armstrong: “When I think of this country of ours, with millions of homes stretching sea to sea, and with everybody working and pulling together to have a nation where people can be free, and do big things ... why, it makes me realize what a terribly important job we’ve got ahead!”
- 1948 --- New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport wasn’t always named that. In fact, on this day, U.S. President Harry S Truman dedicated the airport as International Airport at Idlewild Field.
- 1961 -- The first tie in All-Star Game history was recorded as the second All-Star Game of the year (there were two a year back then) was stopped in the 9th inning due to rain at Boston’s Fenway Park.
- 1964 --- Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were
1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes. The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon. In July 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.
- 1969 --- A Moscow police chief reported that thousands of Moscow telephone booths had been made inoperable by thieves who had stolen phone parts in order to convert their acoustic guitars to electric.
- 1971 --- The first men to ride in a vehicle on the moon did so on this day in the LRV (lunar rover vehicle). This example of a lunar dune buggy carried Apollo 15 astronauts David R. Scott and James B.
Irwin for five miles on the lunar surface. Their first stop at the rim of Elbow Crater was televised back to Earth to millions of viewers. The moon ride lasted two hours and the astronauts were heard to exclaim, “There’s some beautiful geology out there!”
- 1972 --- Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, withdrew from the ticket with presidential candidate
George McGovern following disclosure that Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment for depression. Eagleton was replaced by Sargent Shriver, who, incidentally, was the only Democratic vice-presidential nominee who did not serve in Congress at any point in his or her career.
- 1974 --- One of the President Nixon’s main men, John Ehrlichman was sentenced to prison for his role in the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Ellsberg was the Pentagon consultant who leaked the "Pentagon Papers" (which purportedly told Americans how and why the U.S. really got into the Vietnam War). Ehrlichman also created the White House unit that was called the ‘plumbers’ because it was intended to plug leaks.
- 1975 --- Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing in Detroit, Michigan. He was last seen alive in a parking lot outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant the previous afternoon. To this day,
Hoffa's fate remains a mystery, although many believe that he was murdered by organized crime figures. All types of theories have circulated about what became of him. One popular scenario had Hoffa buried beneath a football field at the Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. One man even claimed credit for his murder in the mid-1980s, saying that he had dumped Hoffa's body in the Au Sable River after killing him. Authorities have never been able to confirm what really happened to Hoffa. He was declared legally dead in 1982.
- 1979 --- James Taylor played a free concert in New York's Central Park to help the city's campaign to restore the park's Sheep Meadow.
- 1988 --- Willie Stargell became 200th man inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Stargell had 475 career homers, twice leading the NL (48 in 1971, 44 in 1973). He drove in 1540 runs, scored 1195 and
had 2232 hits with a lifetime batting average of .282. His inspirational leadership contributed greatly to Pittsburgh Pirate world championships in 1971 and 1979, when he shared NL MVP honors. His #8 was retired by the Pirates in 1982.
- 1990 --- Nolan Ryan wins the 300th game of his career, throwing 7 2/3 strong innings with eight strikeouts to lead his Texas Rangers to an 11-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. Nolan Ryan pitched for 27 years in the big leagues, with the Mets, Angels, Astros and Rangers. He struck out 5,714 batters in his career, breaking his own record 2,206 times. Nolan went 324-292 for his career, with a 3.19 career ERA. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.
- 1992 --- Olympic swimming world records set this day: Jeff Rouse: 100m backstroke (53.86 sec); Kieren John Perkins: 1500m free style (14:43.4); Tamas Darnyi: 200m backstroke (first swimmer to break 2 minutes in 200m: 1:59.36); Yang Wenyi 50m freestyle (24.79 sec). Also this day, Summer Sanders became the first American athlete to win four medals at the Barcelona Olympics as she won the gold in the women’s 200-meter butterfly.
- Birthdays
- J K Rowling
- Milton Friedman
- Curt Gowdy
- Geraldine Chaplin
- Evonne Goolagong
- Wesley Snipes
- Jane Curry Hoge
- Dean Cain
- George Liberace
- Hank Jones
- Bill Todman
- Hank Bauer
- Bob Welch