- 84th Day of 2015 281 Remaining
- Summer Begins in 88 Days
- Sunrise:7:04
- Sunset:7:26
- 12 Hours 22 Minutes
- Moon Rise:11:02am
- Moon Set:12:33am
- Phase:34%
- Full Moon April 4 @ 5:07am
The name Full Pink Moon 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:2:56am/4:46pm
- Low:9:51am/9:57pm
- Rainfall:
- This Year to Date:17.13
- Last Year:8.84
- Avg YTD:20.93
- Annual Avg:23.80
- Holidays
- Manatee Appreciation Day
- Maryland Day
- National Lobster Newburg Day
- National Pecan Day
- Old New Year’s Day
- Tolkien Reading Day
- Independence Day-Greece
- Våffeldagen/Waffle Day-Sweden
- Anniversary of the Arengo-San Marino
- On This Day
- 0421 --- The city of Venice was founded.
- 1306 --- Robert the Bruce was crowned king of Scotland.
- 1634 --- The first colonists to Maryland arrive at St. Clement’s Island on Maryland’s western shore and found the settlement of St. Mary’s. In 1632, King Charles I of England granted a charter to George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, yielding him proprietary rights to a region east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income derived from the land. The territory was named Maryland in honor of Henrietta Maria, the queen consort of Charles I.
- 1774 --- British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston and demanding that the city’s residents pay for the nearly $1 million worth (in today’s money) of tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773.
- 1775 --- George Washington planted pecan trees (some of which still survive) at Mount Vernon. The trees were supposedly a gift to Washington from Thomas Jefferson.
- 1821 --- Greece gained independence from Turkey.
- 1867 --- The 2 mile long, 5 foot diameter Chicago Lake Tunnel was activated. It was the first water supply tunnel for a U.S. city.
- 1879 --- Little Wolf, often called “the greatest of the fighting Cheyenne,” surrenders to his friend Lieutenant W. P. Clark. Little Wolf was the chief of the Bowstring Soldiers, an elite Cheyenne military society. From early youth, Little Wolf had demonstrated rare bravery and a brilliant understanding of battle tactics. First in conflicts with other Indians like the Kiowa and then in disputes with the U.S. Army, Little Wolf led or assisted in dozens of important Cheyenne victories. Historians believe Little Wolf was probably involved in the disastrous Fetterman Massacre of 1866, in which the Cheyenne cleverly lured a force of 80 American soldiers out of their Wyoming fort and wiped them out. After Cheyenne attacks had finally forced the U.S. military to abandon Fort Phil Kearney along the Bozeman Trail, Little Wolf is believed to have led the torching of the fort. He was also a leading participant in the greatest of the Plains Indian victories, the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.
- 1901 --- The Mercedes was introduced by Daimler at the five-day "Week of Nice" in Nice, France.
- 1911 --- In New York City, 146 women were killed in fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City. The owners of the company were indicted on manslaughter charges because some of the employees had been behind locked doors in the factory. The owners were later acquitted and in 1914 they were ordered to pay damages to each of the twenty-three families that had sued.
- 1946 --- In conclusion to an extremely tense situation of the early Cold War, the Soviet Union announces that its troops in Iran will be withdrawn within six weeks. The Iranian crisis was one of the first tests of power between the United States and the Soviet Union in the postwar world.
- 1947 --- A coal mine explosion in Centralia, IL, killed 111 people.
- 1954 --- RCA manufactured its first color TV set and began mass production.
- 1955 --- The U.S. Customs Department confiscates 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s book Howl, which had been printed in England. Officials alleged that the book was obscene. City Lights, a publishing company and bookstore in San Francisco owned by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, proceeded to publish the book in the fall of 1956.
- 1957 --- France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg sign a treaty in Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), also known as the Common Market.
- 1958 --- Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Carmen Basilio to regain the middleweight championship. It was the fifth and final title of his career. Robinson is considered by many to be the greatest prizefighter in history.
- 1961 --- Elvis Presley performed his last live show for the next eight years in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The show raised $62,000 for the U.S.S. Arizona memorial fund.
- 1963 --- The Beach Boys released the album "Surfin' U.S.A."
- 1967 --- The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march of 5,000 antiwar demonstrators in Chicago. In an address to the demonstrators, King declared that the Vietnam War was “a blasphemy against all that America stands for.” King first began speaking out against American involvement in Vietnam in the summer of 1965. In addition to his moral objections to the war, he argued that the war diverted money and attention from domestic programs to aid the black poor. He was strongly criticized by other prominent civil rights leaders for attempting to link civil rights and the antiwar movement.
- 1968 --- The 58th and final episode of "The Monkees" TV show was aired.
- 1968 --- After being told by Defense Secretary Clark Clifford that the Vietnam War is a “real loser,” President Johnson, still uncertain about his course of action, decides to convene a nine-man panel of retired presidential advisors. The group, which became known as the “Wise Men,” included the respected generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgway, distinguished State Department figures like Dean Acheson and George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy, National Security advisor to both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. After two days of deliberation the group reached a consensus: they advised against any further troop increases and recommended that the administration seek a negotiated peace. Although Johnson was initially furious at their conclusions, he quickly came to believe that they were right. On March 31, Johnson announced on television that he was restricting the bombing of North Vietnam to the area just north of the Demilitarized Zone. Additionally, he committed the United States to discuss peace at any time or place. Then Johnson announced that he would not pursue reelection for the presidency.
- 1975 --- In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, King Faisal is shot to death by his nephew, Prince Faisal. King Faisal, son of King Ibn Saud, fought in the military campaigns in the 1920s and ’30s that helped forge modern Saudi Arabia. He later served as Saudi ambassador to the United Nations and in 1953 was made premier upon the ascension of his older brother, Saud. In 1964, King Saud was pressured to abdicate, and Faisal became the absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia. As king, he sought to modernize his nation, and lent financial and moral support to anti-Israeli efforts in the Middle East. In 1975, Faisal was assassinated for reasons that remain obscure, and his son, Crown Prince Khalid, ascended to the throne.
- 1985 --- Prince won an Oscar for Best Original Score for the soundtrack for the movie "Purple Rain."
- 1989 --- In Paris, the Louvre reopened with I.M. Pei's new courtyard pyramid
- 1991 --- Michael Jackson escorted Madonna to the Oscars.
- 1992 --- Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to Earth from the Mir space station after a 10-month stay, during which his native country, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.
- 1996 --- An 81-day standoff by the antigovernment Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, Mont.
- 1996 --- The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
- Birthdays
- Gloria Steinem
- Aretha Franklin
- Bela Bartok
- Arturo Toscanini
- Sir David Lean
- Simone Signoret
- Howard Cossell
- Jim Lovell
- Gene Shalit
- Bonnie Guitar
- Anita Bryant
- Hoyt Axton
- Nick Lowe
- Elton John
- Mary Gross
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Debi Thomas
- Sheryl Swoops
- Danica Patrick
