Wednesday May 30, 2012

• 151^st Day of 2012 / 215 Remaining
• 21 Days Until Summer Begins

• Sunrise:5:50
• Sunset:8:26
• 14 Hours 36 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise:3:14pm
• Moon Set:2:13am
• Moon’s Phase: 71%

• The Next Full Moon
• June 4 @ 4:11am
• Full Strawberry Moon
• Full Rose Moon
• Full Milk Moon

This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June, so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

• Tides
• High:6:57am/7:21pm
• Low:1:10am/12:39pm

• Rainfall
• This Year:15.67
• Last Year:27.23
• Normal To Date:23.61
• Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80

• Holidays
• Memorial Day
• Prayer For Peace, Memorial Day
• National Mint Julep Day
• National Senior Health and Fitness Day
• Loomis Day- honoring Washington, D.C., dentist Mahlon Loomis, who patented wireless telegraphy in 1872

• Canary Islands Day-Spain
• Harvest Festival-Malaysia
• Mother's Day-Nicaragua
• Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal-Australia
• Parliament Day-Croatia

• On This Day In …
• 1431 --- At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy. Joan was born in 1412, the daughter of a tenant farmer at Domremy, on the borders of the duchies of Bar and Lorraine. In 1415, the Hundred Years War between England and France entered a crucial phase when the young King Henry V of England invaded France and won a series of decisive victories against the forces of King Charles VI. By the time of Henry's death in August 1422, the English and their French-Burgundian allies controlled Aquitaine and most of northern France, including Paris. Charles VI, long incapacitated, died one month later, and his son, Charles, regent from 1418, prepared to take the throne. However, Reims, the traditional city of French coronation, was held by the Anglo-Burgundians, and the Dauphin (heir apparent to the French throne) remained uncrowned. Meanwhile, King Henry VI of England, the infant son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI, was proclaimed king of France by the English. Joan's village of Domremy lay on the frontier between the France of the Dauphin and that of the Anglo-Burgundians. In the midst of this unstable environment, Joan began hearing "voices" of three Christian saints—St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. When she was about 16, these voices exhorted her to aid the Dauphin in capturing Reims and therefore the French throne. In May 1428, she traveled to Vaucouleurs, a stronghold of the Dauphin, and told the captain of the garrison of her visions. Disbelieving the young peasant girl, he sent her home. In January 1429, she returned, and the captain, impressed by her piety and determination, agreed to allow her passage to the Dauphin at Chinon. Dressed in men's clothes and accompanied by six soldiers, she reached the Dauphin's castle at Chinon in February 1429 and was granted an audience. Charles hid himself among his courtiers, but Joan immediately picked him out and informed him of her divine mission. For several weeks, Charles had Joan questioned by theologians at Poitiers, who concluded that, given his desperate straits, the Dauphin would be well-advised to make use of this strange and charismatic girl. Charles furnished her with a small army, and on April 27, 1429, she set out for Orleans, besieged by the English since October 1428. On April 29, as a French sortie distracted the English troops on the west side of Orleans, Joan entered unopposed by its eastern gate. She brought greatly needed supplies and reinforcements and inspired the French to a passionate resistance. She personally led the charge in several battles and on May 7 was struck by an arrow. After quickly dressing her wound, she returned to the fight, and the French won the day. On May 8, the English retreated from Orleans. During the next five weeks, Joan and the French commanders led the French into a string of stunning victories over the English. On July 16, the royal army reached Reims, which opened its gates to Joan and the Dauphin. The next day, Charles VII was crowned king of France, with Joan standing nearby holding up her standard: an image of Christ in judgment. After the ceremony, she knelt before Charles, joyously calling him king for the first time. On September 8, the king and Joan attacked Paris. During the battle, Joan carried her standard up to the earthworks and called on the Parisians to surrender the city to the king of France. She was wounded but continued to rally the king's troops until Charles ordered an end to the unsuccessful siege. That year, she led several more small campaigns, capturing the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moitier. In December, Charles ennobled Joan, her parents, and her brothers. In May 1430, the Burgundians laid siege to Compiegne, and Joan stole into the town under the cover of darkness to aid in its defense. On May 23, while leading a sortie against the Burgundians, she was captured. The Burgundians sold her to the English, and in March 1431 she went on trial before ecclesiastical authorities in Rouen on charges of heresy. Her most serious crime, according to the tribunal, was her rejection of church authority in favor of direct inspiration from God. After refusing to submit to the church, her sentence was read on May 24: She was to be turned over to secular authorities and executed. Reacting with horror to the pronouncement, Joan agreed to recant and was condemned instead to perpetual imprisonment. Ordered to put on women's clothes, she obeyed, but a few days later the judges went to her cell and found her dressed again in male attire. Questioned, she told them that St. Catherine and St. Margaret had reproached her for giving in to the church against their will. She was found to be a relapsed heretic and on May 29 ordered handed over to secular officials. On May 30, Joan, 19 years old, was burned at the stake at the Place du Vieux-Marche in Rouen. Before the pyre was lit, she instructed a priest to hold high a crucifix for her to see and to shout out prayers loud enough to be heard above the roar of the flames. As a source of military inspiration, Joan of Arc helped turn the Hundred Years War firmly in France's favor. By 1453, Charles VII had reconquered all of France except for Calais, which the English relinquished in 1558. In 1920, Joan of Arc, one of the great heroes of French history, was recognized as a Christian saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Her feast day is May 30.

• 1783 --- The first daily newspaper was published in the U.S. by Benjamin Towner called "The Pennsylvania Evening Post"

• 1868 --- By proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, the first major Memorial Day observance is held to honor those who died "in defense of their country during the late rebellion." Known to some as "Decoration Day," mourners honored the Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers. On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.

• 1896 --- The first documented auto accident occurred -- in New York City. A Duryea Motor Wagon, driven by Henry Wells from Springfield, MA collided with a bicycle ridden by Evylyn Thomas of NYC.

• 1911 --- Ray Harroun drives his single-seater Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, now one of the world's most famous motor racing competitions. The Indiana automobile dealer Carl Fisher first proposed building a private auto testing facility in 1906, in order to address car manufacturers' inability to test potential top speeds of new cars due to the poorly developed state of the public roadways. The result was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other in order to showcase their full power and entice spectators to check out the new models themselves. In 1911, Fisher and his partners decided to focus on one long race per year, as opposed to numerous shorter events, in order to attract more publicity. The purse for the grueling 500-mile race would be the richest in racing. On May 30, 1911, 40 cars lined up at the starting line for the first Indy 500. A multi-car accident occurred 13 laps into the race, and the ensuing chaos temporarily disrupted scoring, throwing the finish into dispute when the eventual runner-up, Ralph Mulford, argued that he was the rightful winner. It was Ray Harroun, however, who took home the $14,250 purse, clocking an average speed of 74.59 mph and a total time of 6 hours and 42 minutes. The Wasp was the first car with a rear-view mirror, which Harroun had installed in order to compensate for not having a mechanic in the seat next to him to warn of other cars passing. Impressive as it was, Harroun's 1911 speed would have finished him 10th in the 1922 Indy 500. Barely a decade later, nearly all the cars that started in the race were smaller, lighter, more efficient and far more expensive than consumer cars. Their aerodynamic bodies featured narrow grills and teardrop-shaped tails; knock-off wire wheels made for quick, efficient tire changes; and the new straight-sided tires lasted much longer than their early pneumatic counterparts. The best cars were equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes and inline 3.0-liter V-8 engines made of aluminum. By the mid-1920s, the Indy 500 had become what it is today--a high-paying event for the world's most expensive cars.

• 1922 --- Max Flack and Clifton Heathcote became the first major-league baseball players to play on two teams in the same day! Here’s how it went down: Between games of a doubleheader, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals made the switcheroo, with Flack putting on a Cubs uniform and Heathcote trading his Cubs uniform for that of the Cardinals. The outfielders both played in the nightcap of the twin-bill.

• 1922 --- Daniel Chester French created the famous sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, titled Seated Lincoln. Lincoln is in meditation, seated in a large armchair. Both French and the Piccirilli brothers completed the sculpture. On this day in 1922 the memorial in which the statue is permanently seated was dedicated, although the cornerstone was laid in 1915. The Lincoln Memorial, with Doric columns on the exterior and Ionic columns on the interior, was designed by architect Henry Bacon. Marble was brought from Colorado and Tennessee, and limestone from Indiana to complete the stately memorial to one of the United States’ most revered presidents. Bronze ceiling beams picture murals and ornamentation created by Jules Guerin. An engraved stone tablet in the south chamber bears Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address; his second inaugural speech, also engraved on a stone tablet, is in the north chamber. The Lincoln Memorial stands opposite the Washington Monument, in Washington, D.C.’s West Potomac Park on 109.63 acres of land. Today, it also stands prominently among new memorials, the World War II Memorial, and one to honor another president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

• 1937 --- New York Giant pitcher Carl Hubbell won his 24th consecutive regular-season game in a two-year period. He went 26-6 in 1936 season and 22-8 in 1937.

• 1958 --- Unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean conflict were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

• 1962 --- Benny Goodman led the first American jazz band to play in the Soviet Union.

• 1968 --- The Beatles began recording the "White Album."

• 1971 --- The U.S. unmanned space probe Mariner 9 is launched on a mission to gather scientific information on Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. The 1,116-pound spacecraft entered the planet's orbit on November 13, 1971, and circled Mars twice each day for almost a year, photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere with infrared and ultraviolet instruments. It gathered data on the atmospheric composition, density, pressure, and temperature of Mars, and also information about the surface composition, temperature, and topography of the planet. When Mariner 9 first arrived, Mars was almost totally obscured by dust storms, which persisted for a month. However, after the dust cleared, Mariner 9 proceeded to reveal a very different planet--one that boasted enormous volcanoes and a gigantic canyon stretching 3,000 miles across its surface. The spacecraft's cameras also recorded what appeared to be dried riverbeds, suggesting the ancient presence of water and perhaps life on the planet. The first spacecraft to orbit a planet other than earth, Mariner 9 sent back more than 7,000 pictures of the "Red Planet" and succeeded in photographing the entire planet. Mariner 9 also sent back the first close-up images of the Martian moon. Its transmission ended on October 27, 1972.

• 1982 --- Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles played in the first of a record 2,632 consecutive major league baseball games.

• 1982 --- Spain became the 16th NATO member. Spain was the first country to enter the Western alliance since West Germany in 1955.

• 2011 --- Germany announced plans to abandon nuclear power over the next 11 years, outlining an ambitious strategy in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources.

• Birthdays
• Mel Blanc
• Benny Goodman
• Tom Morello
• Gale Sayers
• Cee Lo Green
• Manny Ramirez
• Wynonna Judd
• Stepin Fetchit
• Johnny Gimble
• Meredith MacRae
• Nicky "Topper" Headon