- 128th Day of 2013 / 237 Remaining
- 44 Days Until The First Day of Summer
- Sunrise:6:04
- Sunset:8:07
- 14 Hours 3 Minutes of Daylight
- Moon Rise:5:16am
- Moon Set:7:11pm
- Moon’s Phase:1 %
- The Next Full Moon
- May 24 @ 9:27pm
- Full Flower Moon
- Full Corn Planting Moon
- Full Milk Moon
In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.
- Tides
- High:11:20am/10:33pm
- Low:4:47am/4:28pm
- Holidays
- No Socks Day
- Stay up All Night Day
- National Coconut Cream Pie Day
- World Red Cross Day
- Liberation Day-Czech Republic
- Liberation Day-Slovakia
- Victory Day-France
- Yom Ha'Zikkaron(Remembrance Day)-Israel
- Parent’s Day-South Korea
- On This Day In …
- 1541 --- Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River, one of the first European explorers to ever do so. After building flatboats, de Soto and his 400 ragged troops crossed the great river under the cover of night, in order to avoid the armed Native Americans who patrolled the river daily in war canoes. From there the conquistadors headed into present-day Arkansas, continuing their fruitless two-year-old search for gold and silver in the American wilderness.
- 1847 --- The rubber tire was patented by Robert W. Thompson.
- 1886 --- Dr. John S. Pemberton first sold his secret elixir. It was originally used for medicinal purposes. So Dr. Pemberton went to the right place to sell his new product: Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, GA. Three years later, Dr. Pemberton figured that his secret formula had been enough of a success for him to sell out. He did just that, for $2,300. Even in 1889 dollars, $2,300 was a mere drop in the bucket for what the still very classified, secret formula would be worth. That formula is now used in a product that sells about 350 million cans and bottles a day in nearly 200 countries. That’s enough secret elixir for every man, woman and child on earth to consume -- 25 times a year.
1945 --- Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark--the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany. The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain. Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: "The age-long struggle of the Slav nations...has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over."
- 1956 --- Alfred E. Newman appeared on the cover of "Mad Magazine" for the first time.
- 1961 --- The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club Inc. selected the Mets as the name for their National League baseball franchise that would begin play at the Polo Grounds in 1962.
- 1962 --- Zero Mostel starred in one of his most famous roles, in the Broadway production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The comedy opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. Audiences laughed through the entertaining show for a total of 964 performances.
- 1968 --- Catfish Hunter was pitching for Oakland in an American League baseball game against Minnesota. By the end of the game, with a score of 4-0, Catfish made history. He pitched what turned out to be the ninth perfect game in major-league baseball history.
- 1970 --- President Nixon, at a news conference, defends the U.S. troop movement into Cambodia, saying the operation would provide six to eight months of time for training South Vietnamese forces and thus would shorten the war for Americans. Nixon reaffirmed his promise to withdraw 150,000 American soldiers by the following spring. The announcement that U.S. and South Vietnamese troops had invaded Cambodia resulted in a firestorm of protests and gave the antiwar movement a new rallying point. College students across the nation intensified their antiwar protests with marches, rallies, and scattered incidents of violence.
- 1973 --- On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, armed members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) surrender to federal authorities, ending their 71-day siege of Wounded Knee, site of the infamous massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1890. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native-American leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had rights to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Their actions were acclaimed by many Native Americans, but on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Dick Wilson had banned all AIM activities. AIM considered his government corrupt and dictatorial, and planned the occupation of Wounded Knee as a means of forcing a federal investigation of his administration. By taking Wounded Knee, The AIM leaders also hoped to force an investigation of other reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and broken Indian treaties. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country's lowest rates of life expectancy. On February 27, 1973, some 200 AIM-led Sioux seized control of Wounded Knee, taking 11 allies of Dick Wilson hostage as local authorities and federal agents descended on the reservation. The next day, AIM members traded gunfire with the federal marshals surrounding the settlement and fired on automobiles and low-flying planes that dared come within rifle range. Russell Means began negotiations for the release of the hostages, demanding that the U.S. Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pine Ridge, and all Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the U.S. government. The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents. One federal agent was paralyzed after being shot. On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after White House officials promised to investigate their complaints. Russell Means and Dennis Banks were arrested, but on September 16, 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by a federal judge because of the U.S. government's unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence.
- 1978 --- David Berkowitz pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to the "Son of Sam" killings.
- Birthdays
- Harry S. Truman (33rd President)
- Don Rickles
- David Attenborough
- Toni Tenille
- Gary Glitter
- Keith Jarrett
- Philip Bailey
- Chris Frantz
- Ronnie Lott
- Melissa Gilbert
- Edmund Wilson
- Sonny Liston
- Peter Benchley