Wednesday October 3, 2012

• 277^th Day of 2012 / 89 Remaining
• 79 Days Until The First Day of Winter

• Sunrise:7:08
• Sunset:6:49
• 11 Hours 41 Minutes of Daylight

• Moon Rise: 8:49pm
• Moon Set:10:33am
• Moon’s Phase: 88 %

• The Next Full Moon
• October 29 @ 12:50 pm
• Full Hunter’s Moon
• Full Harvest Moon

This full Moon is often referred to as the Full Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon, or Sanguine Moon. Many moons ago, Native Americans named this bright moon for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer are fattened, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. Because the fields were traditionally reaped in late September or early October, hunters could easily see fox and other animals that come out to glean from the fallen grains. Probably because of the threat of winter looming close, the Hunter’s Moon is generally accorded with special honor, historically serving as an important feast day in both Western Europe and among many Native American tribes.

• Tides
• High: 1:46am/12:53pm
• Low: 7:00am/7:43pm

• Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)
• This Year:0.03
• Last Year:0.11
• Normal To Date:0.20
• Annual Seasonal Average:23.80

• Holidays
• National Carmel Custard Day

• Independence Day-Lesotho
• Foundation Day-South Korea
• Unity Day-Germany
• World Temperance Day

• On This Day In …
• 1863 --- Expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863. The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory "day of public thanksgiving and prayer." While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington's suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the country's fortunes on this day in 1863.

• 1883 --- The ‘Orient Express’ made its first run from Paris to Constantinople.

• 1922 --- Rebecca L. Felton became the first female to hold office of U.S. Senator. She was appointed by Governor Thomas W. Hardwick of Georgia to fill a vacancy.

• 1942 --- The Office of Economic Stabilization was established by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also authorized controls on rents, wages, salaries and farm prices.

• 1945 --- Elvis Presley appeared in a talent show at the age of 10. It was his first public appearance. He won 2nd place and $5.

• 1951 --- Bobby Thomson hits a one-out, three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the National League pennant for the New York Giants. Thomson’s homer wrapped up an amazing come-from-behind run for the Giants and knocked the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Giants’ hated inter-borough rivals, out of their spot in the World Series. The Giants went on to lose the Series to the Yankees, but Thomson’s miraculous homer remains one of the most memorable moments in sports history. The Giants weren’t even supposed to be in the pennant race--they were 13 1/2 games behind the legendary Dodgers by the middle of August, and everyone thought they were finished. But then they won 16 games in a row. By October, they’d won 37 of their last 44 games and had tied Brooklyn for the lead. It was time for a playoff, the first ever in the National League. New York won the first game; in the second, the Dodgers crushed them 10-0. The third game, before 34,320 people at the Polo Grounds in Washington Heights, was crucial, and by the ninth inning, it seemed like a lost cause. The Dodgers were winning 4-1. People in the stands were gathering their belongings and heading for the subway. But then the Giants came to life. Al Dark and Don Mueller hit respectable singles to right field. Then, after a Monte Irvin pop-up, Whitey Lockman doubled to left and sent Dark safely home. Now the score was 4-2, with runners on second and third. While Bobby Thomson waited to bat, the Dodgers sent in relief pitcher Ralph Branca. Thomson was a reliable hitter, and since first base was open and the new rookie Willie Mays waited on deck, many thought that Branca would throw a deliberate walk. He didn’t. The first pitch was a called strike. Thomson drilled the second into the left-field stands. "The Giants win the pennant!" radio announcer Russ Hodges howled. "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" He kept screaming until he lost his voice. Meanwhile, inside the Polo Grounds, pandemonium reigned. Fans flooded the field. Thomson took curtain call after curtain call. People in Manhattan and Brooklyn made so many phone calls in the half-hour after Thomson’s homer that New York Telephone nearly lost service in the two boroughs.

• 1955 --- Captain Kangaroo debuted on CBS. The children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for nearly 30 years, until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television program of its day. In 1986, the American Program Service (now American Public Television, Boston) integrated some newly produced segments into reruns of past episodes, distributing the newer version of the series until 1993. The show was conceived and the title character played by Bob Keeshan, who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and children." Keeshan had portrayed the original Clarabell the Clown on “The Howdy Doody Show” when it aired on NBC. Captain Kangaroo had a loose structure, built around life in the "Treasure House" where the Captain (the name "kangaroo" came from the big pockets in his coat) would tell stories, meet guests, and indulge in silly stunts with regular characters, both humans and puppets. The show was telecast live to the East Coast and the Midwest for its first four years and broadcast on kinescope for the West Coast, as Keeshan would not perform the show live three times a day, and was in black-and-white until 1966. The May 17, 1971 episode saw two major changes on the show: The Treasure House was renovated and renamed "The Captain's Place" and the Captain replaced his black coat with a red coat. In September 1981, CBS shortened the hour-long show to a half-hour, briefly retitled it Wake Up with the Captain, and moved it to an earlier time slot; it was later moved to weekends in September 1982, and returned to an hour-long format. It was canceled by CBS at the end of 1984.

• 1955 --- "The Mickey Mouse Club" premiered on ABC-TV.

• 1960 --- The Andy Griffith Show premiered. Maybe you remember the small town of Mayberry, North Carolina with its sheriff, Andy Taylor, played gently and philosophically by Andy Griffith. Andy was a widower with a young son, Opie, played by the now, award-winning, movie director Ron Howard. Other members of the cast of The Andy Griffith Show went on to become celebrated show biz stars, too: Don Knotts who played Andy’s deputy, Barney Fife; and Jim Nabors, the lovable, extremely naive gas station attendant, Gomer Pyle, come to mind.

• 1964 --- Buffalo Wings were created by Teressa Bellissimo at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo. The story is that specially prepared wings were first prepared upon the unannounced, late-night arrival of their son, Dominic, with several of his friends from college. Teressa needed a fast and easy snack to present to her hungry guests. It was then that she came up with the idea of deep frying chicken wings (normally thrown away or reserved for stock) and tossing them in cayenne hot sauce.

• 1974 --- Frank Robinson took over the management position of the Cleveland Indians baseball team. He was the first black manager in major league baseball.

• 1981 --- A hunger strike by Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison in Belfast in Northern Ireland is called off after seven months and 10 deaths. The first to die was Bobby Sands, the imprisoned Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader who initiated the protest on March 1, 1981--the fifth anniversary of the British policy of "criminalization" of Irish political prisoners. In 1972, Sands was arrested and convicted of taking part in several IRA robberies. Because he was convicted for IRA activities, he was given "special category status" and sent to a prison that was more akin to a prisoner of war camp because it allowed freedom of dress and freedom of movement within the prison grounds. He spent four years there.After less than a year back on the streets, Sands was arrested in 1977 for gun possession near the scene of an IRA bombing and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Because the British government had enacted a policy of criminalization of Irish terrorists in 1976, Sands was imprisoned as a dangerous criminal in the Maze Prison, south of Belfast. During the next few years, from his cell in the Maze, he joined other IRA prisoners in protests demanding restoration of the freedoms they had previously enjoyed under special category status. In 1980, a hunger strike was called off when one of the protesters fell into a coma. In response, the British government offered a few concessions to the prisoners, but they failed to deliver all they had promised, and protests resumed. Sands did not directly participate in the 1980 hunger strike, but he acted as the IRA-appointed leader and spokesperson of the protesting prisoners.On March 1, 1981, Bobby Sands launched a new hunger strike. He consumed only water and salt, and his weight dropped from 155 pounds to 95 pounds. After two weeks, another protester joined the strike, and six days after that, two more. On April 9, in the midst of the strike, Sands was elected to a vacant seat in the British Parliament from Fermanagh and South Tyrone in Northern Ireland. Parliament subsequently introduced legislation to disqualify convicts serving prison sentences for eligibility for Parliament. Sands' protest attracted international attention. On May 5, he died.After Sands' death, the hunger strike continued, and nine more men perished before it was called off on October 3, 1981, under pressure from Catholic Church leaders and the prisoners' families. In the aftermath of the strike, the administration of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to give in to several of the protesters' demands, including the right to wear civilian clothing and the right to receive mail and visits. Prisoners were also allowed to move more freely and were no longer subject to harsh penalties for refusing prison work. Official recognition of their political status, however, was not granted.

• 1990 --- The Berlin Wall was dismantled eleven months after the borders between East and West Germany were dissolved. The unification of Germany ended 45 years of division.

• 2001 --- Barry Bonds (San Francisco Giants) broke Babe Ruth's major league single-season record for walks at 171.

• 2003 --- Ray Horn, of the duo "Siegfried & Roy," was attacked by tiger during a performance. Roy survived the attack after being dragged offstage. The tiger, a 7-year-old male named Montecore, was debuting in his first show.

• Birthdays
• Emily Post
• Gwen Stefani
• Chubby Checker
• Rutherford B Hayes (19th President)
• Roy Horn (Siegfried & Roy)
• Lindsey Buckingham
• Keb' Mo'
• Dennis Eckersley
• Al Sharpton
• India.Arie
• Harvey Kurtzman(MAD Magazine)
• Gore Vidal
• Eddie Cochran
• Stevie Ray Vaughn