- 348th Day of 2015 17 Remaining
- Winter Begins in 7 Days
- Sunrise: 7:17
- Sunset: 4:51
- 9 Hours 37 Minutes
- Moon Rise: 9:44am
- Moon Set: 8:30pm
- Phase: 12% 3 Days
- Next Full Moon December 25 @ 3:11am
- The Full Cold Moon; or the Full Long Nights Moon – December During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.
- Tides
- High: 1:15am/11:58am
- Low: 6:08am/6:51pm
- Rainfall
- This Year: 3.03
- Last Year: 10.89
- YTD Avg.: 6.47
- Annual Avg.: 23.80
- Holidays
- Monkey Day
- National Bouillabaisse Day
- Green Monday
- On This Day
- 1819 --- Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state.
- 1863 --- President Abraham Lincoln announces a grant of amnesty for Emilie Todd Helm, his wife Mary Lincoln’s half-sister and the widow of a Confederate general. After her husband’s death, Helm made her way through Union lines to Washington, D.C. She stayed in the White House and the Lincolns tried to keep her visit a secret. General Daniel Sickles, who had been wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, five months prior, told Lincoln that he should not have a Rebel in his house. Lincoln replied, “General Sickles, my wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice or assistance in the matter.” After Lincoln granted her pardon, Emilie Helm returned to Kentucky.
- 1900 --- German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a “blackbody” substance, and the quantum theory of modern physics is born. Through physical experiments, Planck demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. According to theories of classical physics, energy is solely a continuous wave-like phenomenon, independent of the characteristics of physical matter. Planck’s theory held that radiant energy is made up of particle-like components, known as “quantum.” The theory helped to resolve previously unexplained natural phenomena such as the behavior of heat in solids and the nature of light absorption on an atomic level. In 1918, Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on blackbody radiation.
- 1903 --- Orville Wright made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged in the attempt. Three days later, after repairs were made, the modern aviation age was born when the plane stayed aloft for 12 seconds and flew 102 feet.
- 1909 --- Workers place the last of the 3.2 million 10-pound bricks that pave the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana (a town surrounded by the city of Indianapolis). Since then, most of that brick has been buried under asphalt, but one yard remains exposed at the start-finish line. Kissing those bricks after a successful race remains a tradition among Indy drivers.
- 1911 --- Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole. He reached the destination 35 days ahead of Captain Robert F. Scott. After his historic Antarctic journey, Amundsen established a successful shipping business. He later made attempts to become the first explorer to fly over the North Pole. In 1925, in an airplane, he flew within 150 miles of the goal. In 1926, he passed over the North Pole in a dirigible just three days after American explorer Richard E. Byrd had apparently done so in an aircraft. In 1996, a diary that Byrd had kept on the flight was found that seemed to suggest that the he had turned back 150 miles short of its goal because of an oil leak, making Amundsen’s dirigible expedition the first flight over the North Pole.
- 1979 --- The album "London Calling" by the Clash was released.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c
- 1985 --- Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
- 1995 --- Classified documents from the White House were released that revealed the FBI had spied on John Lennon and his anti-war activities during the early '70s in a possible attempt to have Lennon deported.
- 1999 --- Paul McCartney played a show at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. It was the first time that McCartney had played at the club since 1963.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdzVFrvKa6M
- 2005 --- King Kong, a remake of the classic 1933 film of the same name about a fictional giant ape who climbs New York City’s Empire State Building, opens in theaters. Directed by Peter Jackson (the filmmaker behind the multiple Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy), the 2005 King Kong remake starred Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody and Jack Black. The film was a box-office success and won three Academy Awards, for Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects.
- 2006 --- South Korea's Ban Ki-moon was sworn in as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations.
- 2008 --- An Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad; Bush was not hit.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RFH7C3vkK4
- 2012 --- 20-year-old man shoots and kills his mother at their Newtown, Connecticut, home then drives to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he kills 20 first graders and six school employees before turning a gun on himself. The Sandy Hook tragedy was the second-deadliest mass-shooting in the United States, following the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman killed 32 students and teachers before committing suicide.
- Birthdays
- Nostradamus
- Shirley Jackson
- Lee Remick
- Margaret Chase Smith
- Morey Amsterdam
- Spike Jones
- Charlie Rich
- Patty Duke
- Michael Ovitz
World Monkey Day-KALW Almanac-12/14/2015
