Sun Directly Overhead Today
July 17, 2009 8:55 am > MAUI TODAY |
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HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Lahaina: Cruel sun PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — San: Sun HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “The sun stands over the brain, the shadow retreats into the body.” HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “The sun is but a Morning Star.” (Henry David Thoreau)
TODAY – LAHAINA NOON 12:32pm, Kahului & Lahaina: On one day each May and another each July, the sun is directly overhead on the major islands of the Hawaiian chain. These two days are called Lahaina Noon, and occur on different dates and times, depending on the latitude.
As the sun moves northward from the Equator toward the Tropic of Cancer, it passes directly overhead at all latitudes in between. When it reaches the Tropic of Cancer on June 22, the farthest north it will appear overhead each year, it is the Summer Solstice. On its return trip south, it will again pass overhead.
Hawaii is the only state in the U.S. that experiences Lahaina Noon because of its location within the tropics (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn). This event had no name until 1990 when Honolulu’s Bishop Museum Planetarium sponsored a naming contest. The winning entry: “Lahaina Noon” in Hawaiian means, “Cruel Sun.” Every location has its own time for local noon and Lahaina Noon. Lahaina Noon occurs at 12:30pm tomorrow in Hana.
EVENTS ON THIS DAY — July 17th
- 1879: Hawaii’s first railroad begins operating
- 1945: The Potsdam Conference (FDR, Stalin, Churchill) holds first meeting
- 1974: John Lennon is ordered to leave the U.S. in 60 days
- 1975: Apollo 18 & Soyuz 19 make the first U.S./USSR linkup in space
- 1979: Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigns and flees into exile in Miami
- 1996: TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 bound for Paris, explodes, crashing in the Atlantic off Long Island NY, shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport (all 230 people aboard are killed)
- 1997: After 117 years or operations, the Woolworth Corporation closes its last 400 “five-and-dime” stores, laying off 9,200 employees
- 2005: The Iraqi Special Tribunal files its first criminal case against Saddam Hussein for a 1982 massacre of Shiites.
BORN ON THIS DAY — July 17th
- 1889: Erle Stanley Gardner, author
- 1900: James Cagney, actor
- 1917: Phyllis Diller, comedienne
- 1934: Donald Sutherland, actor
- 1935: Diahann Carroll, actress
- 1935: P.D.Q. Bach, (Peter Schickele), composer
- 1939: Spencer Davis, vocalist
- 1952: David Hasselhoff, actor/singer
- 1953: Nicolette Larson, country singer
- 1954: Angela Merkel, Germna PM
- 1952: Phoebe Snow, singer
- 1972: Amy Weber, actress
DIED ON THIS DAY — July 17th
- 1790: Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (b. 1723)
- 1881: Jim Bridger, American mountain man, Indian fighter, and explorer (b. 1804)
- 1887: Dorothea Dix, American social activist (b. 1802)
- 1912: Henri Poincaré, French mathematician (b. 1854)
- 1918: Family of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1868)
- 1935: George William Russell, Irish nationalist, poet and artist (b. 1867)
- 1961: Ty Cobb, baseball player (b. 1886)
- 1967: John Coltrane, American musician (b. 1926)
- 1974: Dizzy Dean, Major League baseball pitcher (b. 1910)
- 2001: Katharine Graham, American publisher (b. 1917)
- 2005: Laurel Aitken, Jamaican singer (b. 1927)
- 2005: Geraldine Fitzgerald, Irish-born actress (b. 1913)
- 2005: Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)
- 2006: Mickey Spillane, American author (b. 1918)
