Daily Almanac: October 12, 2023

Sunrise/Sunset:

RISE: 7:53 a.m.
SET: 7:14 p.m.

High/Low Temperatures:

HIGH: 78 °F
LOW: 54 °F

Today is…:

• Freethought Day
• National Farmer’s Day
• World Sight Day

What Happened On This Day:

• 1979 Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Hits the Bookstores. The first in a “trilogy of five”, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or H2G2, is a popular comedy science fiction novel that was first created as a radio show in 1978 for BBC Radio 4. The show and the book follow the intergalactic adventures of Arthur Dent, who escapes the Earth’s destruction. He is accompanied by several other characters including an alien called Ford Prefect, Marvin the depressed robot, and the Vogons who are responsible for destroying the Earth.
• 1964 First Multi Person Space Flight. Soviet spacecraft Voskhod 1 carried 3 cosmonauts for the first time to space. It was also the first time the crew did not wear any space suits for the duration of the flight.
• 1960 Nikita Khrushchev’s Famous Shoe Pounding Incident. The First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union removed his shoe and pounded it on the table during a UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The incident was thought to be a response to comments about freedoms in Eastern Europe made by the Filipino delegate, Lorenzo Sumulong.

Births On This Day:

• 1875 Aleister Crowley

English magician, author
• 1537 Edward VI of England

Deaths On This Day:

• 1999 Wilt Chamberlain

American basketball player
• 1997 John Denver

American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor