Facts, Folklore, and Everything You Need to Know About the Fall Equinox

Catherine Boeckmann

What Is the Autumnal Equinox?

The autumnal equinox is an astronomical event that marks the start of autumn (or “fall”). In the Northern Hemisphere, the autumnal equinox occurs in September; in the Southern Hemisphere, it occurs in March. 

What Is an Equinox?

During an equinox, the Sun crosses what we call the “celestial equator”—an imaginary extension of Earth’s equator line into space. The equinox occurs precisely when the Sun’s center passes through this line.

For those in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Sun crosses the equator going from north to south, this marks the autumnal equinox; when it crosses from south to north, this marks the vernal equinox. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the reverse.

After the autumnal equinox, days become shorter than nights as the Sun continues to rise later and nightfall arrives earlier. This ends with the winter solstice, after which days start to grow longer once again. 

The word “equinox” comes from Latin aequus, meaning “equal,” and nox, ”night.” On the equinox, day and night are roughly equal in length.

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Autumn has caught us in our summer wear.
–Philip Larkin, British poet (1922–86)

Autumn days come quickly, like the running of a hound on the moor.
–Irish proverb

Fall Weather

It is the summer’s great last heat, 
It is the fall’s first chill: They meet. 
–Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

Another definition of fall is “nights of below-freezing temperatures combined with days of temperatures below 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21°C)”. From here on out, the temperatures begin to drop.

→ Find 12 months of long-range weather predictions in the latest edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac!

For the complete article: almanac.com

Compulsive lying, if not addressed, can easily ruin a relationship and why do we need to lie in the first place. Compulsive lying can be dealt with through counseling or therapy. But, like any addictive behavior (and/or personality disorder), getting someone to admit they have a problem with lying is the difficult part.

We must all sort out the lies from their source …and right now our Democracy depends on it.

Again, #VoteBlueToSaveAmerica

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million enslaved in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, shortly after Lincoln’s inauguration as America’s 16th president, he maintained that the war was about restoring the Union and not about slavery. He avoided issuing an anti-slavery proclamation immediately, despite the urgings of abolitionists and radical Republicans, as well as his personal belief that slavery was morally repugnant. Instead, Lincoln chose to move cautiously until he could gain wide support from the public for such a measure.

In July 1862, Lincoln informed his cabinet that he would issue an emancipation proclamation but that it would exempt the so-called border states, which had slaveholders but remained loyal to the Union. His cabinet persuaded him not to make the announcement until after a Union victory. Lincoln’s opportunity came following the Union win at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862.

On September 22, the president announced that enslaved people in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be free.

For the complete article: history.com

READ MORE: America’s History of Slavery Began Long Before Jamestown 

Citation Information

Article Title

Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

AuthorHistory.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-issues-emancipation-proclamation

Access Date

September 22, 2022

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

September 24, 2021

Original Published Date

November 24, 2009

1789 – The U.S. Congress authorized the office of Postmaster General.

1792 – The French Republic was proclaimed.

1862 – U.S. President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It stated that all slaves held within rebel states would be free as of January 1, 1863.

1903 – Italo Marchiony was granted a patent for the ice cream cone.

1914 – Three British cruisers were sunk by one German submarine in the North Sea. 1,400 British sailors were killed. This event alerted the British to the effectiveness of the submarine.

1927 – In Chicago, IL, Gene Tunney successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack Dempsey in the famous “long-count” fight.

1949 – The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb successfully.

1955 – Commercial television began in Great Britain. The rules said that only six minutes of ads were allowed each hour and there was no Sunday morning TV permitted.

1961 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy signed a congressional act that established the Peace Corps.

1964 – “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” debuted on NBC-TV.

1966 – The U.S. lunar probe Surveyor 2 crashed into the moon.

1969 – Willie Mays hit his 600th career home run.

1980 – A border conflict between Iran and Iraq developed into a full-scale war.

1986 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan addressed the U.N. General Assembly and voiced a new hope for arms control. He also criticized the Soviet Union for arresting U.S. journalist Nicholas Daniloff.

1988 – Canada’s government apologized for the internment of Japanese-Canadian’s during World War II. They also promised compensation.

1990 – Saudi Arabia expelled most of the Yememin and Jordanian envoys in Riyadh. The Saudi accusations were unspecific.

1991 – An article in the London newspaper “The Mail” revealed that John Cairncross admitted to being the “fifth man” in the Soviet Union’s British spy ring.

1992 – The U.N. General Assembly expelled Yugoslavia for its role in the war between Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1994 – The U.S. upgraded its military control in Haiti.

1998 – The U.S. and Russia signed two agreements. One was to privatize Russia’s nuclear program and the other was to stop plutonium stockpiles and nuclear scientists from leaving the country.

1998 – U.S. President Clinton addressed the United Nations and told world leaders to “end all nuclear tests for all time”. He then sent the long-delayed global test-ban treaty to the U.S. Senate.

1998 – Keely Smith received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Upton Sinclair, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and reformer, is born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20, 1878.

The 1906 bestseller was one of the most influential books in American history—but not in the way its author intended.

BY: CHRISTOPHER KLEIN

Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, the novel became an instant sensation, exposing the horrifying conditions in America’s meat-processing industry. With its stomach-turning depictions of the stockyards and slaughterhouses, the book lit a new fire under the pure food movement and inspired swift passage of landmark food safety laws.

Two years earlier, in the fall of 1904, Sinclair had boarded a train to Chicago in search of material for his Great American Novel. For seven weeks, the 26-year-old writer and devout socialist investigated the dangerous and oppressive working conditions endured by what he called “the wage slaves of the Beef Trust.” Donning grimy clothes and carrying a dinner pail to sneak into Chicago’s “Packingtown,” a dense complex of stockyards, feed lots, slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, Sinclair was horrified by what he saw.

Titled The Jungle as a metaphor for capitalism, Sinclair’s novel originally appeared in monthly installments between February and November 1905 in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. It tells the story of an idealistic Lithuanian immigrant working for a fictional meat-processing company who loses his family, job, home and health in a succession of calamities before finding hope in socialism.

The Jungle had a limited audience at first, but it became a bestselling sensation when Doubleday, Page & Company published a revised version in February 1906. It sold more than 150,000 copies in its first year.

Much as Uncle Tom’s Cabin had influenced the national conversation about slavery, Sinclair hoped his epic would spark outrage about “wage slavery” and promote socialism as a solution. The Jungle did shock the American public and prompt legislative change—but not in the way he wanted.