Here Comes The Sun
July 8 is one of 60 days during each year when - for a few minutes - the sun shines on 99% of the world's population (currently at about 8,043,000,000).
Tomorrow is Sun day.
Last year, timeanddate.com confirmed an internet meme claiming 99% of the world’s population gets sunlight at the same time on July 8. In fact, this happens on a whole range of dates … but only around a specific time of day.
It seemed like an implausible claim that circulated the internet last year. And yet, our number crunchers confirmed it: 99% of the world’s population really do receive some degree of sunlight at 11:15 UTC on July 8 each year. (That is if you count the 3% that experiences astronomical twilight, which is hardly discernible from nighttime.) . . .
July 8 is not the only date when sunlight reaches all but 1% of people on Earth. Far from it! . . .
According to our numbers, this period begins around May 18 and ends around July 17. In other words, there are about 60 days around the June solstice when, for a few minutes every day, 99% of humans on Earth get daylight or twilight (rounded to the nearest percent). . . .
Matthew Cappucci of the Washington Post reports:
This occurs because most of Earth’s population lives on one side of the planet. It might not look like that on most maps, but that’s because the majority of classroom maps are distorted to be population-centric. In reality, the Pacific Ocean occupies virtually half of Earth. When it’s nighttime there, it’s daytime for almost all of Earth’s land masses.
The wet side of the earth (from the standpoint of water):
There are days when The Jayhawks’ Hollywood Town Hall (which is, impossibly, 31 years old (?!)) threatens to edge its way onto my Desert Island List. And yet I’m not all that crazy about any of their other ten albums. None of them are bad, but there’s a off-putting sweetness to them that keeps me at a distance. HTH retains a harder, rougher edge.