In 2023, December’s Full Moon reaches peak illumination on Tuesday, December 26. December’s Moon is most commonly known as the Cold Moon—a Mohawk name that conveys the frigid conditions of this time of year, when cold weather truly begins to grip us. Read more about December’s Cold Moon here.
Daily Calendar for Thursday, December 4, 2025
Question of the Day
What causes the leaves on my rubber plant to turn yellow?
Yellowing leaves on indoor rubber plants is a common problem. It is usually a sign of overwatering. Check your plant to make sure it has adequate bottom drainage to draw excess water away from the roots. If your plant has been in the same container for a long time, remove it and its root ball and loosen the bound roots. Remove some of the soil at the top of the ball, then transplant the tree in a larger pot.
Advice of the Day
Create more space; donate used books to your local library.
Home Hint of the Day
To discourage a cat from scratching upholstered furniture, give him a scratching post — 2 feet high and covered with carpet on a base large enough so that the cat won’t tip it over. Use scrap plywood and boards for a do-it-yourself project.
Word of the Day
Hail
Hail falls mainly in the summer. It forms in thunderstorm clouds, which can extend high into the atmoshpere where extremely cold temperatures prevail. When a cloud releases rain, the rain can be forced upward, where it freezes into tiny ice pellets. If updrafts keep buffeting the pellets, layer upon layer of frozen water will be added to the pellets until, finally, hailstones are released.
Puzzle of the Day
What do men never wish to be in and yet labor hard to possess?
Bonds
Died
- Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu (French clergyman and statesman) –
- Frank Zappa (musician) –
- Besse Cooper (world’s oldest person at time of her death) –
Born
- Thomas Carlyle (historian) –
- Deanna Durbin (actress) –
- Ed Flesh (designer of the wheel on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune) –
- Roberta Lynn Bondar (astronaut) –
- Jeff Bridges (actor) –
- Marisa Tomei (actress) –
- Jay-Z (hip hop artist) –
Events
- At Fraunces Tavern in New York’s lower Manhattan, George Washington bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army, before traveling to Annapolis, Maryland, to resign his commission as commander-in-chief –
- National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry founded –
- Boss Tweed escaped jail –
- Crew of shipwrecked tanker Kyzikes rescued, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina –
- In its first aerial attack on Italy, the US bombs Naples –
- First television appearance of Marcel Marceau –
- Matisse’s Le Bateau rehung after being upside down in The Museum of Modern Art for 47 days, New York City –
- Brenda Lee’s Christmas hit “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, 65 years after its original release –
Weather
- New Haven, Connecticut, received 20 inches of snow in the first of two major snowstorms that December –
- The temperature dropped from 52 degrees F to 18 degrees F in 20 minutes, Livingston, Montana –
- Central Park in NYC reached 72 degrees F –
