March 14th



~968 – Died this day: St. Matilda of Ringelheim, Queen of Germany (b. circa 895).

~1457 – Died this day: Jingtai, Emperor of China (b. 1428).

~1590 – Battle of Ivry was fought during the French Wars of Religion. The battle was a decisive victory for Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France, leading Huguenot forces against the Catholic League forces led by the Duc de Mayenne. The battle occurred on the plain of Épieds near Ivry (later renamed Ivry-la-Bataille), Normandy. Henry's forces were victorious in the battle and he went on to lay siege to Paris.

~1647 – The Thirty Years' War: Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden signed the Truce of Ulm which was developed after France and Sweden invaded Bavaria. Both invading nations forced Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, to conclude the truce and renounce his alliance with Emperor Ferdinand III. Only 6 months later Maximilian broke the truce and returned to his alliance with Ferdinand.

~1757 – Aboard the HMS Monarch, Royal Navy Admiral John Byng was executed by firing squad for "not do his utmost against the enemy, either in battle or pursuit".

~1794 – Eli Whitney was granted a patent (# X72) for his cotton gin. A single cotton gin could generate up to 55 pounds of cleaned cotton daily. Whitney, and his partner Miller, did not originally intend to sell the gins. Rather, like the proprietors of grist and sawmills, they expected to charge farmers for cleaning their cotton - 2/5 of the profits, paid in cotton.

~1800 - Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti was elected Pope Pius VII.

~1869 – Titokowaru's War: In New Zealand, Māori chief Riwha Titokowaru and his warriors were finally defeated. Titokowaru and his forces had launched attacks in response to the continued surveying and settlement of confiscated land with well planned and effective attacks on settlers and government troops in an effort to block the occupation of Māori land.

~1885 – The comic opera Mikado, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert (their 9th of 14 operatic collaborations), premiered at London's Savoy Theatre. It ran for 672 performances.

~1900 – The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard. It established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money, stopping bimetallism which had allowed silver in exchange for gold. (And the powers that be should've left it there!)

~1903 – The Hay-Herran Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, was ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate later rejected the treaty as not being "rich" enough. The US government was not willing to renegotiate the treaty with Colombia or alter the amounts involved and soon gave its support, both political and military, to a planned uprising in Panama which led to its independence and to the eventual construction of the Panama Canal.

~1903 - US President Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order making Florida's Pelican Island a "preserve and breeding ground for native birds,” marking the birth of the National Wildlife Refuge System. (Damn but old Teddy did good work!)

~1910 – Near Bakersfield, California, the Lakeview Gusher (the largest U.S. oil well gusher ever) made its debut as the drill bit found the 2,440 ft level. Pressure blew at least part of the well casing out, along with an estimated 9 million barrels of oil before the gusher was brought under control 18 months later in September 1911. Initial flow from the gusher was 18,800 barrels per day. The peak flow during the gusher was estimated to be 90,000 barrels per day. The large flow created a creek of crude oil running downhill from the well site. Crews rushed to contain the river of crude oil with a system of improvised sand bag dams and dykes. Remarkably, the gusher never caught fire during its gassy, 18 month stint.

~1915 – Cornered by HMS Glasgow and HMS Kent and out of ammunition off the coast of Chile after fleeing the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the German light cruiser SMS Dresden (sister ship of the famous commerce raider SMS Emden) was abandoned and scuttled by her crew.

~1933 – Died this day: Balto, Siberian Husky noted for his role in the 1925 serum run to Nome (b. 1919).

~1939 – Slovakia declared its independence, under pressure from Nazi Germany. The first Slovak Republic's legal existence was retroactively nullified by the World War II victorious allies through the nullification of the Munich Agreement and all its consequences.

~1942 – Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first doctors in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.

~1943 - the Nazi liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto was completed.

~1945 – The RAF's first operational use of the Grand Slam bomb, was made at Bielefeld, Germany. The No. 617 Squadron RAF Avro Lancaster of Squadron Leader CC Calder dropped the first Grand Slam bomb from 11,965 ft (3,647 m) on the Schildesche viaduct. More than 100 yards of the viaduct collapsed through the earthquake bomb effect of the Grand Slam and other Tallboy bombs of No. 617 Squadron. No aircraft were lost in the mission.

~1951 – For the second time, United Nations troops recaptured Seoul during the Korean War. This was the city's 4th conquest in only a years’ time, leaving it a ruin. The 1.5 million pre-war population was down to 200,000, and the people were suffering from severe food shortages.

~1958 - Born this day: Albert II, Prince of Monaco.

~1967 – The body of assassinated US President John F. Kennedy was moved to a permanent burial plot and memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

~1972 – Italian publisher and militant Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was killed by an explosion near Segrate. He was apparently killed by his own explosives while on an operation with other Gruppi di Azione Partigiana (GAP) members. His body wasn't discovered until the next day.

~1978 – The "Israeli Defense Force", in retaliation for a terrorist attack 3 days earlier, invaded and occupied southern Lebanon under the codename Operation Litani. This resulted in the evacuation of at least 100,000 Lebanese, approximately 2,000 deaths, as well as the creation of United Nations Interim Forces In Lebanon (UNIFIL).

~1979 – In China, a Hawker Siddeley Trident crashed into a factory near Beijing, killing at least 200 and injuring hundreds more.

~1980 – LOT Polish Airlines Flt. 007, an Ilyushin Il-62, crashed near Okęcie Airport in Warsaw, Poland due to a mechanical failure as the crew aborted a landing and attempted to go-around. All 87 crew and passengers aboard were killed.

~1984 – In central Belfast, Gerry Adams (the head of Sinn Féin) was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt when several Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) gunmen fired about 20 shots into the car in which he was traveling. After the shooting, undercover police officers seized 3 suspects who were later convicted and sentenced. Adams claimed that the British army had prior knowledge of the attack and allowed it to go ahead. (I suppose it wouldn't be "nice" of me to say, "Too bad they missed the bastard!")

~1991 - After 16 years in prison for allegedly bombing a pub in an Irish Republican Army attack, the "Birmingham Six" were freed when a court determined that the police fabricated evidence. (Yet another one I can't rust myself to comment on in a PG 13 rated forum...)

~1994 – Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released. (I suppose that's noteworthy...kinda.)

~1995 – Astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American astronaut to ride to space aboard a Russian launch vehicle in the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft for the Russian Mir-18 mission.

~1998 – The Gobalf Earthquake: An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale struck southeastern Iran. Although casualties were relatively low the damage was widespread.

~2004 - Vladimir Putin was re-elected to the presidency of Russia for a second term, receiving 71% of the vote.

~2005 – The Lebanese Intifadat-al-Istiqlal (Independence Uprising): Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese rallied in central Beirut chanting "Freedom, Sovereignty, Independence" and carrying a huge Lebanese flag. They flocked from throughout the country, many unable to even enter the city due to heavy traffic. The peaceful rally was considered to be "the largest demonstration ever seen in Lebanon", with estimations of a turnout ranging from 1.2 million to 1.5 million people. The Lebanese protesters demanded an international inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the firing of Syrian backed security chiefs in the Lebanese government and a total Syrian pullout from Lebanon.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 15th



~44 BC – Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators on this, the Ides of March.

~220 – Died this day; Cao Cao, King of Wei (b. 155)

~221 – Liu Bei, a Chinese warlord and member of the Han royal house, declared himself emperor of Shu-Han and claimed his legitimate succession to the Han Dynasty.

~351 – Constantius II elevated his cousin Gallus to Caesar, and placed him in charge of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire.

~933 – Following a 9 year truce, during which Frankish King Henry I re-organized the defences of the Saxonian duchy, East Francian forces defeated a Magyar (Hungarian) army at the Battle of Riade near the Unstrut river. In Henry's lifetime the Magyars did not dare to make a further raid on East Francia.

~1311 – Battle of Halmyros: The mercenaries of the Catalan Company annihilated the numerically superior forces of Walter V of Brienne, taking control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in Greece.

~1493 – After being forced into port at Lisbon, Portugal after a fierce storm on March 4th, Christopher Columbus entered the harbor of Palos, finally returning to Spain following his first trip to the Americas.

~1672 – Charles II of England issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence. The English Parliament, however, suspected that their king favored Roman Catholicism and compelled him to withdraw this declaration in favor of religious freedom. In its place was put the first of the Test Acts (1673), which required anyone entering public service in England to take the Anglican sacrament. When Charles II's openly Catholic successor James II attempted to issue a similar Declaration of Indulgence, an order for general religious tolerance, this was one of the grievances that led to the Glorious Revolution that ousted him from the throne.

~1776 – South Carolina became the first American colony to declare its independence from Great Britain and set up its own government.

~1781 – At the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, inside the present day Greensboro, North Carolina, a force of 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeated an American force numbering 4,400 commanded by Nathanael Greene.

~1783 – With the end of the Revolutionary War and dissolution of the Continental Army approaching, many of the officers and men who hadn't been paid in years were talking of launching a coup and setting up martial law to secure what had been promised to them. In Newburgh, New York George Washington gave the impassioned Newburgh Address, asking his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea was successful and the threatened coup d'état never took place.

~1820 – Maine was admitted as the 23rd state of the Union.

~1848 – A revolution began in Hungary where the Habsburg rulers were compelled to meet the demands of the Reform party.

~1877 – The first Test cricket match began between England and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), where Australia won by 45 runs. England won the second ever match (also at the MCG) by four wickets, thereby drawing the series 1–1. This was not the first ever international cricket match however, which was played between Canada and the United States, on September 24th and 25th, 1844.

~1892 - Jesse W. Reno received a patent for the Reno Inclined Elevator, the first escalator. It was used at the Old Iron Pier on Coney Island, New York.

~1906 – In Britain, Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce as the result of a partnership formed in 1904.

~1916 – On orders from US President Woodrow Wilson, General John J. Pershing led an expeditionary force of 4,800 men into Mexico to capture Poncho Villa following his Columbus, New Mexico raid. Villa had already had more than a week to disperse and conceal his forces before the punitive expedition tried to seek them out in unmapped, foreign terrain.

~1917 – Czar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated the Russian throne and named his brother, the Grand Duke as Tsar. Grand Duke Mikhail declined to accept the throne, however, until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic.

~1922 – Egypt's Sultan Fuad I declared himself King Fuad I of Egypt after Britain formally recognized Egyptian independence.

~1931 – The SS Viking exploded about 8 miles (13 km) off of Newfoundland's Horse Islands, while stuck in the ice. 27 of the 147 on board were killed.

~1933 – Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss barred members of the National Council from convening, beginning the Austrofascist dictatorship.

~1935 - German Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, banned 4 Berlin newspapers. (The bastards actually had the nerve to print the truth and other such similar trash!)

~1939 – The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German: Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren; Czech: Protektorát Čechy a Morava), a majority ethnic-Czech protectorate, was established by Nazi Germany upon proclamation of Adolf Hitler from Prague Castle. It encompassed the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia.

~1943 – The Third Battle of Kharkov: The German 1st SS Panzer ("Leibstandarte") Division recaptured the city of Kharkov from the Soviets after fierce house to house fighting that resulted in over 100,000 casualties on both sides.

~1949 - Nearly 4 years after the end of World War II, the rationing of clothing finally ended in Britain.

~1952 – In Cilaos, Réunion, 1870 mm (73 inches) of rain fell in a 24 hour period, setting a world record for the greatest amount of rainfall in a single day.

~1954 - CBS television debuted The Morning Show (1954–1956), originally hosted by Walter Cronkite and very similar to The Today Show in fashion.

~1956 - The musical "My Fair Lady" opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. It ran for 2,717 performances, a record at the time.

~1964 - In Montreal, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were married. (For the first time...)

~1970 - The musical "Purlie" opened on Broadway at The Broadway Theatre. It later transferred to the Winter Garden and then the ANTA Playhouse before completing its 688 erformance run.

~1977 - The first episode of "Eight is Enough" was aired on ABC-TV.

~1985 – The first Internet domain name, symbolics.com, was registered.

~1989 – The United States Department of Veterans Affairs achieved Cabinet level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department after the United States Department of Defense. VA employs nearly 280,000 people at hundreds of Veterans Affairs medical facilities, clinics, and benefits offices and is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors.

~1990 – British journalist Farzad Bazoft, working for The Observer, was executed (murdered) by the Iraqi authorities after being convicted in a kangaroo court of spying for Israel while working in Iraq. In 2003, The Observer tracked down Kadem Askar, the colonel in the Iraqi intelligence service who conducted the initial interrogation of Bazoft. He admitted that he knew Bazoft was innocent, but that he was powerless to obstruct Saddam Hussein's orders to have him convicted and executed.

~1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.

~1990 - The all new Ford Explorer landed in dealerships across North America. Although introduced only 3 months into 1990, it was marketed as a '91.

~1996 - After 84 years in business, the legendary pioneering aviation firm of Fokker collapsed.

~1998 - CBS' "60 Minutes" aired an interview with former White House employee Kathleen Willey. Wiley said U.S. President Clinton made unwelcome sexual advances toward her in the Oval Office in 1993. (I'm sure as hell no Clinton fan but I think this babe was nothing more than an opportunistic gold digger...)

~2002 - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Associated Press that the U.S. would stand by a 24 year pledge not to use nuclear arms against states that don't have them. (Terribly decent of us, no?)
...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 16th



~597 BC – The Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar II, captured Jerusalem and replaced Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king.

~37 - Died this day: Tiberius Claudius Nero, Emperor of Rome (b. 42 BC).

~37 – Caligula became Roman Emperor upon the death of his great uncle, Tiberius.

~455 – Died this day: Valentinian III, Western Roman Emperor (b. 419)

~1190 –The massacre of Jews at Clifford's Tower in York took place. A mob led by the local militia had besieged the tower where the 150 Jewish residents of York had taken refuge. Fire broke out within the tower and several Jews perished in the flames but the majority took their own lives rather than give themselves up to the mob. Those who did surrender were killed, despite being promised their lives.

~1322 – The Battle of Boroughbridge was fought between a group of rebellious barons and King Edward II of England, near Boroughbridge, northwest of York. The culmination of a long period of antagonism between the king and Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, his most powerful subject, it resulted in Lancaster's defeat and execution. This allowed Edward to re-establish royal authority, and hold on to power for another 5 years.

~1521 – Ferdinand Magellan's expedition reached the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with only 150 of his original 237 crewmen left.

~1660 – Having called for elections for a Parliament to meet on April 25th, the Long Parliament dissolved itself.

~1689 – The Royal Welch Fusiliers, a regiment of the British Army and part of the Prince of Wales' Division, was founded to oppose James II and the imminent war with France.

~1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden was shot at a masked ball that took place in Stockholm's Royal Opera House. He died on March 29th after the wound became infected.

~1802 – The Army Corps of Engineers: Congress authorized US President Thomas Jefferson to "organize and establish a Corps of Engineers ... that the said Corps ... shall be stationed at West Point in the State of New York and shall constitute a Military Academy." The United States Military Academy was under the direction of the Corps of Engineers until 1866.

~1812 – The Battle of Badajoz began. An Anglo-Portuguese army under the Duke of Wellington, besieged Badajoz, Spain and (some 20 days later) forced the surrender of the French garrison. The siege was one of the bloodiest in the Napoleonic Wars and was considered a costly victory by the British, with some 3,000 Allied soldiers killed in a few short hours of intense fighting as the siege drew to an end, and as many as 4,000 allied Spanish civilians, including many women and children, massacred by the allied troops after the battle.

~1815 – Prince Willem of the House of Orange-Nassau proclaimed himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands. (Nobody really seemed to have a problem with that, so it all kinda worked out well for old Willy...)

~1818 – The Second Battle of Cancha Rayada was fought in Chile between South American rebels and Spanish royalists, during the South American wars of independence. The result was a huge defeat for the rebels who would only have to wait 19 days until they got their revenge at the Battle of Maipú.

~1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter" was first published. When Hawthorne delivered the final pages to his publisher, James T. Fields, in February of 1850, Hawthorne said that "some portions of the book are powerfully written" but doubted it would be popular. In fact, the book was an instant best seller.

~1861 – Edward Clark became Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who was evicted from the office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. (5 bucks says that one comes back to bite Texas in the ass!)

~1865 – The Battle of Averasborough was fought to an inconclusive end by Confederate troops under Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee and Union forces led by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum in North Carolina's Harnett and Cumberland counties, as part of the Carolinas Campaign of the Civil War. It was a prelude to the climactic Battle of Bentonville, which began 3 days later.

~1872 – The Wanderers F.C. won the first FA Cup, the oldest football (soccer, to us North American types...) competition in the world, beating the Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1-0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.

~1912 – Lawrence Oates, an ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition left the tent to walk out into a raging blizzard saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time." His death is seen as an act of self sacrifice when, aware his ill health was compromising his 3 companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death.

~1924 – In accordance with the Treaty of Rome, Fiume was annexed as part of Italy.

~1926 – Physics Professor of physics Robert Goddard launched the first liquid fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

~1935 – Adolf Hitler ordered Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty and conscription was reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

~1939 – Princess Fawzia of Egypt married Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. (It took her 6 years but she finally clued in and divorced the creep...)

~1942 – Nazi Germany attempted to launch the first V-2 rocket. It exploded on the launch pad. (If you've ever seen the actual footage you'll agree; it was one hell of a BANG!!!)

~1945 – 90 percent of Würzburg, Germany was destroyed in only 17 minutes by a force of 227 RAF Lancaster bombers. More than 5,000 on the ground were killed in the ensuing firestorm.

~1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, a Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.

~1962 – Flight 739: Flying Tigers Flt. 739, a lockheed Super Constellation, was chartered by the United States military. It disappeared over the Western Pacific Ocean while transporting 93 Army men and 3 South Vietnamese from Travis Air Force Base, California to Saigon, Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, the Super Constellation was en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines when it disappeared. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead. The airliner's disappearance prompted one of the largest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific. Aircraft and surface ships from 4 branches of the US military searched more than 200,000 square miles (520,000 km2) during the course of 8 days. A civilian tanker observed what appeared to be an in-flight explosion believed to be the missing Super Constellation, though no trace of wreckage or debris was ever recovered. The Civil Aeronautics Board determined that, based on the tanker's observations, Flt. 739 probably exploded in-flight, though an exact cause could not be determined without examining the remnants of the aircraft.

~1966 – The launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena Target Vehicle.

~1968 – The My Lai Massacre: Between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers (men, women, and children) were murdered by American troops. (For no damned good reason...)

~1968 – General Motors produced its 100 millionth vehicle, an Oldsmobile Toronado. (The '68 Toronado was one drop dead gorgeous set of wheels!)

~1976 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson surprised the nation by announcing his resignation as Prime Minister (taking effect on April 5th, 1976). He claimed that he had always planned on resigning at the age of 60, and that he was physically and mentally exhausted.

~1977 – Kamal Jumblatt, the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War was assassinated. The prime suspects include the pro-Syrian faction of the Lebanese Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), in collaboration with the Ba'ath Party.

~1978 – Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped in Rome after the murder of his five bodyguards, by a militant communist group known as the Red Brigades.

~1978 – The supertanker Amoco Cadiz split in 2 after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, 3 miles off the coast of Brittany. The resulting oil spill was the 5th largest in history. En route from the Persian Gulf to Rotterdam, via a scheduled stop at Lyme Bay, Great Britain, the ship encountered stormy weather with gale conditions and high seas while in the English Channel. At around 09:45 a.m. a heavy wave hit the ship's rudder and it was found that she was no longer responding to the helm. Less than 12 hours later she ran aground.

~1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later died in captivity.

~1985 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson was taken hostage in Beirut. Anderson had just finished a tennis game when he was abducted from the street in Beirut, placed in the trunk of a car, and taken to a secret location where he was imprisoned. For the next 6 years and 9 months, he was held captive, being moved periodically to new sites. His captors were a group of Hezbollah Shiite Muslims who were supported by Iran in supposed retaliation for Israel's use of U.S. weapons and aid in its 1982–83 strikes against Muslim and Druze targets in Lebanon.

~1988 – The Halabja Poison Gas Attack: A genocide massacre took place during the closing days of the Iran-Iraq War when chemical weapons were used by Iraqi government forces in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack quickly killed thousands of people (around 5,000 dead) and injured more than 11,000, most of them civilians. Thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack. The incident, which has been officially defined as an act of genocide against the Kurdish people in Iraq, is the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian populated area in history.

~1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865. (Better late than never, I suppose...)

~2880 - The predicted closest approach to Earth of Near-Earth object 1950 DA which might impact Earth. (OH DAMN!!! Now I'll have to worry about this for another 870 years!)

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 17th



~45 BC – In his final battle of the civil war against the republican armies of the Optimate leaders, troops led by Julius Caesar defeated the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger at the Battle of Munda, in southern Spain.

~180 – Died this day: Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome (b. 121).

~180 - Commodus became emperor of the Roman Empire upon the death of Marcus Aurelius.

~460 – Died this day: Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland (b. 387) (Both the years of birth and death are open to debate on this one...)

~624 – Led by Muhammad, the Muslims of Medina defeated the Quraysh of Mecca in the (small scale) Battle of Badr, fought in the Hejaz region of western Arabia.

~1040 - Died this day: Harold Harefoot, King of England (b. circa 1015).

~1058 – Died this day: King Lulach I of Scotland (b. 1030).

~1272 – Died this day: Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (b. 1220)

~1337 – Edward, the Black Prince was made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy made in England. (Although he was only 6 years old at the time...so what the practical purpose of this was is beyond me.)

~1737 - In Boston the first Saint Patrick's Day Parade in the world took place.

~1776 – British forces evacuated Boston Massachusetts, withdrawing to Halifax, after US General George Washington and Colonel Henry Knox had artillery placed in positions overlooking the city.

~1780 – US General George Washington granted the Continental Army a holiday "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence".

~1798 - After 196 years of continuous operation, the Dutch East India Company entered into bankruptcy.

~1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, became the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King. (Kinda saw that "king" thing coming, huh?)

~1845 – The rubber band was patented in England by Stephen Perry.

~1849 - Died this day: King William II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)

~1860 – The First Taranaki War began in New Zealand. The Māori and the New Zealand Government enterd into armed conflict over land ownership and sovereignty. The war would last for a full year and was fought to an indecisive end.

~1861 – In Turin, the Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946) was proclaimed.

~1891 - The British steamship SS Utopia sank off the coast of Gibraltar following a collision with HMS Anson. 574 died in the disaster.

~1901 – An exhibition in Paris of 71 paintings by the great Vincent van Gogh (who had died 11 years earlier), created a major sensation in the French capital.

~1910 – In Thetford, Vermont, Dr. Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte founded the Camp Fire Girls. The organization, however, wasn't incorporated as a national agency until 1912.

~1921 – The Second Republic of Poland adopted the March Constitution.

~1939 – During the Second Sino-Japanese War, The Battle of Nanchang began between the forces of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army. The battle would last until May 9th and, just like at preceding Battle of Wuhan, would result in a decisive defeat of the Chinese.

~1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art was officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the time of its inception architect John Russell Pope's building was the largest marble structure in the world.

~1942 – The first Jews, arriving from the Lviv Ghetto, were systematically processed (murdered) by the Nazis at the Belzec death camp in eastern Poland when the camp's 3 gas chambers began operating.

~1945 – The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany suddenly collapsed into the Rhine 10 days after its capture by American forces. 28 U.S. Army engineers were killed while working to strengthen the bridge, and 93 others were injured. However, by then the Americans had established a substantial bridgehead on the far side of the Rhine and had additional pontoon bridges in place.

~1947 – North American Aviation's B-45 Tornado strategic bomber took ro the iar on its maiden flight. The extremely successful war bird was the United States Air Force's first operational jet bomber.

~1948 – Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Brussels, as an expansion to the preceding year's defence pledge, the Dunkirk Treaty signed between Britain and France. As the Treaty of Brussels contained a mutual defence clause, it provided a basis which the 1954 Paris Conference established the Western European Union (WEU) upon.

~1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announced the creation of element 98, which they named "Californium".

~1955 – The Richard Riot occurred in the streets of Montreal over the NHL's suspension of hockey legend Maurice Richard following a provoked attack.

~1957 – The Cebu Douglas C-47 crash: A plane crash in Cebu, Philippines killed Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others. Several high ranking Philippine government and military officials, as well as journalists, were also among the dead. A reporter for the Philippine Herald, Nestor Mata, was the sole survivor of the accident.

~1958 – The United States launched the Vanguard 1 satellite, the 4th artificial Earth satellite launched and the first satellite to be solar powered. Although communication with it was lost in May of 1964, it remains the oldest man made satellite still in orbit and as such is the oldest piece of a cloud of space debris orbiting Earth.

~1959 – In Tibet, 2 artillery shells landed near the Dalai Lama's palace, triggering his flight into exile.

~1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine located a submerged 1.45 megaton hydrogen bomb lost in a United States Air Force midair accident over Palomares, Spain. The bomb, found resting nearly 910 meters (3000 ft) deep, was raised intact on April 7th.

~1969 – Golda Meir becomes the 4th Prime Minister of Israel and the first woman to hold the position.

~1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, was taken by Associated Press photographer Slava "Sal" Veder at Travis Air Force Base in California. The photograph came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and the prevailing sentiment that military personnel and their families could begin a process of healing after enduring the horrors of war.

~1975 – The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad entered into (its 3rd) bankruptcy. William M. Gibbons was selected as receiver and bankruptcy trustee.

~1979 – Near Grantshouse in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland, the 133 year old Penmanshiel Tunnel on the East Coast Main Line collapsed during engineering works. 2 workers died in the incident. (They never re-opened that worthless hole.)

~1985 – The "Night Stalker", committed the 2nd and 3rd murders in his Los Angeles, California murder spree.

~1988 – Avianca Flt. 410, a Boeing 727, crashed into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border shortly after takeoff from Cúcuta, Colombia. All 143 aboard were killed. The actual cause of the crash was never established but a hokey investigation came up with a laughable version that fully blamed the now dead flight crew.

~1988 – Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, was attacked on 3 sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.

~1992 – The Israeli Embassy Attack in Buenos Aires took place: A pickup truck driven by a suicide bomber and loaded with explosives smashed into the front of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and detonated. The embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building were destroyed. While 4 Israelis died in the blast most of the victims were Argentine civilians, many of them children. A total of 29 people died and another 242 were injured in the attack.

~2000 – 778 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in what is considered to be a mass murder and suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult.

~2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigned from the British Cabinet over his disagreement with government plans for the invasion of Iraq.

~2004 - In Nottingham, Rachel Hudson (a mother of 2) was murdered by her in-laws. The court tried and convicted 5 members of the family which were dubbed "the family from hell" by the Queen's Counsel.

~2004 – 19 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in civil unrest in Kosovo. As well, 800 houses, 35 Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and 2 mosques in Belgrade and Nis were destroyed.

~2008 – Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer resigned after a scandal involving a high end prostitute. Lieutenant Governor David Paterson replaced him as the New York State governor.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 18th

~978 – Died this day: King Edward the Martyr of England (b. circa 962).

~1227 – Died this day: Pope Honorius III (b. 1148).

~1229 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor declared himself King of Jerusalem when a truce ended the Sixth Crusade.

~1241 – The Battle of Chmielnik was fought during the Mongol invasion of Poland. It ended in the total defeat of the Polish armies of Sandomierz and Kraków provinces. The Mongols were able to move unimpeded and plunder the abandoned city of Kraków.

~1314 – King Philip IV of France, who was deeply in debt to the Templar, had Jacques de Molay (the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar) burned at the stake. (Well, that's one way to welch on a debt...)

~1438 – Albert II of Habsburg was chosen "King of the Romans" at Frankfurt, an honor which he does not appear to have sought. As such, he was never crowned as Holy Roman Emperor.

~1583 – Died this day: King Magnus of Livonia (b. 1540).

~1584 - Died this day: Tsar Ivan IV of Russia (b. 1530).

~1608 – The coronation of Susenyos as Emperor of Ethiopia took place.

~1673 – John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sold his part of New Jersey to a group of Quakers because of the political difficulties between New York Governor Richard Nicolls, Carteret, and himself. He effectively split New Jersey into two colonies: East Jersey, belonging to Carteret, and West Jersey. The colony was divided until 1702 when West Jersey went bankrupt and the colony was given back to the English crown, who unified the colony again.

~1745 – Died this day: Sir Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of Great Britain (b. 1676).

~1766 – American Revolution: The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. a tax imposed by the British Parliament on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London and carrying an embossed revenue stamp.These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the Stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money. The official explanation for the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years' War. Protests and demonstrations against the tax, initiated by the Sons of Liberty, often turned violent and destructive as the masses became involved. Very soon all stamp tax distributors were intimidated into resigning their commissions, and the tax was never effectively collected. The Act was repealed as a matter of expedience, but Parliament affirmed its power to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever” by also passing the Declaratory Act. This incident increased the colonists' concerns about the intent of the British Parliament that helped the growing movement that became the American Revolution.

~1793 – The Republic of Mainz, the first republican state in Germany, was declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.

~1865 – The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourned for the last time. (Like I said previously about deck chairs on the Titanic...)

~1871 – The Paris Commune: As open rebellion broke out in the French capital, French Republic President Adolphe Thiers ordered an immediate evacuation of Paris by as many of the regular forces as would obey. Also included in the order were the police, civic administrators and specialists of every kind. Thiers fled ahead of them all to Versailles. He claimed to have thought about this strategy (to retreat from Paris to crush the insurrection afterward) for a long time while meditating on the example of the 1848 Revolution but it is just as likely that he panicked. There is no evidence that the government had expected or planned for the crisis that had now begun. The Central Committee of the National Guard was now the only effective government in Paris, it arranged elections for a Commune to be held on March 26th.

~1874 – Hawaii signed a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights. (Maybe not the best of moves on the islander's part...)

~1893 – Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledged to donate a silver challenge cup, later named the Stanley Cup, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada. Although originally presented to amateur champions, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to the top pro team since 1910 and only to National Hockey League teams since 1926.

~1906 – Traian Vuia flews the first self propelled heavier than air aircraft in Europe.

~1909 - Willie Whitla, the 8 year old son of a leading attorney in Sharon, Pennsylvania, was kidnapped by 2 men who appeared at the East Ward School. Hours later a ransom note was received by his parents demanding $10,000 and closing with the note, "Dead boys are not desirable". After the father delivered $10,000 to a woman at a drugstore, Willie was released unharmed and put on a streetcar in Cleveland where he was reunited with his father at the city's Hollenden Hotel. James and Helen Boyle were arrested in Cleveland the next day, with $9,790 of the money. James Boyle was given a life sentence and died in prison.

~1909 - Einar Dessau of Denmark spoke over a wireless radio transmitter to a government post 6 miles away becoming, in effect, the first person to ever talk on the radio.

~1913 – King George I of Greece was assassinated in Thessaloniki, which had been recently liberated during the First Balkan War.

~1913 - Constantine I ascended the throne of Greece upon the assassination of his father George I.

~1915 – A massive British and French naval attack was launched during the Dardanelles Campaign in the run up to the Battle of Gallipoli. The battleships HMS Irresistible, HMS Ocean and the French battleship Bouvet were all sunk after running into a recently laid minefield. The battlecruiser HMS Inflexible, as well as the French pre-Dreadnought battleships Suffren and Gaulois, were also damaged by the same minefield.

~1921 – The Treaty of Riga was signed in Riga, between Poland, Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish-Soviet War. The Soviet-Polish borders established by the treaty remained in force until the Second World War. They were later redrawn during the Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference.

~1925 – The Tri-State Tornado struck. It was the deadliest tornado in U.S. history. More than 3,000 were injured but with 695 confirmed fatalities, the tornado killed more than twice as many as the second deadliest, the 1840 Great Natchez Tornado. The continuous 219 mile (352 km) track left by the tornado was the longest ever recorded in the world. The tornado crossed from southeastern Missouri, through Southern Illinois, then into southwestern Indiana. While not officially rated by NOAA, it is recognized by most as an F5 tornado, the maximal damage rating issued on the Fujita scale hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.

~1936 – Born this day: Frederik Willem de Klerk, President of South Africa, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the driving force behind the abolition of Apartheid.

~1937 – In Texas, a natural gas leak caused the New London School explosion. The disaster killed in excess of 295 students and teachers, making it the worst catastrophe to take place in a U.S. school building. Estimates of the number dead vary from 296 to 319, but that number could be much higher, as many of the residents of New London at the time were transient oilfield workers, and there is no way to determine for certain how many of these roughnecks collected the bodies of their children in the days following the disaster, and returned them to their respective homes for burial. Approximately 600 students and 40 teachers were in the building at the time; only about 130 escaped without serious injury.

~1937 – At the Battle of Guadalajara, fought during the Spanish Civil War, the Republican People's Army (Ejército Popular Republicano, or EPR) decisively defeated a force of Italian and Nationalist troops twice its size attempting to encircle Madrid. The Nationalist forces involved in the Battle of Guadalajara were primarily the Italian Corps of Volunteer Troops (Corpo Truppe Volontarie, or CTV). (The Italians didn't do all too well militarily back in those days...)

~1937 – The human-powered aircraft, Pedaliante, flew 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) at Cinisello airport outside Milan. (It was something to occupy the Italian's minds while their countrymen were getting their bare asses severely spanked by the Spaniards outside of Madrid.)

~1940 – Axis Powers leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agreed to form a military alliance against France and Britain.

~1942 – Executive Order 9102 established the War Relocation Authority in the United States, to take Japanese Americans into custody. (Certainly one of America's darkest and most shameful hours.)

~1944 – Italy's Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the villages of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma, Ottaviano, and part of San Giorgio a Cremano. At the time of the eruption, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) 340th Bombardment Group was based at Pompeii Airfield near Terzigno, Italy, just a few kilometers from the eastern base of the mountain. The tephra and hot ash was particularly damaging to the fabric control surfaces, the engines, and the Plexiglass windshields and gun turrets of the 340th's B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. Although estimates ranged from 78 to 88 aircraft destroyed, no USAAF personnel were killed or seriously injured due to the eruption as World War II continued to rage in Italy. Thousands of local residents, however, had to flee their homes.

~1945 – The already devastated German capital of Berlin was hammered by a force of 1,250 USAAF bombers.

~1948 – Soviet consultants left Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito-Stalin split. This was said by the Soviets to be caused by Yugoslavia's disloyalty to the USSR and socialism in general, but most evidence suggests it had more to do with Josip Broz Tito's national pride and refusal to submit fully to Joseph Stalin's will. (Old Uncle Joe got real whiny and teary-eyed whenever someone had the gonads to stand up to him.)

~1953 – The Great Western Turkey Earthquake occurred. This was a magnitude 7.3 quake that caused extreme damage and killed at least 1070 people. Several thousand buildings were affected in the Can-Yenice-Gonen area. Damage of intensity level VI occurred at Sakarya (Adapazari), Bursa, Edirne, Istanbul and Izmir. The quake was felt throughout the Aegean Islands and in much of mainland Greece, with damage occurring as far away as Crete. Shaking was also recorded in Bulgaria.

~1962 – The Évian Accords comprise (treaty) was signed in Évian-les-Bains, France by France and the F.L.N. (Front de Libération nationale). The Accords put an end to the Algerian War which had begun in November of 1954 with a formal cease fire proclaimed for March 19th and formalized the idea of cooperative exchange between the two countries.

~1965 – Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becoming the first person to "walk" in space.

~1965 – Died this day: King Farouk I of Egypt (b. 1920).

~1967 – The supertanker Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock in the Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Scilly Isles. An inquiry in Liberia, where the ship was registered, found the captain, Pastrengo Rugiati, was to blame because he took a short cut to save time in getting to Milford Haven. This was the world's first major oil spill and caused an environmental disaster. Detergent was used by Royal Navy vessels to try and disperse the oil. However, the ship had started to break up so British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his cabinet held a mini cabinet meeting at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose where they decided to set fire to the remaining oil to avoid the disaster getting worse. On Tuesday March 28th the Fleet Air Arm sent Blackburn Buccaneer planes from Lossiemouth to drop 42 or more 1,000lb bombs on the ship. Then the Royal Air Force sent in Hawker Hunter jets to drop cans of aviation fuel to make the oil blaze. However, exceptionally high tides had put the blaze out and it took further attacks by Sea Vixens from the Naval Air Station at Yeovilton and Buccaneers from the Naval Air Station at Brawdy as well as more RAF Hunters with napalm to ignite the oil. Attempts to use foam booms to contain the oil were of limited success due to their fragility in high seas.

~1968 – Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repealed the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency. (And THAT was the day the train came off the track...)

~1970 – Lon Nol was forced to sign the necessary documents (at gunpoint) ousting Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia as head of state.

~1971 – A rock slide of over 100,000 m³ fell from an outcrop of jointed limestone some 400 meters above Peru's Lake Yanahuani, causing a 30 meter (100 ft) wave that destroyed the mining camp of Chungar on the opposite shore and killed more than 200 miners.

~1974 – The Arab Oil Embargo: With the exception of Libya the OPEC nations ended a 5 month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan. (Canada was also targeted but since it was already oil self sufficient that part of the scheme failed dismally.)

~1980 – At Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, 50 people were killed by the explosion of a Vostok-2M rocket on its launch pad during a fueling operation.

~1983 – Died this day: Umberto II, the last king of Italy, (b. 1904).

~1990 – The Great Boston Art Theft: Shortly after midnight thieves, disguised as police officers, talked their way into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They handcuffed the 2 on duty security guards out of sight and then stole 13 works of art valued collectively at over $500 million. Included were The Concert, one of Johannes Vermeer's 35 known paintings, and 3 works by Rembrandt van Rijn, including his only seascape, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and a small self portrait print. Also stolen were a series of drawings by Edgar Degas and additional works by Édouard Manet and Govaert Flinck, as well as a pair of objects: a Chinese Ku, or beaker, and a finial from a Napoleonic flag. This is considered the biggest art theft and property theft in history. To this day the crime remains unsolved. The museum still displays the paintings' empty frames in their original locations according to the strict provisions of Gardner's will, which instructed that the collection be maintained unchanged. (Short version: They pulled off a killer heist, nobody got hurt, they made a clean getaway and have never been identified let alone caught while making a bundle in the process...nice job, guys.)

~1992 –The final results of a national referendum held the day before showed that white South Africans voted nearly 69% in favor of ending the racist policy of Apartheid.

~1992 - Microsoft shipped the first editions of "Windows 3.1".

~1996 – The Ozone Disco Club Fire: A fire broke out shortly after midnight at the Ozone Disco Club in Quezon City, Philippines leaving at least 162 people dead. In addition, at least 95 more people were injured. It was officially acknowledged as the worst peacetime fire in Philippine history, and the world's worst nightclub fire since the 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky. At the time of the fire, it was estimated that there were around 350 patrons and 40 club employees inside Ozone Disco, though it had been approved for occupancy for only 35 persons. Most of the club guests were high school and college students attending graduation or end of the school year celebrations. 6 people involved with Westwood Entertainment, the operators of the club, were later tried before the courts on criminal charges of "reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide and multiple serious injuries".

~1997 – The tail broke off of of Stavropolskaya Aktsionernaya Avia Flt. 1023, a Russian built Antonov An-24, while en-route to Turkey causing the plane to crash into a forest in Cherkessk, Russia. All 50 on board were killed in the incident and subsequently all An-24s were grounded.

~2001 – Died this day: Papa John Phillips, American musician (The Mamas & the Papas) and songwriter (b. 1935).

~2002 – In Afghanistan, US General Tommy Franks declared Operation Anaconda over after killing over 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with the loss of 11 allied troops.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 19th



~1279 – The Battle of Yamen: After being soundly defeated by the invading Mongols at every battle for years, the fleeing forces of the Song Dynasty took up a last stand at the bay at Yamen. Although outnumbering the Yuan 10 to 1, in the ensuing battle (slaughter) the completely outclassed Song troops were helpless in direct combat against the vastly superior Mongol warriors. The Mongol Yuan navy delivered a crushing tactical and strategic victory, completely annihilating the Song fleet. This Mongol victory finally ended the Song Dynasty in China.

~1279 – Died this day: (8 year old) Emperor Bing of Song China (b. 1271).

~1286 – Died this day: King Alexander III of Scotland (b. 1241).

~1687 – Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, was murdered by his own men near present day Huntsville Texas. (I could make a joke about French workers here but...)

~1813 - Born this day: David Livingstone, Scottish missionary and explorer (d. 1873).

~1831 - The City Bank of New York became the site of the first bank heist in US history; $245,000 was taken and the culprits were never caught. (Nice haul, guys!!!)

~1848 - Born this day: Wyatt Earp, both lawman and criminal, as well as gunfighter of the Old West (d. 1929).

~1853 – After a fierce battle Taiping soldiers, directed by Commander in Chief Yang Xiuqing, took Nanjing, China. 30,000 of the defending Imperial soldiers were killed and thousands of civilians were slaughtered. Following this the Taiping occupied Nanjing and made it the capital of the Heavenly Kingdom.

~1863 – The Confederate SS Georgiana was lost while attempting to run past the Federal Blockading Squadron and into Charleston, South Carolina. She had been spotted by the armed U.S. Yacht America (namesake of the famed America's Cup racing trophy) which alerted the remainder of the blockade fleet by shooting up colored signal flares. The Georgiana was sunk after a desperate chase in which she came so close to the big guns aboard the USS Wissahicken that her crew even heard the orders being given on the enemy vessel. With solid shot passing entirely though her hull, her propeller and rudder damaged, and with no hope for escape, Capt. A.B. Davidson flashed a white light in token of surrender, thereby gaining time to beach his ship in 14 feet of water, 3/4 of a mile from shore and, after first scuttling her, escape on the land side with all hands. This was construed as "the most consummate treachery" by the disappointed blockading crews, who would have shared in the proceeds from the prize. Lt. Comdr. J. L. Davis, commanding USS Wissahicken, decided to set the wreck afire in case guerrilla bands from shore tried to salvage her or her cargo. Georgiana burned for several days, accompanied by large explosions when lots of powder succumbed to the flames.

~1865 – The Battle of Bentonville began. By the end of the battle 2 days later, Confederate forces had retreated from Four Oaks, North Carolina, giving up their last chance of the war to achieve a decisive victory over the Union army in North Carolina.

~1866 – A major hurricane slammed into Buenos Aires, Argentina causing massive damage and leaving an appalling death toll in its wake.

~1885 – Louis Riel declared a Provisional Government in Saskatchewan at the town of Batoche , beginning the North West Rebellion of the Metis.

~1915 – 2 faint images of Pluto were photographed for the first time by the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizonabut. However they were not recognized as being pictures of a planet.

~1916 – 8 Curtiss JN2 and JN3 airplanes, assigned to the punitive Pancho Villa expedition, took off in pursuit of Villa's forces in Mexico. It was the first ever United States air combat mission.

~1918 – The U.S. Congress established time zones and approved daylight saving time.

~1921 – The Crossbarry Ambush: One of the biggest engagements of the Irish War of Independence took place at Crossbarry, County Cork. About 100 Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers escaped an attempt by over 1,300 British forces to encircle them. During the hour long battle, between 10 and 30 British troops and 6 IRA volunteers were killed.

~1921 – Italian Fascists shot from the Parenzana train at a group of children playing near the track in Strunjan (Slovenia). 2 children were killed, 2 maimed and 3 others wounded. (No reason at all for doing it, just something the bloodthirsty Fascist bastards liked to do for jollies...)

~1931 – Gambling was legalized in Nevada. (No really uniform confirmation of this date but it's been popping up on every source as a daily thing for over a week now, so I thought I'd mention it. Suffice it to say that gambling in Nevada was probably legalized sometime in the last half of March 1931...)

~1932 – The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened. Today the dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic image of both Sydney and Australia. The bridge is locally nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch based design.

~1939 - American civil rights activist Lloyd L. Gaines, after winning a decisive anti-discrimination case against the University of Missouri (Gaines v. Canada - 1938), left his fraternity house in Chicago, Illinois late at night telling others he was going out to buy stamps. He was never seen again.

~1941 – The 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen and as The Red Tails, was activated at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. This, despite the reluctance of the War Department. They were the first all black unit of the Army Air Corp.

~1943 – Frank Nitti, front man for the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone was dethroned, committed suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard.

~1944 – Operation Margarethe: Nazi forces occupied Hungary. The Hungarian government was an ally of Nazi Germany, but had been discussing an armistice with the Allies. Adolf Hitler found out about these discussions and, feeling betrayed by the Hungarians, ordered German troops to implement Operation Margarethe to capture critical Hungarian facilities. Hungary's leader, Admiral Miklós Horthy, was invited by Hitler to the palace of Klessheim just outside of Salzburg in Austria. While they conducted their negotiations, Hungary was quietly overrun by German forces. The occupation was a complete surprise and resulted in it being quick and bloodless. According to some German memoirs, the invading Germans were greeted with flowers. This, however, was probably only true in localities inhabited by ethnic Germans. The invasion was remembered by many of the German invaders as their last war with flowers (Blumenkrieg).

~1945 – Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber (believed to be an Aichi B7A "Grace") hit the aircraft carrier USS Franklin with a pair of semi-armor piercing bombs. 724 of her crew were killed, a further 265 injured and would have far exceeded this number but for the desperate work of many survivors. Although badly damaged, the ship was able to return to the U.S. under her own power.

~1945 – Adolf Hitler issued his "Nero Decree" ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed. The decree, however, was in vain for the man on whom fell the responsibility for carrying it out was Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production. Appalled at the order, Speer deliberately failed to carry out the directive.

~1949 - Born this day: Joan. (You died far too young, doll...I miss ya'.)

~1950 - Died this day: Edgar Rice Burroughs, American writer best known for his creation of the jungle hero "Tarzan" and the heroic Mars adventurer "John Carter", although he produced works in many genres (b. 1875).

~1954 – Joey Giardello knocked out Willie Tory in round 7 at Madison Square Garden in the first ever televised prize boxing fight to be shown in color.

~1954 – Willie Mosconi set a world record by running 526 consecutive balls without a miss during a straight pool exhibition at East High Billiard Club in Springfield, Ohio. The record still stands today and most experts agree that it will never be bested.

~1958 – In Manhattan, the Monarch Underwear Company fire left 24 dead and 15 others injured when the blaze began in the 3rd floor textile printing plant of an edifice in which the workrooms of several businesses were located.

~1965 – The wreck of the Confederate SS Georgiana, valued at over $50,000,000 and said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser in her day, was discovered by then teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence, exactly 102 years after the ship's destruction.

~1969 – The 385 metres (1,263 ft) tall TV guyed mast at Emley Moor in Britain collapsed due to a combination of strong winds and the weight of excessive ice build up. Fortunately there were no injuries in the mishap.

~1972 – India and Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty. (And India finally allowed the Pakistani army to rub their spanked bums, pull up their pants and dry their tears; although they still had to stand quietly in the corner with their noses to the wall until dinner time...)

~1978 – UN Security Council Resolution 425 was passed, calling upon Israel to immediately cease its military action and withdraw its forces from all Lebanese territory (Operation Litani), and establishing the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). (Israel said it would take the resolution under consideration in due time.)

~1979 – The United States House of Representatives began broadcasting its day to day business via the cable television network C-SPAN. (And we've been bored to tears ever since...)

~1982 – A group of Argentinian civilian scrap metal workers arrived illegally at Leith harbour on South Georgia Island aboard the transport ship ARA Bahía Buen Suceso and raised the Argentine flag. The scrap workers had been infiltrated by Argentine marines posing as civilian scientists. This event would go on to precipitate the Falklands War with Britain.

~1987 – Televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as head of the PTL Club due to a brewing sex scandal. He handed over control of the ministry to the Reverend Jerry Falwell. (As usual, all present raised their hands to the sky and Tammy Faye cried.)

~1989 – The Egyptian Flag is raised on Taba, Egypt announcing the end of the Israeli occupation after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the peace negotiations in 1979.

~1995 – Michael Jordan returned to the NBA's Chicago Bulls in a game against the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis, after a 17 month retirement. The game had the highest Nielsen rating of a regular season NBA game since 1975.

~2002 – Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on charges of human rights abuses and of electoral fraud, following a turbulent presidential election.

~2003 – US President George W. Bush ordered American forces to begin the invasion of Iraq. (Yup, we'ze gonna fynd us all them weppuns uv mass deestruktion wut Saddam's got, we iz...!)

~2004 – The Konginkangas Bus Disaster: A semi tractor-trailer carrying approximately 54 tons of heavy paper rolls and a bus crashed head on in Äänekoski, Finland at highway speed. 23 people were killed and another 13 injured with most of the victims sleeping in the coach at the time, they were immediately killed by the paper rolls ejected into the bus.

~2004 – A Swedish DC-3 shot down by a Russian MiG-15 in 1952 over the Baltic Sea was finally recovered after years of work. The remains of the 3 crewmen aboard were left in place pending a further investigation.

~2004 – The 3-19 Shooting Incident: Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu were shot and wounded just before the country's presidential election on March 20th.

~2008 – GRB 080319B: A remarkable gamma-ray burst (GRB) was detected by the Swift satellite at 06:12 UTC. The burst set a new record for the farthest object that could be seen with the naked eye. It had a peak apparent magnitude of 5.8 and remained theoretically visible to human eyes for approximately 30 seconds.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 20th



~43 BC – Born this day: Ovid, Roman poet (d. 17 AD).

~687 – Died this day: St. Cuthbert, patron saint of Northumbria (b. circa 634).

~1239 – Died this day: Hermann von Salza, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (b. circa 1179).

~1390 – Died this day: Alexios III, Emperor of Trebizond (b. 1338) (Which begs the question: Just where in hell was this great empire of Trebizond? Well, since ya' asked, the so called "Empire" of Trebizond never consisted of much more than the southern coast of the Black Sea.)

~1413 – Died this day: King Henry IV of England, (b. 1366).

~1413 - Henry V ascended the throne of England upon the death of his father King Henry IV.

~1619 - Died this day: Mathias, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1557).

~1600 – The Linköping Bloodbath: 5 Swedish nobles captured during the Battle of Stångebro in September of 1599 were publicly executed by beheading in Linköping, Sweden on Maundy Thursday. The 5 were advisers to the Catholic Polish king Sigismund III Vasa and political opponents of Duke Charles (Karl IX) who were accused of treason during the aftermath of the events deposing the Polish-Lithuanian king as the rightful legal monarch of Sweden by his uncle Duke Charles IX of Sweden. Charles was a champion of the protestant cause, of Lutheran Sweden, and the father of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.

~1602 – The Dutch East India Company was founded. The States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21 year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in history and the first company to issue stock. It was also (arguably) the world's first mega corporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies. The firm lasted for 196 years until it entered into bankruptcy on March 17th, 1798.

~1616 – Sir Walter Raleigh wass freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment to conduct a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado.

~1815 – After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.

~1848 – Not willing to rule as a constitutional monarch, faced with increasing protests and demonstrations of students and the middle classes and also having his Cabinet turned against him, King Ludwig I abdicated the throne of Bavaria.

~1848 - Maximilian II ascended the throne of Bavaria upon the abdication of his father Ludwig I.

~1852 – In Boston, the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was first published.

~1861 – The Mendoza Earthquake: A major earthquake occurred in Mendoza, Argentina at 8:46 p.m. with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale. The quake devastated the provincial capital, Mendoza, killing 6,000 of its 18,000 residents. Most of the buildings were destroyed, including the cabildo (colonial government house). The town was soon rebuilt in a nearby location, and the authorities moved to their new seat in 1863. The new constructions, which incorporated modern architectural tendencies, were markedly different from the old colonial buildings of the previous townsite.

~1883 – The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was signed. (YAWN!!!)

~1888 – In Moscow, the premiere of the very first Romani language operetta "Children of the Forests" was staged in the Maly Theater. It was performed solely by the Romani troupe. The production ran for 18 years and was a great success. (Still yawning...)

~1899 – At Sing Sing prison, Martha M. Place became the first woman executed in an electric chair. This for the murder of her stepdaughter Ida Place. (Hmmm, maybe not the kind of thing ya' wanna be remembered for there, Martha.)

~1904 – Aleister Crowley invoked the god Horus in Egypt and declared the start of the New Aeon known as "The Aeon Of The Crowned And Conquering Child." (Been partaking of a few too many recreational pharmaceuticals of late, Aleister?)

~1913 – Song Jiaoren, a founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, was wounded in an assassination attempt and died 2 days later. The assassins were caught with telegrams incriminating the interior minister and the prime minister, Zhao Bingjun. Song's death became one of the causes of the Second Revolution.

~1914 – In New Haven, Connecticut, the first international figure skating championship took place. Ith was the ancestor of both the United States and Canadian National Championships. However, international competitions in figure skating were soon interrupted by World War I. (Hmmm...can't seem to stop yawning tonight.)

~1917 - Born this day: Dame Vera Lynn, British singer, actress and "Sweetheart of the Armed forces". (Happy 93rd, Vera...you're the best!)

~1922 – The USS Langley (CV-1), converted from the collier USS Jupiter, was commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.

~1928 – Born this day: "Mr. Rogers" Fred Rogers, Educator, minister, songwriter and renowned children's television host (d. 2003).

~1933 – An Italian immigrant was executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Chicago mayor Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

~1933 – Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, was completed.

~1934 - Died this day: Queen Emma of the Netherlands (b. 1858)

~1942 – World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, made his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines in which he said: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return". (I still say MacArthur was a seriously overrated attention grabber.)

~1943 - The Tunisia Campaign: Allied forces broke through the Mareth line and subsequently linked up 19 days later on April 8th. On May 2nd the German-Italian Army in Tunisia surrendered.

~1948 - Born this day: Bobby Orr, professional hockey player and generally acknowledged as the greatest defenceman of all time.

~1952 – The United States Senate ratified the "Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan". It went into effect on April 28th of that year.

~1956 – Tunisia gained (took) its independence from France. (Good on you, guys...the first round's on me!)

~1964 – The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) was established.

~1969 – The marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono took place in Gibraltar. (Where in HELL was your head at, Johnny?)

~1974 – A nut case attempted (but fails) to kidnap Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace in London.

~1979 – Mike Cowlishaw of IBM began designing the "REXX" structured high-level programming language.

~1980 – The Radio Caroline ship, Mi Amigo foundered in a severe storm off the English coast after losing her anchor and drifting for several miles. She began taking in water and the crew were rescued by lifeboat. The generator had been left running to power the pumps, but these could not manage the inflow of water and the Mi Amigo sank only 10 minutes after taking off the 4 man crew, 3 British nationals, a Dutchman, and their canary, named Wilson, after the former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

~1985 – Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. After winning the race, she wrote 3 books about her adventure and also became a professional speaker.

~1987 – The Food and Drug Administration approved AZT for use against HIV, AIDS, and AIDS Related Complex.

~1988 – Having defeated (read: annihilated) the Nadew Command, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front entered the town of Afabet, concluding the Battle of Afabet.

~1990 – Ferdinand Marcos' widow, Imelda Marcos, went on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering. (No! But she was always such a caring and compassionate shoe lover...)

~1993 – A pair of IRA bombs exploded in Warrington, Northwest England, killing 2 children and injuring another 54 people. (Yes, the IRA were good at killing children, weren't they?)

~1995 – A sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Metro subway system killed 13 people and injured 1,300 others. It was and remains the most serious attack to occur in Japan since the end of World War II.

~1996 – In Los Angeles, California Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez were found guilty of first degree murder for the shotgun killing of their parents. (But they're just poor misunderstood boys!)

~1999 – To the delight of kids of all ages, Legoland California (the only Legoland outside of Europe at the time) opened in Carlsbad, California.

~2000 – Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, was captured after murdering Georgia sheriff's deputy Ricky Kinchen and critically wounding Deputy Aldranon English who went to al-Amin's home to serve an arrest warrant for his failing to appear in court after a citation for speeding.

~2003 – the Invasion of Iraq: In the early morning hours, the US, Britain, Australia and Poland began military operations in Iraq.

~2004 – Stephen Harper won the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader. (Biting my tongue hard here...)

~2004 – Died this day: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands (b. 1909).

~2005 – A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. Only 1 person was killed but 70 people were severely injured and 1017 more received attention for minor injuries. In spite of the moderate strength of the quake, damage was substantial.

~2006 – Cyclone Larry, a Category 4 with wind gusts reaching 240 km/h (150 mph), made landfall in eastern Australia as the most powerful storm in almost a century. The total effects of Larry were nearly $1 billion (Australian) in damage but only 1 fatality.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 21st



~717 – The Battle of Vincy was fought between the forces of Charles Martel and those under the king of Franks, Chilperic II, and his mayor of the palace, Ragenfrid. After soundly defeating the opposing army, Martel then chased the fleeing king and mayor all the way to Paris. Following on this success, he proclaimed Clotaire IV as king of Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed the bishop of Rheims, Rigobert, replacing him with Milo. The defeated Chilperic II and his mayor of the palace Ragenfrid were essentially broken after this battle.

~1556 - In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake. (Gave a less than stellar sermon did you, Tommy?)

~1617 – Died this day: Pocahontas, Famous native American, daughter of Powhatan (b. circa 1595).

~1685 - Born this day: Johann Sebastian Bach, one of history's greatest composers (d. 1750).

~1788 – The Good Friday Fire: In New Orleans, fire broke out around 1:30 p.m. at the home of Army Treasurer Don Vincente Jose Nunez, less than a block from Jackson Square (Plaza de Armas), and within 5 hours consumed almost the entire city fanned by a strong wind from the southeast. The flames destroyed the original Cabildo and virtually all major buildings in the French Quarter including the city's main church, the municipal building, the army barracks, armory, and jail. Only two fire engines were operational and they were destroyed by the fire.

~1800 – With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché and donated jewels. Though intended only as a temporary tiara its light weight and comfortable fit saw it used by popes well into the 1870's before being retired.

~1801 – In Egypt, the Battle of Alexandria was fought between the French army under General Menou and the British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercrombie. It took place near the ruins of Nicopolis, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Abukir, along which the British troops had advanced towards Alexandria after the actions of Abukir on March 8 and Mandora on March 13. Following their decisive victory in this battle the British then laid siege to Alexandria.

~1804 – The Code Napoléon was adopted as French civil law. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion and specified that government jobs only go to the most qualified. (Anyone who has ever dealt with French bureaucracy will know that the last part of this law has long since gone the way of the Dodo bird...)

~1844 – The Bahá'í calendar began. This was the first day of the first year of the Bahá'í calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Bahá'í Faith as the Bahá'í New Year or Náw-Rúz. (So now ya' know...)

~1844 – The original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ. (Old Bill was often known for over indulging down at the local watering hole ya' know, and...)

~1857 – An earthquake in Tokyo, Japan killed over 100,000. (Only 3 out of 10 sources even mention this and no further info is given.)

~1859 – The Philadelphia Zoo, the first zoo in the United States, was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Its opening was delayed by the Civil War until July 1st, 1874 when it opened with 1,000 animals and an admission price of 25 cents.

~1871 – Otto von Bismarck was appointed 1st Chancellor of the German Empire.

~1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley departed Zanzibar to begin his epic trek through Africa's tropical jungle to find the missing explorer and missionary David Livingstone.

~1913 – The first of 3 major storms arrived in Ohio's Great Miami River watershed that would lead to the Great Dayton Flood 4 days later.

~1918 – The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, was launched from the Hindenburg Line in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, France.

~1919 – The Hungarian Soviet Republic was established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia. It only lasted until early August when Romanian forces took Budapest.

~1935 – Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means 'Land of the Aryans.'

~1937 – The Ponce Massacre: In Ponce, Puerto Rico, 19 people (including a 7 year old girl) were gunned down by a police squad acting under orders of US-appointed PR Governor, Blanton C. Winship. In addition to those killed some 235 civilians, including women and children, were wounded when the police opened fire on the peaceful and unarmed marchers.

~1940 - Paul Reynaud became the 118th Prime Minister of France. (Short lived job huh, Paul?)

~1945 – Following fierce fighting, British troops liberated Mandalay, Burma from the occupying Japanese forces.

~1945 – Operation Carthage: British warplanes bombed Shellus, the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. The raid was requested by members of the Danish resistance movement in the hope of freeing imprisoned members and destroying Gestapo records. Britain initially turned down the request as being too risky due to the location in a crowded city core and the need for low level bombing, but eventually approved it in early 1945 after repeated requests. The very low level attack consisted of 20 RAF de Havilland Mosquito fast bombers in 3 waves, escorted by 30 RAF North American Mustang fighters. Unfortunately, a Mosquito in the first wave hit a lamp post and crashed into a school near the Shellhus, and the 3rd wave of bombers attacked the burning school thinking it was their target. 125 Danish civilians died in the school, including 86 schoolchildren. The raid succeeded in destroying Gestapo headquarters and severely disrupting Gestapo operations in Denmark, as well as allowing the escape of 18 Gestapo prisoners. 55 German soldiers, 47 of the Gestapo's Danish employees, and 8 prisoners died in the headquarters itself. 4 Mosquito F.B.VI bombers and two Mustang F.III's were lost. A total of 9 crew members died on the British side.

~1952 – In Cleveland, Ohio, Alan Freed presented the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert.

~1960 – The Massacre in Sharpeville: In South Africa, police opened fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 of them and wounding 180 others.

~1963 – Alcatraz, the notorious federal penitentiary situated on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, closed after 29 years of operation.

~1964 – In Copenhagen, Denmark, Gigliola Cinquetti won the 9th Eurovision Song Contest for Italy by singing "Non ho l'età" ("I'm not old enough"). (And at only 16 years of age she probably wasn't, either...)

~1965 – The Ranger Program: NASA launched Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes. It's mission to obtain images of the lunar surface right up to impact was a total success.

~1965 – With Martin Luther King Jr. in the lead, 3,200 people started of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. They walked 12 miles per day and slept in nearby fields. By the time they reached the capitol, 4 days later on March 25th, their strength had swelled to around 25,000 people. (Damn, that's COOL!)

~1968 – The Battle of Karameh was fought in Jordan between Israeli Defense Forces and the combined forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian Army. It was planned by Israel as 2 concurrent raids on PLO camps, one in Karameh and one in the distant village of Safi. They were codenamed Operation Inferno and Operation Asuta respectively, but the former turned into a full scale battle, when the Jordanian Army engaged the invaders. Although tactically the Israelis emerged victorious in the engagement they incurred heavy casualties and subsequently withdrew from Jordan.

~1970 – Vinko Bogataj wiped out in a big way during a ski jumping championship in Germany. The film footage of this crash went on to gain him (unwanted) international fame as the "agony of defeat" guy shown obliterating himself in the opening credits of ABC's Wide World of Sports. Despite the ferocity of the crash, Bogataj suffered only a mild concussion that day.

~1980 – US President Jimmy Carter made the official announcement confirming the United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. (Hell yeah...the US government would never send troops into Afghanistan, would they?)

~1980 – On the season finale of CBS's nighttime soap opera Dallas, Larry Hagman's the infamous, conniving character "J.R. Ewing" was shot by an unseen assailant. This led to the "Who shot J.R.?" craze that lasted until the next season's opening episode.

~1985 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen began his "Man in Motion" circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair seeking to raise funds in the name of spinal cord injury medical research. It would take him more than 2 years but he successfully completed the task in May of 1987. (I know that some sources say this happened on March 20th, 1985 but I was there that day when Rick Hansen wheeled out of the parking lot of Vancouver's Oakridge Shopping center at 41st and Cambie and it was March 21st; the first day of Spring...so Wikipedia and the rest can go take a flying leap!)

~1989 – A Sports Illustrated cover story gave the public their first detailed report of the allegations that Pete Rose had placed bets on baseball games.

~1990 – Namibia became fully independent after 75 years of South African rule. (Another one you can thank de Klerk for.)

~1997 – Inside a Tel Aviv coffee shop, a suicide bomber killed 3 and injures another 49.

~1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon (Breitling Orbiter 3).

~2001 - Died this day: Chung Ju-young, Korean industrialist and one of the 4 brothers who founded "The Hyundai Group" (b. 1915).

~2002 – In Pakistan, 4 suspects were charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. All 4 were convicted on July 15, 2002.

~2006 - During the construction of the Burj Khalifa and a new terminal of Dubai International Airport, some 2,500 workers who were upset over buses that were delayed for the end of their shifts, rioted. They damaged cars, offices, computers, and construction equipment. A Dubai Interior Ministry official said the rioters caused almost UK£500,000 in damage. Most of the workers involved in the riot returned the following day but refused to work. (That's right about where I would've had to fire every bloody one of their sorry asses...construction schedule be damned!)

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 22nd



238 - Gordian I and his son Gordian II were proclaimed Roman emperors.

1621 - The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.

1622 - Jamestown massacre: Algonquian Indians killed 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, wholly a third of the colony's population.

1638 - Anne Hutchinson was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for "religious dissent".

1765 - The British Parliament passed "The Stamp Act", the first direct tax levied from England on the American colonies.

1809 - Charles XIII succeeded Gustav IV Adolf to the Swedish throne.

1871 - In North Carolina, William Woods Holden became the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.

1888 - The "Football League" (present day NFL) was formed.

1894 - The first playoff game for the Stanley Cup started.

1895 - The first display (a private screening) of motion pictures by Auguste and Louis Lumière took place.

1896 - Died this day: Thomas Hughes, novelist (b. 1822)

1908 - Born this day: Louis L'Amour, author of Western novels (d. 1988).

1920 - Born this day: Werner Klemperer, actor; best known as "Col. Klink" (d. 2000)

1931 - Born this day: William Shatner, actor; best known as Star Trek's "Captain James T. Kirk".

1939 - Prelude to World War II: Germany took Memel from Lithuania.

1941 - Washington state's Grand Coulee Dam began to generate electricity.

1945 - "The Arab League" was founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.

1954 - Closed since 1939, the London gold market reopened.

1958 - Faisal became King of Saudi Arabia.

1960 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Townes received the first patent for a laser.

1965 - Bob Dylan goes electric by releasing his first album featuring electric instruments, "Bringing It All Back Home".

1975 - A fire at the Brown's Ferry nuclear reactor in Decatur, Alabama caused a dangerous lowering of cooling water levels.

1975 - In Stockholm, Sweden the group Teach-In won the twentieth Eurovision Song Contest for the Netherlands, singing "Ding-a-dong."

1978 - Karl Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas died after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Pushed your luck a little too far, Karl?)

1984 - Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California were charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges were later dropped as completely unfounded.

1993 - The Intel Corporation shipped the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path. (Well, it seemed impressive back then!)

1995 - Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned after setting a record of 438 days in space.

1997 - Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, became the youngest champion of the women's world figure skating competition.

2001 - Died this day: William Hanna, animator and co-founder of Hanna-Barbera cartoon studios.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

238 – Gordian I and his son Gordian II are proclaimed Roman Emperors. (That gig lasted 3 weeks...)

1621 – The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoags.

1622 – The Jamestown Mmassacre: Algonquian Indians attacked and killed 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, 1/4 of the colony's population.

1630 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables. (What about lottery tickets?)

1638 – Anne Hutchinson was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.

1739 – In Delhi, 20,000 to 30,000 Indians were slaughtered by the occupying Persian troops under Nadir Shah who then proceeded to loot the royal treasury and abscond with, amongst other things, the jewels of the Peacock Throne.

1765 – The Stamp Act, that introduced a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies, was passed by the British Parliament with an effective date of November 1st, 1765. It was passed 245-49 in the House of Commons and unanimously in the House of Lords.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1784 – The Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to its current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand.

1809 – Charles XIII succeeds Gustav IV Adolf to the Swedish throne.

1829 – The three protecting powers (Britain, France and Russia) establish the borders of Greece.

1849 – The Austrians defeat the Piedmontese at the Battle of Novara.

1871 – In North Carolina, William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.

1873 – A law is approved by the Spanish National Assembly in Puerto Rico to abolish slavery.

1894 – The first playoff game for the Stanley Cup starts.

1895 – First display (a private screening) of motion pictures by Auguste and Louis Lumière.

1906 – First Anglo-French rugby union match at Parc des Princes in Paris

1916 – The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne and the Republic of China is restored.

1923 – The first radio broadcast of ice hockey is made by Foster Hewitt.

1939 – World War II: Germany takes Memel from Lithuania.

1941 – The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, United States, begins to generate electricity.

1942 – World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy's Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.

1943 – World War II: the entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.

1945 – The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.

1954 – Closed since 1939, the London bullion market reopens.

1960 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.

1975 – A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama causes a dangerous reduction in cooling water levels.

1978 – Karl Wallenda of the The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1982 – NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center on its third mission, STS-3.

1984 – Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges are later dropped as completely unfounded.

1989 – Clint Malarchuk of the Buffalo Sabres suffers a near-fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat.

1993 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.

1995 – Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in space.

1997 – Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, becomes the youngest champion women's World Figure Skating Champion.

1997 – The Comet Hale-Bopp has its closest approach to Earth.

2004 – Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, two bodyguards, and nine civilian bystanders are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles.

2006 – ETA, the armed Basque separatist group, declares a permanent ceasefire.

2006 – BC Ferries' M/V Queen of the North runs aground on Gil Island British Columbia and sinks; 101 on board, 2 presumed deaths.

2006 – Three Christian Peacemaker Team hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity and the death of their colleague, American Tom Fox.

2009 – Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska begins erupting after a prolonged period of unrest.

2233 - James T. Kirk, Captain of Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise. (By sheer coincidence, the same calendar day that actor William Shatner was born 302 years earlier...hmmm)

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 23rd



752 - Stephen II became Pope.

1568 - The "Peace of Longjumeau" ended the Second War of Religion in France. Again Catherine de Medici and Charles IX of France made substantial concessions to the Huguenots.

1708 - James Francis Edward Stuart landed at the Firth of Forth.

1775 - American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivered his famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech in Williamsburg, Virginia.

1801 - Tsar Paul I of Russia was struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death in his bedroom at St. Michael Palace. (Officials said it was one of the worst cases of suicide they'd ever seen!)

1806 - After traveling through the lands of "The Louisiana Purchase" and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark along with their "Corps of Discovery" began their long journey home.

1839 - The first recorded use of "OK" as an abbreviation for "oll korrect" in the Boston Morning Post. (Slow news day.)

1848 - John Wickliffe arrived at Port Chalmers carrying the first Scottish settlers for Dunedin, New Zealand. Otago province was founded.

1857 - Elisha Otis's first elevator was installed at 488 Broadway, New York City.

1868 - The University of California was founded in Oakland, California when the "Organic Act" was signed into law.

1889 - Land rush: President Benjamin Harrison opened Oklahoma to white settlement, starting on April 22 that year.

1889 - Free Woolwich Ferry officially opened in east London.

1903 - After much hard work the Wright Brothers applied for a patent on their invention of the first successful airplane. (Methinks this may have taken place on this date in 1904 following their first successful flight in December 1903.)

1909 - Theodore Roosevelt left New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip was sponsored by both the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society.

1919 - In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement.

1929 - Born this day: Sir Roger Bannister, athlete; runner of the first 4 minute mile in 1954.

1931 - The Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt embraced gallows during the Indian struggle for independence. Their request to be shot by a firing squad was refused.

1933 - The Reichstag passed "The Enabling Act", making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.

1935 - The signing of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Philippines took place.

1940 - The famous Pakistan Resolution (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or the then Qarardad-e-Lahore) was put forward at the Annual General Convention of the "All India Muslim League".

1942: The U.S. government turned on its own citizens and began moving Americans of Japanese descent to internment camps. This move was soon followed by Canada.

1942 - World War II: In the Indian Ocean, Japanese forces captured the Anadaman Islands.

1956 - Pakistan became the first Islamic republic in the world.

1963 - In London, England Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann won the eighth Eurovision Song Contest for Denmark singing "Dansevise" (Dancing tune).

1964 - Died this day: Peter Lorre, actor (b. 1904).

1965 - NASA launched Gemini 3, the United States' first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).

1978 - The first UNIFIL troops arrived in Lebanon for a peacekeeping mission along the "Blue Line".

1983 - Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan made his initial "Star Wars" proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.

1983 - Died this day: Dr. Barney Clark, the first artificial heart recipient.

1989 - Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that they had achieved cold fusion at the University of Utah.

1989 - A 1,000-foot diameter "Near-Earth" asteroid missed the Earth by 400,000 miles.

1994 - At an election rally in Tijuana, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated.

1996 - The Republic of China (Taiwan) held its first direct elections and chooses Lee Teng-hui as President.

1999 - Gunmen assassinated Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.

2001 - The Russian Mir space station was disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Edit note: Typo.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

March 24th



1603 - James I became King of England. (One of history's darker days.)

1765 - American Revolutionary War: Great Britain passes "The Quartering Act" that requires the 13 American colonies to house British troops.

1832 - In Hiram, Ohio a group of men first beat, then tarred and feathered Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr.

1868 - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was formed.

1878 - The British frigate "Eurydice" sinks, killing 300.

1882 - Robert Koch announced the discovery of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (mycobacterium tuberculosis).

1898 - Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania became the first person to buy an American-built automobile when he purchased a Winton automobile that was advertised in "Scientific American".

1900 - New York City Mayor Van Wyck broke ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

1944 - Tragedy in the Polish village Markowa. A patrol of German police appeared at the house of Wiktoria and J�zef Ulm. There they found 8 Jews; the Szall and Goldman families. First the Germans executed (murdered) all the Jews. Then they shot down pregnant Wiktoria and her husband. When 6 children began to scream at the scene of their parents dead bodies, Gestapo officer Jozef Kokott killed them as well. (This lovely little tale made possible courtesy the nice people who brought you the Holocaust.)

1944 - In an event now known as "The Great Escape", 76 prisoners broke out of the German POW camp Stalag Luft III.

1965 - NASA spacecraft "Ranger 9", equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brought images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash-landing on the lunar surface.

1972 - Great Britain imposed "Direct Rule" over Northern Ireland.

1973 - Kenyan track runner Kip Keino defeated Jim Ryun at the first-ever professional track meet in Los Angeles, sanctioned by the International Track Association.

1973 - Rock band Pink Floyd released the classic "Dark Side of the Moon", which would go on to become one of the most influential and commercially successful albums of all-time.

1976 - Argentina's military forces deposed president Isabel Per�n.

1976 - Bernard "Monty" Montgomery, British WWII Field Marshal (b. 1887).

1980 - Archbishop �scar Romero was killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.

1989 - Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Alaska's Prince William Sound the Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels of oil after running aground.

1998 - Jonesboro massacre: In Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys (aged 11 and 13 years) fired upon students at Westside Middle School. Four students and one teacher were killed and 10 others injured.

1999 - Kosovo War: NATO commenced air bombardment against Yugoslavia. This marked the first time NATO had attacked a sovereign country.

2001 - Apple Computer released "Mac OS X" version 10.0.

2003 - The Arab League voted 21-1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of US and British soldiers from Iraq. (I guess the Aussies were allowed to stay.)

March 25th

708 - Constantine was consecrated Pope.

1306 - Robert the Bruce became King of Scotland.

1409 - The Council of Pisa opened.

1634 - The first settlers, led by Lord Baltimore, arrived in Maryland.

1655 - "Titan", Saturn's largest moon, was discovered by Christian Huygens.

1802 - The Treaty of Amiens was signed as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace" between France and Britain. (Somebody had best clue in Napolean to this little agreement!)

1807 - "The Slave Trade Act" became law, abolishing slavery in Great Britain and Ireland.

1821 - Greece declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire, beginning the "Greek War of Independence".

1865 - The "Claywater Meteorite" exploded just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg were recovered.

1865 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman from the Union.

1894 - "Coxey's Army", the first significant American protest march, departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C..

1901 - At the five-day "Week of Nice" race in Nice, France, Mercedes won its first racing victory.

1911 - In New York City the "Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire" killed 146 garment workers.

1918 - The Belarusian National Republic was established.

1924 - Greece proclaimed itself a republic.

1928 - Born this day: Jim Lovell, astronaut.

1931 - "The Scottsboro Boys" were arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

1939 - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli became Pope Pius XII.

1941 - The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.

1947 - Born this day: Elton John, musician and entertainer.

1947 - A Centralia, Illinois coal mine explosion killed 111 miners.

1955 - United States Customs seized Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" as obscene.

1957 - The European Economic Community (EEC) was established with West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg as its founding members.

1960 - In London, Jacqueline Boyer won the fifth Eurovision Song Contest for France singing "Tom Pillibi".

1965 - Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully completed their 4 day 50 mile march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.

1969 - During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held a "bed-in" for peace in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).

1971 - Bangladesh Liberation War: The Pakistan Army began "Operation Searchlight" against East Pakistani civilians.

1972 - In Edinburgh, Scotland Vicky Leandros won the seventeenth Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg singing "Après Toi" (After You).

1975 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot and killed by a mentally ill nephew.

1979 - The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, was delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

1990 - In New York City, a fire at an illegal social club called "Happy Land" killed 87 patrons and staff.

1992 - Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the "Mir" space station.

1995 - Ward Cunningham opened the first wiki, the Portland Pattern Repository.

1996 - An 81-day long standoff between the antigovernment group "Montana Freemen" and law enforcement in Jordan, Montana began.

1996 - The EU's Veterinarian Committee banned the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (BSE).

2004 - Air Holland filed for bankruptcy when unproven allegations of marijuana abuse by the their pilots led them to insolvency.

March 26th


1026 - Conrad II was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XIX.

1799 - Napoleon captured Jaffa Palestine.

1780 - The British Gazette and Sunday Monitor was published for the first time. It was the first Sunday newspaper in Britain.

1793 - The Holy Roman Emperor formally declared war on France.

1804 - The U.S. Congress ordered the removal of Indians east of the Mississippi to Louisiana.

1804 - The Louisiana Purchase was divided into the District of Louisiana and the Territory of Orleans.

1854 - Charles III, duke of Parma, was attacked by an assassin. He died the next day.

1871 - The Paris Commune was formally set up.

1878 - Hastings College of Law was founded.

1885 - Eastman Kodak (Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co.) produced the first commercial motion picture film in Rochester, NY.

1898 - In South Africa, the world's first game reserve, the Sabi Game reserve, was designated.

1909 - Russian troops invaded Persia to support Muhammad Ali as shah in place of the constitutional government.

1910 - The U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the 1907 Immigration Act that barred criminals, paupers, anarchists and carriers of disease from settling in the U.S.

1913 - During the Balkan War, the Bulgarians took Adrianople.

1917 - At the start of the battle of Gaza, the British cavalry withdrew when 17,000 Turks blocked their advance.

1937 - Spinach growers in Crystal City, TX, erected a statue of Popeye.

1938 - Herman Goering warned all Jews to leave Austria.

1942 - The Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.

1945 - The battle of Iwo Jima ended.

1945 - In the Aleutians, the battle of Komandorski began when the Japanese attempted to reinforce a garrison at Kiska and were intercepted by a U.S. naval force.

1951 - The U.S. Air Force flag was approved. The flag included the coat of arms, 13 white stars and the Air Force seal on a blue background.

1953 - Dr. Jonas Salk announced a new vaccine that would prevent poliomyelitis.

1956 - Red Buttons made his debut as a television actor in "Studio One" on CBS television.

1958 - The U.S. Army launched America's third successful satellite, Explorer III.

1962 - The U.S. Supreme Court supported the 1-man-1-vote apportionment of seats in the State Legislature.

1969 - The TV movie "Marcus Welby" was seen on ABC-TV. It was later turned into a series.

1971 - Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared East Pakistan to be the independent republic of Bangladesh.

1971 - "Cannon" premiered on CBS-TV as a movie. It was turned into a series later in the year.

1972 - The Los Angeles Lakers broke a National Basketball Association (NBA) record by winning 69 of their 82 games.

1973 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat took over the premiership and said "the stage of total confrontation (with Israel) has become inevitable."

1973 - Women were allowed on the floor of the London Stock Exchange for the first time.

1979 - The Camp David treaty was signed by Israel and Egypt that ended the 31-year state of war between the countries.

1982 - Ground breaking ceremonies were held in Washington, DC, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1989 - The first free elections took place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin was elected.

1991 - The presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay signed an agreement that established the Southern Cone Common Market, a free-trade zone, by January 1, 1995.

1992 - In Indianapolis, heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was found guilty of rape. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. He only served three.

1995 - Seven of the 15 European Union states abolished border controls.

1996 - The International Monetary Fund approved a $10.2 billion loan for Russia to help the country transform its economy.

1997 - The 39 bodies of Heaven's Gate members are found in a mansion in Santa Fe, CA. The group had committed suicide thinking that they would be picked up by a spaceship following behind the comet Hale-Bopp.

1998 - In the U.S., the Federal government endorses new HIV test that yields instant results.

1998 - Unisys Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. pay a $3.15 million fine for selling spare parts at inflated prices to the U.S. federal government.

1999 - The macro virus "Melissa" was reported for the first.

1999 - In Michigan, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder for giving a terminally ill man a lethal injection and putting it all on videotape on September 17, 1998 for "60 Minutes."

2000 - The Seattle Kingdome was imploded to make room for a new football arena.

2000 - In Russia, acting President Vladimir Putin was elected president outright. He won a sufficient number of votes to avoid a runoff election.

March 27th

1350 - While besieging Gibraltar, Alfonso XI of Castile died of the Black Death.

1512 - Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted Florida.

1794 - The U.S. Congress and President Washington authorized the creation of the U.S. Navy.

1802 - The Treaty of Amiens was signed ending the French Revolutionary War.

1814 - U.S. troops under Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians at Horshoe Bend in Northern Alabama.

1836 - The Mexican army massacred about 400 Texan rebels at Goliad, TX, under the order of Santa Anna.

1836 - The first Mormon temple was dedicated in Kirtland, OH.

1841 - The first steam fire engine was tested in New York City.

1860 - The corkscrew was patented by M.L. Byrn.

1866 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights bill, which later became the 14th amendment.

1884 - The first long-distance telephone call was made from Boston to New York.

1899 - The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.

1900 - The London Parliament passed the War Loan Act that gave 35 million pounds to the Boer War cause in South Africa.

1900 - The Russian army mobilized 250,000 troops for active duty.

1901 - Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo was captured by the U.S.

1904 - Mary Jarris "Mother" Jones was ordered by Colorado state authorities to leave the state. She was accused of stirring up striking coal miners.

1907 - French troops occupied Oudja, Morocco, as a punitive action for the murder of French Dr. Muchamp.

1912 - The first cherry blossom trees were planted in Washington, DC. The trees were a gift from Japan.

1917 - The Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast League of Canada, defeated the Montreal Canadiens and became the first U.S. hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.

1931 - Actor Charlie Chaplin received France’s Legion of Honor decoration.

1933 - About 55,000 people staged a protest against Hitler in New York City.

1933 - In the U.S., the Farm Credit Administration was authorized.

1941 - Tokeo Yoshikawa arrived in Oahu, HI, and began spying for Japan on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

1942 - The British raided the Nazi submarine base at St. Nazaire, France.

1944 - One-thousand Jews left Drancy, France, for the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1944 - Thousands of Jews were murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania.

1946 - Four-month long strikes at both General Electric and General Motors ended with a wage increase.

1952 - The U.S. Eighth Army reached the 38th parallel in Korea, the original dividing line between the two Koreas.

1955 - Steve McQueen made his network TV debut on "Goodyear Playhouse."

1958 - Nikita Khrushchev became the chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party.

1958 - The U.S. announced a plan to explore space near the moon.

1964 - An earthquake in Alaska killed 114 people and registered 8.4 on the Richter Scale.

1968 - Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the earth, died in a plane crash.

1976 - Washington, DC, opened its subway system.

1977 - About 570 people died when a KLM 747 and a Pan Am 747 collided with each other on a foggy runway on the Canary Island of Tenerife.

1985 - Billy Dee Williams received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1988 - The U.S. Senate ratified the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

1989 - The U.S. anti-missile satellite failed the first test in space.

1992 - Police in Philadelphia, PA, arrested a man with AIDS on charges that he may have infected several hundred teenage boys with HIV through sexual relations.

1993 - In China, Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin was appointed President.

1995 - Maurizo Gucci was shot to death outside his office in Milan.

1997 - Russian workers, nearly 2 million, held a nationwide strike to protest unpaid wages.

1997 - In Australia, Governor-General William Deane signed a bill to overturn a 1996 Northern Territory act to legalize assisted suicides. The 1996 act was the first in the world to permit assisted suicides.

1997 - Dexter King met with James Earl Ray. Ray was in prison for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dexter King believes that Ray had nothing to do with the assassination.

1998 - In the U.S., the FDA approved the prescription drug Viagra. It was the first pill for male impotence.

1998 - Top civilian aircraft makers in France, Spain, Germany and Britain agreed to create single European aerospace and defense company.

1998 - Ax-wielders killed at least 52 people in southern Algeria, most of which were toddlers.

2002 - Rodney Dangerfield received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2004 - NASA successfully launched an unpiloted X-43A jet that hit Mach 7 (about 5,000 mph).


2005-

March 28th -oops I'm late


1774 - Britain passed the Coercive Act against Massachusetts.

1797 - Nathaniel Briggs patented a washing machine.

1834 - The U.S. Senate voted to censure President Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.

1854 - The Crimean War began with Britain and France declaring war on Russia.

1864 - A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, IL. Five were killed and twenty were wounded.

1865 - Outdoor advertising legislation was enacted in New York. The law banned "painting on stones, rocks and trees."

1885 - The Salvation Army was officially organized in the U.S.

1898 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen. This meant that they could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1899-August Anheuser Busch Was Born ( Thank you Mrs. Busch )


1903 - Anatole France's "Crainquebille" premiered in Paris.

1905 - The U.S. took full control over Dominican revenues.

1908 - Automobile owners lobbied the U.S. Congress, supporting a bill that called for vehicle licensing and federal registration.

1910 - The first seaplane took off from water at Martinques, France. The pilot was Henri Fabre.

1911 - In New York, suffragists performed the political play "Pageant of Protest."

1917 - During World War I the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was founded.

1921 - U.S. President Warren Harding named William Howard Taft as chief justice of the United States.

1922 - Bradley A. Fiske patented a microfilm reading device.

1930 - Constantinople and Angora changed their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively.

1933 - In Germany, the Nazis ordered a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools.

1938 - In Italy, psychiatrists demonstrated the use of electric-shock therapy for treatment of certain mental illnesses.

1939 - The Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to Francisco Franco.

1941 - The Italian fleet was defeated by the British at the Battle of Matapan.

1942 - British naval forces raided the Nazi occupied French port of St. Nazaire.

1945 - Germany launched the last of the V-2 rockets against England.

1947 - The American Helicopter Society revealed a flying device that could be strapped to a person's body.

1962 - The U.S. Air Force announced research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.

1963 - Sonny Werblin announced that the New York Titans of the American Football League was changing its name to the New York Jets. (NFL)

1967 - Raymond Burr starred in a TV movie titled "Ironside." The movie was later turned into a television series.

1968 - The U.S. lost its first F-111 aircraft in Vietnam when it vanished while on a combat mission. North Vietnam claimed that they had shot it down.

1974 - A streaker ran onto the set of "The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson."

1979 - A major accident occurred at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. A nuclear power reactor overheated and suffered a partial meltdown.

1986 - The U.S. Senate passed $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan contras.

1986 - More than 6,000 radio stations of all format varieties played "We are the World" simultaneously at 10:15 a.m. EST.

1990 - Jesse Owens received the Congressional Gold Medal from U.S. President George Bush.

1990 - In Britain, a joint Anglo-U.S. "sting" operation ended with the seizure of 40 capacitors, which can be used in the trigger mechanism of a nuclear weapon.

1991 - The U.S. embassy in Moscow was severely damaged by fire.

1994 - Violence between Zulus and African National Congress supporters took the lives of 18 in Johannesburg.

1999 - Paraguay's President Raúl Cubas Grau resigned after protests inspired by the assassination of Vice-President Luis María Argaña on March 23. The nation's Congress had accused Cubas and his political associate, Gen. Lino César Oviedo, for Cubas' murder. Senate President Luis González Macchi took office as Paraguay's new chief executive.

2002 - The exhibit "The Italians: Three Centuries of Italian Art" opened at the National Gallery of Australia.

March 29th

1461 - Edward IV secured his claim to the English thrown by defeating Henry VI’s Lancastrians at the battle of Towdon.

1638 - First permanent European settlement in Delaware was established.

1847 - U.S. troops under General Winfield Scott took possession of the Mexican stronghold at Vera Cruz.

1848 - Niagara Falls stopped flowing for one day due to an ice jam.

1867 - The British Parliament passed the North America Act to create the Dominion of Canada.

1882 - The Knights of Columbus organization was granted a charter by the State of Connecticut.

1901 - The first federal elections were held in Australia.

1903 - A regular news service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.

1906 - In the U.S., 500,000 coal miners walked off the job seeking higher wages.

1913 - The Reichstag announced a raise in taxes in order to finance the new military budget.

1916 - The Italians call off the fifth attack on Isonzo.

1932 - Jack Benny made his radio debut.

1936 - Italy firebombed the Ethiopian city of Harar.

1941 - The British sink five Italian warships off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean.

1943 - In the U.S. rationing of meat, butter and cheese began during World War II.

1946 - Fiorella LaGuardia became the director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Organization.

1946 - Gold Coast became the first British colony to hold an African parliamentary majority.

1951 - The Chinese reject MacArthur's offer for a truce in Korea.

1951 - In the United States, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed in June 19, 1953.

1961 - The 23rd amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment allowed residents of Washington, DC, to vote for president.

1962 - Cuba opened the trial of the Bay of Pigs invaders.

1962 - Jack Paar made his final appearance on the "Tonight" show.

1966 - Leonid Brezhnev became the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He denounced the American policy in Vietnam and called it one of aggression.

1967 - France launched its first nuclear submarine.

1971 - Lt. William Calley Jr., of the U.S. Army, was found guilty of the premeditated murder of at least 22 Vietnamese civilians. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial was the result of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on March 16, 1968.

1971 - A jury in Los Angeles recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. The death sentences were later commuted to live in prison.

1973 - "Hommy," the Puerto Rican version of the rock opera "Tommy," opened in New York City.

1973 - The last U.S. troops left South Vietnam.

1974 - Mariner 10, the U.S. space probe became the first spacecraft to reach the planet Mercury. It had been launched on November 3, 1973.

1974 - Eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted on charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. All the guardsmen were later acquitted.

1975 - Egyptian president Anwar Sadat declared that he would reopen the Suez Canal on June 5, 1975.

1979 - The Committee on Assassinations Report issued by U.S. House of Representatives stated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the result of a conspiracy.

1982 - The soap opera "Search for Tomorrow" changed from CBS to NBC.

1986 - A court in Rome acquitted six men in a plot to kill the Pope.

1987 - Hulk Hogan took 11 minutes, 43 seconds to pin Andre the Giant in front of 93,136 at Wrestlemania III fans at the Silverdome in Pontiac, MI.

1992 - Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton said "I didn't inhale and I didn't try it again" in reference to when he had experimented with marijuana.

1993 - The South Korean government agreed to pay financial support to women who had been forced to have sex with Japanese troops during World War II.

1993 - Clint Eastwood won his first Oscars. He won them for best film and best director for the film "Unforgiven."

1995 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a constitutional amendment that would have limited terms to 12 years in the U.S. House and Senate.

1998 - Tennessee won the woman's college basketball championship over Louisiana. Tennessee had set a NCAA record with regular season record or 39-0.

1999 - At least 87 people died in an earthquake in India's Himalayan foothills.

1999 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time.

2004 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became members of NATO.

March 30th



537 - Vigilius was consecrated and enthroned as Pope, replacing Silverius.

1461 - Wars of the Roses: At "The Battle of Towton" Edward of York defeated Queen Margaret to become King Edward IV of England.

1638 - Swedish colonists established the first settlement in Delaware, they named it "New Sweden".

1792 - King Gustav III of Sweden died after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade at Stockholm's Royal Opera 13 days earlier.

1792 _ Gustav IV Adolf ascended the Swedish throne upon the death of Gustav III.

1799 - New York passed a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state.

1806 - Construction was authorized on the Great National Pike, better known as "The Cumberland Road", becoming the first United States federal highway. (Radar traps were set up along the freeway the following day as a source of revenue.)

1809 - King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicated after a coup d'état. At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland's four Estates pledged allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden.

1847 - Mexican-American War: United States forces led by General Winfield Scott took Veracruz after a siege.

1848 - In the middle of the night an upstream ice jam stopped all water flow over Niagara Falls. Local area residents were awakened by the silence as the familiar roar of the falls ceased.

1849 - Great Britain annexes the Punjab.

1865 - The final major engagement of the American Civil War, "The Battle of Appomattox", began.

1867 - Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the "British North America Act" which established the Dominion of Canada on July 1.

1871 - The "Royal Albert Hall" was opened by Queen Victoria.

1879 - During the Anglo-Zulu War "The Battle of Kambula" took place. British forces defeated 20,000 Zulu warriors.

1882 - "The Knights of Columbus" were established.

1911 - Designed by John Browning, the "M-1911" semi-automatic handgun became the standard-issue handgun in the United States Army, and was subsequently widely used in World War I, World War II and the Korean War.

1930 - Heinrich Brüning was appointed German Reichskanzler.

1941 - World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces intercepted those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesus coast of Greece in "The Battle of Cape Matapan".

1945 - World War II: The last day German V-2 flying bombs were launched aginst England.

1951 - The Red Scare: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.

1961 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections.

1969 - In Madrid, Spain, four different performers tied for first place at the fourteenth Eurovision Song Contest. The medals were shared by Spain's Salomé singing "Vivo Cantando" (I live Singing), Britain's Lulu singing "Boom Bang-a-Bang", The Netherlands' Lenny Kuhr singing "De Troubadour" (The Troubadour), and France's Frida Boccara singing "Un Jour, Un Enfant" (One Day, a Child...)

1971 - In the case of "The My Lai Massacre" Lt. William Calley was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.

1971 - A Los Angeles, California jury recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers.

1973 - Vietnam War: The last American troops left South Vietnam.

1974 - NASA's "Mariner 10" became the first spaceprobe to fly by Mercury. It was launched on November 3, 1973.

1981 - The first running of the London Marathon took place.

1982 - The Canada Act (1982) received Royal Assent by Queen Elizabeth II, setting the stage for the Queen (supreme head of state in Canada) to proclaim "The Constitution Act".

1982 - Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney released their single "Ebony and Ivory".

1984 - The Baltimore Colts of the NFL moved to Indianapolis in the middle of the night. (Gutless wonders!!!)

1985 - The first Care Bears Movie, produced by Canadian animation studio Nelvana Limited, was released in US theatres by The Samuel Goldwyn Company.

1993 - Catherine Callbeck became Premier of Prince Edward Island and Canada's first female premier. This is inaccurate; Canada's first female premier was BC's Rita Johnson who took office as that province's 28th premier on April 2, 1991. This following the resignation of the previous premier, Bill Vanderzalm. Catherine Callbeck was, in fact, the first Canadian female premier elected at the polls in a general election.

1993 - Edouard Balladur became Prime Minister of France. (Yeah...that and $1.25 will get you a stale coffe down at the Exxon gas bar.)

1999 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10006.78 – above the 10,000 mark for the first time ever.

2001 - A chartered Gulfstream III jet crashed into a hillside during approach into Aspen, Colorado, killing 18 people.

2004 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia officially joined NATO as full members.

2004 - The Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants.

March 31st



307 - After divorcing his wife Minerva, Constantine married Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian. (He ditched his wife for a younger woman...geez, us guys have been jerks since the beginning of time!)

1717 - A sermon on "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, provoked the Bangorian Controversy.

1774 - American Revolutionary War: Great Britain ordered the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act.

1809 - Born this day: Edward FitzGerald, poet (d. 1883).

1854 - Commodore Matthew Perry signed "The Treaty of Kanagawa" with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1866 - The Spanish Navy shelled the harbour of Valparaíso, Chile.

1885 - Great Britain established a protectorate over Bechuanaland.

1889 - In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated.

1903 - Richard Pearse reportedly flew a heavier-than-air machine in powered flight near Pleasant Point, South Canterbury, New Zealand; some claim 1902. To date, this claim has never been proven.

1906 - The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association) was established to set rules for amateur sports in the United States.

1909 - Serbia accepted Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

1917 - The United States took possession of the U.S. Virgin Islands after paying $25 million to Denmark.

1918 - "Daylight Savings Time" went into effect in the United States for the first time.

1922 - Born this date: Richard Kiley, actor and singer (d. 1999).

1930 - "The Motion Pictures Production Code" was instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next forty years.

1931 - An earthquake destroyed Managua Nicaragua, killing over 2,000.

1933 - The Civilian Conservation Corps was established with the mission to relieve rampant unemployment during "The Great Depression".

1945 - Died this day: Anne Frank, whose world-famous diary was published after WW II (b. 1929).

1949 - Newfoundland became the 10th Province of Canada. This addition made Canada the second largest country in the world after the Soviet Union.

1959 - The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crossed the border into India and was granted political asylum.

1964 - "The Dictatorship in Brazil", under the aegis of general Castello Branco, began.

1966 - The Soviet Union launched "Luna 10" which later became the first spaceprobe to enter orbit around the Moon.

1967 - Jimi Hendrix burnt his guitar for the first time at London's Astoria Theatre. He was sent to the hospital afterwards for burns on his hands. (Jimi always was a bit of an idiot.)

1968 - US President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not run for re-election. (Whoa! Like, this was supposed to be a big surprise?)

1970 - After 12 years in orbit "Explorer 1" re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

1970 - Wielding samurai swords and carrying a bomb, eight terrorists from the "Japanese Red
Army" hijacked a Japan Airlines Boeing 727 at Tokyo International Airport.

1979 - In Jerusalem, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey won the twenth-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah".

1980 - Died this day: Jesse Owens. The American black athlete who participated in, and won gold medals at, the famous 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin against the Nazi's so-called "master race". He was best known for his public face-to-face snubbing of Hitler at the games (b. 1913).

1985 - The first ever WrestleMania was held in New York City's Madison Square Garden. (Yet aqnother slow news day.)

1986 - A Mexicana Boeing 727 enroute to Puerto Vallarta erupted in flames and crashed into the mountains northwest of Mexico City, killing all 166 aboard.

1986 - Six metropolitan county councils were abolished in England.

1990 - Boxer Julio César Chávez defeated Meldrick Taylor to unify the boxing's world junior welterweight title in a very controversial fight known as "Thunder Meets Lightning".

1991 - The eastern bloc "Warsaw Pact" military alliance came to an end.

1992 - The television news program (wannabe) "Daateline NBC" premiereed.

1993 - Actor Brandon Lee was accidentally (suspiciously) killed during the filming of "The Crow".

1994 - The journal "Nature" reported the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.

1995 - Popular Tex-Mex singer Selena Quintanilla was murdered by her assistant Yolanda Saldivar in a Corpus Christi, Texas motel after a heated discussion where the latter was accused of ripping off the artist's fan club.

1998 - Netscape gave the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement, thus creating "Mozilla Foundation", a not-for-profit corporation to oversee the development of Mozilla.

2004 - Google announced "Gmail", the first web-based mail service to offer 1 gigabyte of storage.

2004 - In Fallujah, Iraq, 4 American private military contractors working for "Blackwater USA", were killed and their bodies mutilated after being ambushed.

2004 - Sandton Square in Johannesburg, South Africa, was renamed "Nelson Mandela Square".

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

April 1st



~527 - The dying Byzantine Emperor Justin I named his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne.

~1085 – Died this day: Emperor Shenzong of China (b. 1067)

~1205 – Died this day: King Amalric II of Jerusalem (b. 1145)

~1293 – Robert Winchelsey departed England for Rome, to be consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury. Although he initially had the support of Edward I, Winchelsey later became a forceful opponent of the king. The archbishop was encouraged by the papacy to resist Edward's attempts to tax the clergy. Winchelsey was also an opponent of the king's treasurer Walter Langton as well as other clergy. On one occasion he rebuked an abbot so sternly that the abbot suffered a fatal heart attack. (Now, rather than getting so upset that I had a heart attack, I woulda hadda told old Robbo where to go, what to do when he got there and who to do it to...But of course, I've always been miserable and cantankerous - hence, Da Grouch.)

~1318 – Berwick-upon-Tweed was captured by the Scottish from the English. (Just one of at least 13 times the possession of the town changed hands.)

~1340 – Niels Ebbesen, together with some of his men, entered the bedroom of Gerhard III of Holstein and killed him, ending the 1332-1340 interregnum in Denmark.

~1572 – In the Eighty Years' War, the Watergeuzen captured Brielle from the Spaniards, gaining the first foothold on land for what would become the Dutch Republic.

~1789 – In New York City, the United States House of Representatives held its first quorum and elected Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first House Speaker.

~1815 - Born this day: Otto von Bismarck, German statesman and 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (d. 1898).

~1826 – Samuel Morey receved a patent for a compressionless "Gas or Vapor Engine." (Ralph Nader immediately launched a civil suit against him for degredation of the enviroment.)

~1854 – "Hard Times" (Hard Times - For These Times) began its serialisation in Charles Dickens' magazine, Household Words.

~1865 – The Battle of Five Forks was fought southwest of Petersburg, Virginia, in Dinwiddie County, during the Appomattox Campaign of the Civil War. The battle, sometimes referred to as the "Waterloo of the Confederacy," pitted Union Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's army against the forces of Confederate Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Pickett's loss at Five Forks triggered Lee's decision to abandon his entrenchments around Petersburg and begin the retreat that led to his surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9th.

~1867 – Singapore officially became a British crown colony.

~1873 – During the ship's 19th voyage RMS Atlantic, a transatlantic ocean liner of the White Star Line that operated between Liverpool and New York City, ran onto rocks and sank off the coast of Nova Scotia, killing 562 of the 952 aboard. This remained the deadliest civilian maritime disaster in history until the sinking of the SS Norge in 1904.

~1887 – The Mumbai Fire Brigade was established. (Well good for them.)

~1891 – The William Wrigley Jr. Company was founded in Chicago, Illinois. Originally selling products such as soap and baking powder, William Wrigley Jr. (the company's founder) began packaging chewing gum with each can of baking powder the following year. The chewing gum eventually became more popular than the baking powder itself and Wrigley's re-oriented the company to produce their popular gum.

~1893 – The rank of Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy was established. (I'm gonna start yawning again...)

~1908 – The British "Territorial Force" was formed by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane, following the enactment of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907, (7 Edw.7, c.9) which combined and re-organised the old Volunteer Army with the remaining units of militia and Yeomanry. It was renamed the Territorial Army in 1920.

~1918 – The Royal Air Force, the oldest independent air force in the world, was created by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.

~1922 – Died this day: Karl I of Austria the last Emperor of Austria and the last King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia, Galicia, Lodomeria and the last monarch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (b. 1887). (Old Karl was kind of a busy guy...)

~1924 – Adolf Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in prison for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch". However, he would only serve 9 months of incarceration, during which time he wrote Mein Kampf.

~1924 – The Royal Canadian Air Force was formed, an actual military entity. It replaced the "on-paper" only Canadian Air Force that had existed since 1918.

~1932 - Born this day: Debbie Reynolds, American actress, singer, dancer and all around class act.

~1934 - Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin killed 2 young highway patrolmen, H. D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler, at Grapevine, Texas. A contemporary eyewitness account stated that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow fired the fatal shots and this story got widespread coverage in the press before it was discredited. Henry Methvin later admitted that he fired the first shot, after assuming Barrow wanted the officers killed. He also admitted that Bonnie Parker approached the dying officers intending to help them, not to administer the cold blooded point blank coup de grâce the discredited eyewitness had described.

~1936 – Orissa formerly known as (the ancient kindom of )Kalinga became a province in British India.

~1939 – Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announced the end of the Spanish Civil War, after the last of the Republican forces surrendered. Over half a million had died during the 32 month conflict.

~1941 – The Blockade Runner Badge (German: Abzeichen für Blockadebrecher)was instituted. It was a German military decoration awarded for service on warships or merchant vessels that attempted to break through the British sea blockade of Germany. The badge was first awarded on July 1 of the same year. A smaller half size version was awarded for use by civilians and members of the merchant marine.

~1944 – Navigation errors lead to an accidental American bombing of the city of Schaffhausen, located in a finger of Swiss territory surrounded on 3 sides by Germany. (The Swiss failed to see the humor in this...)

~1945 – The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, began on the Ryukyu Island of Okinawa. The 82 day long battle lasted from early April until mid June of 1945 and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War. By the time Allied forces finally achieved victory, military and civilian casualties amounted to over 344,500 killed, wounded and missing.

~1946 – Aleutian Islands Earthquake: A 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands created a tsunami that struck the Hawaiian Islands killing 159, mostly in Hilo.

~1947 – Died this day: King George II of Greece (b. 1890)

~1948 – The Berlin Airlift: Military forces, under direction of the Soviet controlled government in East Germany, set up what amounted to a land blockade of West Berlin.

~1948 – The Faroe Islands received autonomy from Denmark.

~1949 - During the Chinese Civil War: The Communist Party of China began what would ultimately prove to be unsuccessful peace talks with the Kuomintang in Beijing, after 3 years of fighting.

~1949 – The Canadian government lifted the last restrictions of the Japanese Canadian internment, after 7 years. (As if the racist bastards in Ottawa ever had the right to lock up the country's citizens because of the way their eyes looked anyways!)

~1954 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law legislation authorizing the construction of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.

~1957 – The BBC broadcast "the spaghetti tree hoax" on its current affairs programme Panorama. It told a tale of a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the fictitious spaghetti tree, broadcast at a time when this Italian dish was not widely eaten in the UK and some Britons were unaware spaghetti is a pasta made from wheat flour and water. Hundreds of viewers phoned into the BBC, either to say the story was not true, or (even though it was April Fool's Day) wondering about it, with some even asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees. Decades later CNN called this broadcast "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled."

~1960 - The US launched "TIROS-1", the first successful weather satellite and the first of a series of Television Infrared Observation Satellites.

~1967 – The United States Department of Transportation began operations. It is administered by the United States Secretary of Transportation.

~1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier (VTOL) entered service with the Royal Air Force.

~1970 – US President Richard Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, requiring the Surgeon General's warnings on tobacco products and banning cigarette advertisements on television and radio in the United States, starting on January 1, 1971.

~1970 - American Motors introduced the "Gremlin". (After 40 years the jury is still out on this one...)

~1976 – In Cupertino, California "Apple Computer, Inc." was formed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.

~1976 – Conrail began operations, taking over operations from 6 bankrupt railroads in the Northeastern U.S.

~1976 – The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect hoax, a hoax stated to cause a noticeable short term reduction in gravity on Earth (as an April Fools' Day joke) was first reported by British astronomer Patrick Moore on the BBC.

~1979 – Iran became an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah.

~1984 - Died this day: Marvin Gaye, American soul singer and entertainer (b. 1939).

~1989 – Margaret Thatcher's new local government tax, the Community Charge (commonly known as the "poll tax"), was introduced in Scotland. (That one kinda went over like a fart in a punch bown and was gone in only 3 years...along with Maggie Thatcher's hokey job as PM.)

~1992 – The start of the Bosnian war. 100,000 would lie dead before its end in December of 1995.

~1997 – Comet Hale-Bopp passed perihelion. After this the comet developed into a spectacular sight. It shone brighter than any star in the sky except Sirius, and its dust tail stretched 40–45 degrees across the sky. The comet was visible well before the sky got fully dark each night, and while many great comets are very close to the Sun as they pass perihelion, Comet Hale-Bopp was visible all night to northern hemisphere observers.

~1999 - For no valid reason other than political posturing, "Nunavut" was established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern portion of the "Northwest Territories". (And what a grand April Fool's Day joke it continues to be!)

~2000 - The web comic "Bob and George" first appeared on the Internet. It ran daily until its end on July 28th, 2007.

~2001 – The Hainan Island incident: An EP-3E United States Navy surveillance aircraft collided in flight with a Chinese People's Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet. The Navy crew made an emergency landing in Hainan, People's Republic of China where they were detained.

~2001 – Same sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first country to allow it.

~2002 – The Netherlands legalized euthanasia, in very specific cases and under very specific circumstances, becoming the first nation in the world to do so.

~2003 - In Sturgis, Michigan, signs are placed around town reading "All your base are belong to us," based on the popular mistranslation from the Japanese video game "Zero Wing". (For more fun and follies go to www.engrish.com )

~2004 – Google introduced its Gmail to the public.

~2004 - George W. Bush signed the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act", which makes an attack that leads to the death of a mother and her unborn child two criminal charges. (OK, so GW and I finally agreed on one thing...big deal.)

~2005 – Died this day: Paul Bomani, Tanzanian freedom fighter, politician, ambassador, proponent of higher education and businessman (b 1925). Speaking from personal experience, Paul was honest, forthright, looked you straight in the eye when he spoke to you and didn't mince words. If he told you something you could rest assured that's the way it was, because that's the way Paul was. Never succumbing to fear, damned dangerous with a gun, grenades or a mortar he was prepared to fight and die for what he believed in and wouldn't compromise his ideals or morals for anything. Paul was a good man and the world lost something big the day he died. Fact is this old spinning rock could use a few more Paul Bomanis.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

April 2nd



~And yet another birthday for dear old Father, may your 83rd be an enjoyable one...Regards.

...

~742 - Born this day: Charlemagne, King of the Franks (d. 814).

~1118 – Died this day: Baldwin I of Jerusalem, first King of Jerusalem (b. circa 1058).

~1453 - Ottoman forces under Fatih Sultan Mehmed II began their siege of Constantinople. After several fruitless assaults, the city's walls held off the Turks with little difficulty, even with the use of the new Orban's bombard (a cannon similar to the Dardanelles Gun). The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by 28 warships. On April 22nd, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around the Genoese colony Galata and onto the Golden Horn's northern shore. 80 galleys were transported from the Bosphorus after paving a one mile route with wood. By doing this the Byzantines stretched their troops over a much longer portion of the defending walls. A little over a month later Constantinople fell on May 29th following a 57 day siege. After this conquest, Mehmed moved the Ottoman capital from Adrianople to Constantinople.

~1513 – The expedition of Juan Ponce de Leon sighted previously unknown land. He named it La Florida.

~1657 – Died this day: Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1608).

~1755 – Commodore William James, while commanding the Bombay Marine Ship "Protector" attacked and destroyed the pirate fortress of Tulaji Angre at Suvarnadurg in Konkan, along the western coast of India. He had initially been instructed only to blockade the stronghold, but through his intimate knowledge of the rocky coastline was able to get close enough to blow up the fortress. Although the East India Company had spent what amounted to a substantial fortune providing protection from piracy, James only received £100 in reward.

~1792 – The Coinage Act was passed establishing the United States Mint and regulated the coinage of the United States. This act established the dollar as the unit of money in the United States, declared it to be lawful tender, and created a decimal system for U.S. currency.

~1800 - Manhattan Well Mystery: In New York City, the trial of Levi Weeks ended with an acquittal after only 5 minutes of jury deliberation. Weeks was defended by Henry Brockholst Livingston, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. The public strongly disagreed with the verdict and Weeks was ostracized by the citizens of the city, forcing him to leave New York. (Yes, I know that the actual trial took place on March 31st and April 1st, but the jury deliberation was held over until the morning of the 2nd.)

~1801 – The Battle of Copenhagen: A British fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker fought and strategically defeated a Danish-Norwegian fleet anchored just off Copenhagen. Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson led the main attack by the British. He famously disobeyed Parker's order to withdraw, destroying many of the Dano-Norwegian ships before a truce was agreed. Copenhagen is often considered to be Nelson's hardest fought battle, surpassing even the heavy fighting at Trafalgar. Later, Parker admitted that in the aftermath of the battle he didn't know whether to court martial Nelson or decorate him.

~1805 - Born this day: Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author and poet renowned for his children's stories (d. 1875).

~1863 – The Southern Bread Riots: The riots were triggered mainly by foraging armies both Union and Confederate, who ravaged crops and devoured draft animals. The staggering inflation created by the Confederate government was also a primary cause. The drought of 1862 created a poor harvest that did not yield enough crop in a time when food was already scarce. From 1861 to 1863, the price of wheat tripled, while butter and milk quadrupled. Salt, which at the time was the only practical meat preservative, was very expensive as well. Similar to the French Revolution, citizens, mostly women, began to protest the exorbitant price of bread. The protesters believed a negligent government and speculators were to blame. To show their displeasure, many protesters turned to violence. In Macon, Atlanta, and Augusta armed mobs attacked stores and warehouses. In North Carolina, mobs destroyed grocery and dry goods stores. In the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia, thousands of people, mostly women, broke into shops and began seizing clothing, shoes, food and even jewelry before the Militia arrived to restore order. At this time Jefferson Davis himself gave a speech and even threw the money from his pockets to the rioters asking them to dispurse. He said "You say you are hungry and have no money; here, this is all I have," as he flung his money. The mob stayed put. Only when Davis threatened to have militiamen fire on the mob did they disperse. (How to win friends and influence people there, Jeff...)

~1865 – The Third Battle of Petersburg was fought. Also known as the Breakthrough at Petersburg, it was a decisive Union assault on the Confederate trenches, ending the 10 month Siege of Petersburg and leading to the fall of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. Faced with this loss Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to retreat.

~1865 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. (When the going gets tough, you can always count on the politicians to run like the wind.)

~1872 - Died this day: Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse code (b. 1791).

~1875 - Born this day: Walter P. Chrysler, automobile pioneer and innovator, founder of the Chrysler Corporation (d. 1940).

~1900 – The Congress passed the Foraker Act (officially the Organic Act of 1900) that established civilian government on the island of Puerto Rico, which had been newly acquired by the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War. Section VII of the Foraker Act also established Puerto Rican citizenship.

~1908 - Born this day: Buddy Ebsen, American dancer and actor, "Uncle Jed" (d. 2003).

~1917 – President Woodrow Wilson asked the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany that would see America's entry into World War I.

~1920 - Born this day: Jack Webb, director, producer, actor, Sgt. Joe Friday; LAPD "Just the facts, Ma'am...just the facts." (d. 1982).

~1930 - Died this day: Empress Zewditu I of Ethiopia (b. 1876).

~1930 – Haile Selassie was proclaimed "King of Kings of Ethiopia".

~1945 – Brazil established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, but maintained a neutral relationship during the Cold War that was limited to commercial trade and cooperation agreements of minimal importance.

~1956 - General Motors board member Alfred P. Sloan stepped down after 19 years as chairman with Albert Bradley as his successor.

~1956 – As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiered on CBS Television. The two soaps became the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30 minute format.

~1962 – The first official "Panda crossing" began operating outside Waterloo station in London.

~1972 – Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States (to receive an honorary Oscar) for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s.

~1973 – Lexis, the computerized legal research service, launched publicly.

~1975 – After 26 months of construction, the CN Tower was completed in Toronto, Ontario. It reached 553.33 metres (1,815.4 ft) in height, becoming the world's tallest free standing structure until 2007.

~1982 – The Falklands War: Argentine forces mounted amphibious landings of the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas). The invasion involved initial defence organised by the Falkland Islands' Governor Sir Rex Hunt giving command to Major Mike Norman of the Royal Marines, the landing of Lieutenant-Commander Guillermo Sánchez-Sabarots' Amphibious Commandos Group on Mullet Creek, the attack on Moody Brook barracks, the engagement between the amphibious personnel carriers of Hugo Santillán and Bill Trollope marines east of Stanley and the battle ending in the final surrender of Government House. This was the first engagement of the Falklands War.

~1982 - John Chancellor anchored the news at at the "NBC Nightly News" for the final time, after 11 1/2 years.

~1984 – Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, along with two other Soviet cosmonauts, was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, and became the first Indian in space.

~1987 - Died this day: Buddy Rich, American drummer extrordinaire (b. 1917).

~1991 – Rita Johnston becomes the first female Provincial Premier in Canadian history when she succeeded William Vander Zalm (who had resigned) as interim Premier of British Columbia. She went on to defeat another woman, Grace McCarthy to win the official party leadership the following July. (Yet another case of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as the BC Social Credit Party was, for all intents and purposes, gone forever after the next provincial election.)

~1992 – In New York, Mafia boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering and was later sentenced to life in prison without parole. He was sent to the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, where he was kept in a cell 23 hours a day. (Awww...poor Johnny, all his teflon must've flaked off.)

~2002 – Israeli forces surrounded the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem into which dozens of armed Palestinians had retreated. A siege ensued and after 39 days, during which numerous Palestinians were either wounded or killed by the IDF, an agreement was reached according to which the militants turned themselves in to Israel and were exiled to Europe and the Gaza Strip.

~2004 – Islamist terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks attempted to bomb the Spanish high-speed train AVE near Madrid. The explosive device lacked a detonator however and was incapable of going off.

~2005 - Died this day: Pope John Paul II (b. 1920).

~2006 – A series of tornadoes occurred during the late afternoon and evening in the central United States. It was the second major outbreak of 2006, in the same area that suffered considerable destruction in a previous outbreak on March 11 and March 12, as well as an outbreak on November 15, 2005. The most notable tornadoes of the outbreak struck northeastern Arkansas, the Missouri Bootheel and West Tennessee, where several communities suffered devastating damage from several tornadoes triggered from a supercell. In total, 66 tornadoes touched down across seven states. In addition, there were over 850 total severe weather reports, including many reports of straight line winds exceeding hurricane force. Hail, some as large as softballs, caused significant additional damage in a 9 state region.

...

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,