Upon This Day in History... March 1-31 (ancient, war, Roman)

[Da Grouch]

March 1

.

~86 BC – Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army, entered Athens, removing the tyrant Aristion who was supported by troops of Mithridates VI of Pontus.

~589 – Died this day: Saint David, Patron Saint of Wales (b. 500).

~986 – Died this day: King Lothair of France (b. 941).

~1131 – Died this day: King Stephen II of Hungary (b. 1101).

~1320 – Died this day: Buyantu Khagan, Emperor of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty (b. 1286).

~1562 – The Massacre of Vassy: François the second Duke of Guise, while travelling to his estates, stopped in Vassy and decided to attend mass. He found a large congregation of Huguenots holding religious ceremonies in a barn that was their church. When some of the duke's party attempted to push their way inside they were repulsed. Events escalated, stones began to fly and the Duke was struck. Outraged, he ordered his men to fortify the town and set fire to the church, killing just over 80 unarmed Huguenots and lnjuring hundreds of others. This event started the Wars of Religion which would continue with intermissions for more than a century.

The etching "The Massacre of Vassy, March 1st, 1562" from 1569 showing Francis, Duke of Guise and
his troops at the church in Wassy, France

Artist unknown


~1565 – The city of Rio de Janeiro proper was founded by the Portuguese.

~1593 – The Uppsala Synod, the most important synod of the Lutheran Church of Sweden,was summoned to confirm the exact forms of the church.

~1633 – Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.

~1642 – By charter of King Charles I, Gorgeana Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine) became the first incorporated city in America.

~1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba were brought before local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft and interrogated for several days before being sent to jail in Salem Village, Massachusetts. This event began what would become known as the Salem Witch Trials.

An 1876 illustration of the courtroom; the central figure is usually identified as Mary Walcott
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/78/SalemWitchcraftTrial.jpg (broken link)
Artist unknown, as published in "Pioneers in the Settlement of America" by William A. Crafts. Vol. I Boston: Samuel Walker & Company, 1876


~1781 – The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation after Maryland finally ratified it following a 3 year holdout over land claims.

~1792 – Died this day: Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1747). (Today seems to have been a bad day in history for royalty...)

~1803 – Ohio was admitted as the 17th state of the Union.

~1805 – Justice Samuel Chase was acquitted at the end of his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate and returned to his duties on the court. He is the only U.S. Supreme Court justice to have been impeached.

~1811 – Leaders of the Mameluke Dynasty were killed by Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali. Ali invited the Mamluk leaders to a celebration held at the Cairo Citadel in honor of his son, Tusun, who was being appointed to lead a military expedition into Arabia. When the Mamluks arrived, they were trapped and killed. After the leaders were killed, Ali dispatched his army throughout Egypt to rout and kill the remainder of the Mamluk forces. (What a nice guy...I wonder if Cassius Clay knew about all this before he changed his name.)

~1815 – Napoleon returned to France from his exile on Elba, landing at Golfe-Juan near Antibes.

~1836 – A convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convened in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas to deliberate independence from Mexico.

~1845 – US President John Tyler signed a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.

~1852 – Archibald William Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

~1854 – German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappeared. 2 years later his remains were found in a canal near Charlottenburg. There was some suspicion that he had committed suicide in a fit of mental depression.

~1867 – Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state of the Union.

~1870 – President of Paraguay Marshal F.S. López died during the Battle of Cerro Corá, marking the end of the War of the Triple Alliance. (Outnumbering the Paraguayans 20 to 1 you kind of expected the Brazilians to win that one...)

~1872 – Yellowstone National Park was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant as the world's first national park.

Thomas Moran painted "Tower Creek, Yellowstone", while on the
Hayden Geological Survey of 1871



~1873 – E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York began production of the first commercial typewriter.

~1886 – The Anglo-Chinese School, in Singapore, was founded by Bishop William F. Oldham.

~1893 – Nikola Tesla gave the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.

~1896 – The Battle of Adowa: An Ethiopian army defeated the main Italian force, ending the First Italo–Ethiopian War. (Again, outnumbering the Italians 7 to 1 you kind of expected the Ethiopians to win that one...)

~1910 - The Wellington Avalanche: The deadliest avalanche in US history buried the Great Northern Railway depot and parked trains at the town of Wellington in northeastern King County, Washington. 96 people were killed in the disaster.

The debris field including wrecked train cars following the Wellington Avalanche of March 1910

Photo by John Juleen, as published in The Technical World Magazine (1910)


~1912 – Albert Berry made the first confirmed parachute jump from a moving airplane, a Benoit pusher biplane from 1,500 feet (457 m) and landed successfully at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. The pilot was Tony Jannus. The 36 foot (11 m) diameter parachute was contained in a metal canister attached to the underside of the plane. When Berry dropped from the plane his weight pulled the parachute from the canister. Rather than being attached to the parachute by a harness Berry was seated on a trapeze bar. According to Berry he dropped 500 feet (152 m) before the parachute opened. (*sigh* - shakes head in disbelief at the suicidal tendencies of the man...)

~1914 – The Republic of China joined the Universal Postal Union. (Welcome to the party...see how fast YOU clowns can lose the mail...)

~1917 – The U.S. government released the unencrypted text of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public. The revelation of its contents in the American press caused public outrage that contributed to the United States' declaration of war against Germany and its allies on April 6th.

~1919 – The March 1st Movement began in Korea. The 33 nationalists who formed the core of the Samil Movement convened at Taehwagwan Restaurant in Seoul, and read the Korean Declaration of Independence that had been drawn up by the historian/writer Choe Nam-seon and the poet/Buddhist monk Manhae. During the series of demonstrations that began that day and spread throughout Korea, 7,000 people were killed by Japanese police and soldiers.

~1932 – The 20 month old son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped from his home.

The wanted poster for Charles Lindbergh Jr.

Created by the FBI


~1936 – A sit down strike occurred aboard the S.S. California. This would lead to a series of events that resulted in the demise of the conservative International Seamen's Union and the creation of the National Maritime Union.

~1939 – Trans-Canada Air Lines (the forerunner of Air Canada) began transcontinental operations with inaugural service between Vancouver and Montreal. The first Flt. 2, a Lockheed Electra 10A, took off from YVR at 07:15 that morning. (Dad still has his old photo of the bird lifting off from the end of runway 08 that morning.)

One of Trans-Canada Airlines 2 original Lockheed Electras (CF-TCC) on display at the Western Canada Aviation Museum

Photo by B. Zuk


~1941 – Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact, allying itself with the Axis powers. The Kingdom of Bulgaria had been on the losing side in World War I, losing territory to Serbia and Greece. During World War II, Germany needed military access through Bulgaria in order to attack Greece. Adolf Hitler promised the Bulgarian Tsar Boris III that Bulgaria would receive all the territory she had lost in return for Bulgaria joining the Axis. Boris agreed and signed the Pact.

~1950 – Klaus Fuchs was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by disclosing top secret atomic bomb data. He was sentenced the next day to 14 years in prison, the maximum possible for passing military secrets to a friendly nation. In the infancy of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was nonetheless still classed as an ally, "a friendly nation".

~1953 – Joseph Stalin sufferred a severe stroke and collapsed. (Awww...poor old Uncle Joe - see my tears?)

~1954 – The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb and the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, was detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. It resulted in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States and created international concern about atmospheric thermonuclear testing. The bomb tested at Castle Bravo was, however, the first practical deliverable fusion bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

The Castle Bravo mushroom cloud

Photo courtesy the US Department of Energy


~1954 - Born this day: Ron Howard, ("Opie" and Richie Cunningham) American actor and movie director.

~1954 – The United States Capitol shooting incident: Puerto Rican nationalists attacked the United States Capitol building, injuring 5 Representatives. The attackers unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and began shooting at the 240 Representatives of the 83rd Congress who were on the floor during debate over an immigration bill.

~1956 – The International Air Transport Association finalized a draft of the Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (NATO phonetic alphabet) for the International Civil Aviation Organization.

~1958 – The Turkish passenger ship Uskudar capsized and sank at Izmit Bay, Turkey. More than 300 died in the incident.

~1961 – US President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 establishing the Peace Corps.

~1962 – American Airlines Flt. 1, a Boeing 707, crashed on take off in New York. All 95 on board perished.

~1964 – Chile's Villarrica Volcano began a strombolian eruption. Combined with vast amounts of water from melting snow, lahas destroyed half of the town of Coñaripe which was later reconstructed further east.

~1966 – The Venera 3 Soviet space probe impacted on the night side of Venus, near the terminator, probably around -20° to 20° N, 60° to 80° E. However, its communications systems failed before it could return any information about the planet. (Well, maybe if ya' hadn't CRASHED the damned thing...!

~1971 – A bomb exploded in a men's room in the United States Capitol. The Weather Underground claimed responsibility saying it was "in protest of the US invasion of Laos".

~1973 – Black September stormed the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan taking 10 hostages. After US President Richard Nixon stated that he refused to negotiate with terrorists, and demanded that "no concessions" would be made, the 3 Western hostages were subsequently murdered.

~1974 – The Watergate Scandal: 7 individuals were indicted for their role in the Watergate break in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.

~1981 – Provisional Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands begans his hunger strike in HM Prison Maze. He died of starvation in the prison hospital 66 days later.

~1984 – Died this day: Jackie Coogan, American actor, from childhood to Uncle Fester (b. 1914).

~1990 – Steve Jackson Games was raided by the US Secret Service. More than 3 years later, a federal court awarded damages of $50,000 and attorneys' fees of $250,000 to SJ Games, ruling that the raid had been carelessly executed, illegal, and completely unjustified. Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling discussed the affair in his non-fiction book The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. The case also helped to prompt the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as spawning a new game, Hacker.

~1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

~1995 – Yahoo! was incorporated in Santa Clara, California by founders Jerry Yang and David Filo. Yahoo!, for which the official backronym is "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". Filo and Yang said they selected the name because they liked the word's general definition, which comes from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: "rude, unsophisticated and uncouth".

~2002 – Operation Anaconda began in eastern Afghanistan, the first large scale battle in the United States War in Afghanistan since the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.

Soldiers of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment of the
101st Aiborne Division, prepare to move out after being dropped off by a
Chinook helicopter at the combat zone during Operation Anaconda

Photo courtesy the US Army

~2002 – The Envisat satellite, an Earth-observing satellite built by the European Space Agency, was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at a height of 790 km (±10 km). It orbits the Earth in about 101 minutes with a repeat cycle of 35 days. It is a very large satellite with a total mass of 8211 kg.

A model of the Envisat in original size

Photo by Abrev


~2002 – The Spanish peseta lost its legal tender status in Spain, being replaced by the euro (€). (I dunno, in view of what's happened to the euro of late maybe they should have stuck with the peseta...)

~2003 – The United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service were merged into the United States Department of Homeland Security. (That was nothing short of a collossal blunder.)

~2003 - In New York, a $250,000 Salvador Dali sketch was stolen from a display case in the lobby at Rikers Island jail. On June 17, 2003, it was announced that 4 corrections officers had surrendered and plead innocent in connection to the theft. The mixed media composition was a sketch of the crucifixion.

~2007 – Tornadoes, which had initially broken out across the southern United States the day previously, killed at least 20 people. 8 of the deaths and more than 50 injuries were at a high school in Enterprise, Alabama.

...

[Da Grouch]

~986 – Louis V ascended the throne of Western Francia on the day following the death of his father, King Lothair.

~1127 – The assassination of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders. As Charles knelt in prayer in the church of St. Donatian, a group of knights answering to the Erembald family entered the church and hacked him to death with broadswords. The brutal and sacrilegious murder of the popular count provoked a massive public outrage, and he was almost immediately regarded popularly as a martyr and saint, although not formally beatified until 1884. The Erembalds, who had planned and carried out the murder of Charles, were arrested and tortured to death by the enraged nobles and commons of Bruges and Ghent. King Louis VI of France, who had supported the revolt against the Erembalds, used his influence to select his own candidate (William Clito) as the next Count of Flanders.

~1657- The Great Fire of Meireki: Fire destroyed 60-70% of the Japanese capital city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the 3rd year of the Meireki Imperial era. The blaze lasted for 3 days and is estimated to have claimed over 100,000 lives.

~1717 – The Loves of Mars and Venus, by Joihn Weaver, became the first ballet performed in England.

~1791 – The Semaphore Line: Claude Chappe and his brother (in the summer of 1790) set about to devise a system of communication that would allow the central government to receive intelligence and to transmit orders in the shortest possible time. On March 2nd, 1791 at 11 A.M., Chappe and his brother sent the message “si vous réussissez, vous serez bientôt couverts de gloire” (If you succeed, you will soon bask in glory) between Brulon and Parce, a distance of 10 miles (16 km). The first means used a combination of black and white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to send their message.

~1808 – The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, was held in Edinburgh.

~1815 – The Kandyan Convention Treaty opened for signatures in Sri Lanka under terms dictated by the conquering British. This unique treaty was not signed by the deposed King, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, but by members of his court and other dignitaries of the Kandyan Kingdom.

~1835 – Died this day: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1768)

~1836 – The Declaration of Iindependence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico was made. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and formally signed the following day after errors were noted in the text.

~1842 – The Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree near Liverpool England was won by Gay Lad, ridden by Tom Olliver. (They probably would've named the horse something else were the race held today...)

~1855 - Died this day: Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (b. 1796).

~1855 – Alexander II ascended the throne as Tsar of Russia upon the death of his father Nicholas I.

~1865 – The East Cape War: The Volkner Incident occurred in New Zealand. The missionary Carl Völkner discovered that his Māori congregation had moved on from Christianity to Hau Hauism. Although warned to stay away from the town, on his next visit Völkner was captured, put on trial and hung from a tree; after an hour or so he was decapitated.

~1861 - The U.S. Congress created the Territories of Nevada and Dakota.

~1866 - The Excelsior Needle Company began mass producing sewing machine needles.

~1867 – The U.S. Congress passed the Reconstruction Act. The 1st of 4.

~1877 – Just 2 days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 Presidential Election, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7th, 1876.
~1897 - As he was leaving office, U.S. President Grover Cleveland vetoed legislation that would have required a literacy test for immigrants entering the country.

~1899 - U.S. President McKinley signed a measure that created the rank of Admiral of the Navy. The first (and to date the only) Admiral of the Navy was George Dewey.

~1899 – Mount Rainier National Park was established in the state of Washington. Today the park contains 368 square miles (950 km2) including all of Mount Rainier, a stratovolcano. The highest point in the Cascade Range at 14,411-foot (4,392 m), the mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land. Around it are valleys, waterfalls, subalpine wildflower meadows, old growth forest and more than 26 glaciers.

~1901 – The U.S. Congress passed the Platt amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.

~1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opened. It was the first hotel exclusively for women.

~1906 - A tornado in Missouri killed 33 and caused $5 million in damage. (A lot of coin back in '06.)

~1917 – The Jones-Shafroth Act, granting Puerto Ricans United States citizenship, was signed into law by US President Woodrow Wilson.

~1925 - State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield shaped, numbered marker.

~1931 – Born this day: Mikhail Gorbachev, Last President of the Soviet Union, 7th and last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Nobel laureate.

~1933 – The motion picture King Kong opened at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The film is notable for its stop-motion animation along with its musical score. It has been released to video and DVD over the years and remains a strong seller some 77 years after its debut. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It has been computer colorized for retail sale and rebroadcast. (Alright...that was a classic which should NEVER have been colorized!)

~1937 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee signs a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, eventually leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.

~1939 - The Massachusetts legislature voted to ratify the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. These first 10 ammendments had gone into effect 147 years before.

~1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope and took the name Pius XII.

~1941 – The first German military units entered Bulgaria after it joined the Axis Pact the day previous. (Old Adolph didn't waste any time on that one...)

~1943 – The Battle of the Bismarck Sea: In the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) aicraft of the United States Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a Japanese convoy carrying troops to Lae, New Guinea. Most of the task force was destroyed, and Japanese troop losses were extremely high.

~1944 - The first flight of the Horten Ho IX fighter/bomber was made in Germany. The late World War II prototype flying wing was designed by Reimar and Walter Horten and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. It was the first pure flying wing powered by a turbojet, and was the first aircraft designed to incorporate what became known as stealth technology. The Ho IX was a personal favorite of German Luftwaffe chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring as it was the only aircraft to come close to meeting his "1000, 1000, 1000" performance requirements. The aircraft's speed was estimated at 1,024 km/h (636 mph) and its service ceiling was 15,000 meters (49,213 ft). (3 out of 5 sources list March 2nd as the date of first flight, 2 out of 5 list March 1st.)

~1949 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around the world flight in 94 hours and 1 minute. The plane had a double crew with 3 pilots, with each crew taking a shift of 4 to 6 hours on duty and 4 to 6 off.

~1955 – King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicated the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.

~1956 – Morocco declared its independence from France. (Hey...dem dere guyz jus' be a tellin us to go to hell den dere, huh!)

~1962 – In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win Ne Win seized power in a military coup d'etat. Ne Win became head of state as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and also Prime Minister. The coup was characterized as "bloodless" by the world's media. Following riots at Rangoon University, troops were sent to restore order. Ne Win's military used comparative restraint against protesters. Shortly afterwards, around 8 p.m. local time, Ne Win addressed the nation in a 5 minute long radio speech which concluded with the famous statement: "if these disturbances were made to challenge us, I have to declare that we will fight sword with sword and spear with spear".

~1969 – In Toulouse, France the first flight of the supersonic Anglo-French Concorde was made.

~1969 – Soviet and Chinese forces clashed at a border outpost on the Ussuri River. A group of Chinese troops ambushed Soviet border guards. The Soviets suffered 31 dead and 14 wounded. They retaliated on March 15 by bombarding Chinese troop concentrations on the Chinese bank of the Ussuri and storming Chinese positions. (The Chinese then retired to lick their wounds.)

~1972 - The first outer-planetary probe, Pioneer 10, was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. On December 3, 1973 the probe sent back the first close up images of Jupiter. On June 13, 1983, the spacecraft became the first man made object to leave the solar system.

~1974 - In the US, postage stamps jumped from 8 to 10 cents for first class mail.

~1989 – 12 European Community nations agreed to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.

~1995 - Nick Leeson was arrested in Germany and extradited back to Singapore, for his role in the collapse of Britain's Barings Bank.

~1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicated that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice and a source of interior heat.

~2000 - In Great Britain, Chile's former President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was freed from house arrest and allowed to return to Chile. Britain's Home Secretary Jack Straw had concluded that Pinochet was mentally and physically unable to stand trial. Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland had sought the former Chilean leader on human rights violations.

~2004 – Al-Qaeda carried out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq that killed 178 and injured at least 500 Iraqi Shi'a Muslims commemorating the Day of Ashura.

~2004 - NASA announced that the Mars rover Opportunity had discovered evidence that water had existed on Mars in the past.

...

[Da Grouch]

OK, let's try this again then, shall we?

...

~986 – Louis V ascended the throne of Western Francia on the day following the death of his father, King Lothair.

~1127 – The assassination of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders. As Charles knelt in prayer in the church of St. Donatian, a group of knights answering to the Erembald family entered the church and hacked him to death with broadswords. The brutal and sacrilegious murder of the popular count provoked a massive public outrage, and he was almost immediately regarded popularly as a martyr and saint, although not formally beatified until 1884. The Erembalds, who had planned and carried out the murder of Charles, were arrested and tortured to death by the enraged nobles and commons of Bruges and Ghent. King Louis VI of France, who had supported the revolt against the Erembalds, used his influence to select his own candidate (William Clito) as the next Count of Flanders.

~1657- The Great Fire of Meireki: Fire destroyed 60-70% of the Japanese capital city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the 3rd year of the Meireki Imperial era. The blaze lasted for 3 days and is estimated to have claimed over 100,000 lives.

~1717 – The Loves of Mars and Venus, by Joihn Weaver, became the first ballet performed in England.

~1791 – The Semaphore Line: Claude Chappe and his brother (in the summer of 1790) set about to devise a system of communication that would allow the central government to receive intelligence and to transmit orders in the shortest possible time. On March 2nd, 1791 at 11 A.M., Chappe and his brother sent the message “si vous réussissez, vous serez bientôt couverts de gloire” (If you succeed, you will soon bask in glory) between Brulon and Parce, a distance of 10 miles (16 km). The first means used a combination of black and white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to send their message.

~1808 – The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, was held in Edinburgh.

~1815 – The Kandyan Convention Treaty opened for signatures in Sri Lanka under terms dictated by the conquering British. This unique treaty was not signed by the deposed King, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, but by members of his court and other dignitaries of the Kandyan Kingdom.

~1835 – Died this day: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1768)

~1836 – The Declaration of Iindependence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico was made. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and formally signed the following day after errors were noted in the text.

The Texas Declaration of Independence

Photo by J. Williams


~1842 – The Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree near Liverpool England was won by Gay Lad, ridden by Tom Olliver. (They probably would've named the horse something else were the race held today...)

~1855 - Died this day: Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (b. 1796).

~1855 – Alexander II ascended the throne as Tsar of Russia upon the death of his father Nicholas I.

~1865 – The East Cape War: The Volkner Incident occurred in New Zealand. The missionary Carl Völkner discovered that his Māori congregation had moved on from Christianity to Hau Hauism. Although warned to stay away from the town, on his next visit Völkner was captured, put on trial and hung from a tree; after an hour or so he was decapitated.

~1861 - The U.S. Congress created the Territories of Nevada and Dakota.

~1866 - The Excelsior Needle Company began mass producing sewing machine needles.

~1867 – The U.S. Congress passed the Reconstruction Act. The 1st of 4 such acts.

~1877 – Just 2 days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 Presidential Election, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7th, 1876.

~1897 - As he was leaving office, U.S. President Grover Cleveland vetoed legislation that would have required a literacy test for immigrants entering the country.

~1899 - U.S. President McKinley signed a measure that created the rank of Admiral of the Navy. The first (and to date the only) Admiral of the Navy was George Dewey.

Insignia for Admiral of the Navy,
worn by Admiral George Dewey
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Admiral_of_navy_insignia_1.png (broken link)
Image(s) courtesy the US Navy


~1899 – Mount Rainier National Park was established in the state of Washington. Today the park contains 368 square miles (950 km2) including all of Mount Rainier, a stratovolcano. The highest point in the Cascade Range at 14,411-foot (4,392 m), the mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land. Around it are valleys, waterfalls, subalpine wildflower meadows, old growth forest and more than 26 glaciers.

Mount Rainer from a public viewing area in Mount Rainer National Park

Photo courtesy the National Park Service


~1901 – The U.S. Congress passed the Platt amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.

~1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opened. It was the first hotel exclusively for women.

~1906 - A tornado in Missouri killed 33 and caused $5 million in damage. (A lot of coin back in '06.)

~1917 – The Jones-Shafroth Act, granting Puerto Ricans United States citizenship, was signed into law by US President Woodrow Wilson.

~1925 - State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield shaped, numbered marker.

The shield shaped designator
for the famous Route 66

Image courtesy the
US Department of Transport


~1931 – Born this day: Mikhail Gorbachev, Last President of the Soviet Union, 7th and last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Nobel laureate.

~1933 – The motion picture King Kong opened at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The film is notable for its stop-motion animation along with its musical score. It has been released to video and DVD over the years and remains a strong seller some 77 years after its debut. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It has been computer colorized for retail sale and rebroadcast. (Alright...that was a classic which should NEVER have been colorized!)

(Low rez) frame capture of King Kong, from the
original 1933 film, battling airplanes from atop the
Empire State Building

Image courtesy RKO Radio Pictures


~1937 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee signs a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, eventually leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.

~1939 - The Massachusetts legislature voted to ratify the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. These first 10 ammendments had gone into effect 147 years before.

~1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope and took the name Pius XII.

~1941 – The first German military units entered Bulgaria after it joined the Axis Pact the day previous. (Old Adolph didn't waste any time on that one...)

~1943 – The Battle of the Bismarck Sea: In the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) aicraft of the United States Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a Japanese convoy carrying troops to Lae, New Guinea. Most of the task force was destroyed, and Japanese troop losses were extremely high.

An A-20 Havoc bomber of the 89th Squadron, 3rd Attack Group is shown at the moment that it
clears a Japanese merchant ship following a successful skip bombing attack. This photo illustrates
the type of low level attack that was used so successfully during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea

Photo courtesy the US Navy


~1944 - The first flight of the Horten Ho IX fighter/bomber was made in Germany. The late World War II prototype flying wing was designed by Reimar and Walter Horten and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. It was the first pure flying wing powered by a turbojet, and was the first aircraft designed to incorporate what became known as stealth technology. The Ho IX was a personal favorite of German Luftwaffe chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring as it was the only aircraft to come close to meeting his "1000, 1000, 1000" performance requirements. The aircraft's speed was estimated at 1,024 km/h (636 mph) and its service ceiling was 15,000 meters (49,213 ft). (3 out of 5 sources list March 2nd as the date of first flight, 2 out of 5 list March 1st.)

the Horten Ho IX
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/Go229.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy the Deutsches Bundesarchiv
(German Federal Archive)


~1949 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around the world flight in 94 hours and 1 minute. The plane had a double crew with 3 pilots, with each crew taking a shift of 4 to 6 hours on duty and 4 to 6 off.


Photo courtesy the US Air Force


~1955 – King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicated the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.

~1956 – Morocco declared its independence from France. (Hey...dem dere guyz jus' be a tellin us all to go to hell den dere, huh!)

~1962 – In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win Ne Win seized power in a military coup d'etat. Ne Win became head of state as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and also Prime Minister. The coup was characterized as "bloodless" by the world's media. Following riots at Rangoon University, troops were sent to restore order. Ne Win's military used comparative restraint against protesters. Shortly afterwards, around 8 p.m. local time, Ne Win addressed the nation in a 5 minute long radio speech which concluded with the famous statement: "if these disturbances were made to challenge us, I have to declare that we will fight sword with sword and spear with spear".

~1969 – In Toulouse, France the first flight of the supersonic Anglo-French Concorde was made.

Concorde at Heathrow (c. 1981)

Photo by P.B.Toman


~1969 – Soviet and Chinese forces clashed at a border outpost on the Ussuri River. A group of Chinese troops ambushed Soviet border guards. The Soviets suffered 31 dead and 14 wounded. They retaliated on March 15 by bombarding Chinese troop concentrations on the Chinese bank of the Ussuri and storming Chinese positions. (The Chinese then retired to lick their wounds.)

~1972 - The first outer-planetary probe, Pioneer 10, was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. On December 3, 1973 the probe sent back the first close up images of Jupiter. On June 13, 1983, the spacecraft became the first man made object to leave the solar system.

Pioneer 10's Jupiter encounter on December 3rd, 1973

Artist unknown, courtesy NASA


~1974 - In the US, postage stamps jumped from 8 to 10 cents for first class mail.

~1989 – 12 European Community nations agreed to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.

~1995 - Nick Leeson was arrested in Germany and extradited back to Singapore, for his role in the collapse of Britain's Barings Bank.

~1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicated that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice and a source of interior heat.

Europa as photographed by the Galileo spacecraft

Photo courtesy NASA


~2000 - In Great Britain, Chile's former President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was freed from house arrest and allowed to return to Chile. Britain's Home Secretary Jack Straw had concluded that Pinochet was mentally and physically unable to stand trial. Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland had sought the former Chilean leader on human rights violations.

~2004 – Al-Qaeda carried out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq that killed 178 and injured at least 500 Iraqi Shi'a Muslims commemorating the Day of Ashura.

~2004 - NASA announced that the Mars rover Opportunity had discovered evidence that water had existed on Mars in the past.

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~1284 – The Statute of Rhuddlan was enacted by the King of England Edward I. This after the military conquest in 1282-83 of the Principality of Wales, which had been established by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Lord of Aberffraw and Prince of Wales. The statute assumed the lands held by the Princes of Gwynedd under the title Prince of Wales as legally part of the lands of England under Edward I.

~1575 – The Battle of Tukaroi was fought near the village of Tukaroi, West Bengal between forces of the Mughal Empire and those of the Sultanate of Bangala and Bihar. The Mughal army achieved a decisive victory the battle led to the Treaty of Katak in which Sultan Daud Khan Karrani ceded the whole of Bengal and Bihar, retaining only Orissa.

~1585 – The Teatro Olimpico (Olympic Theatre), designed by Andrea Palladio, was inaugurated in Vicenza with a production of Sophocles' Oedipus the King. The Teatro Olimpico is the oldest surviving enclosed theatre in the world. The Teatro Olimpico is still used for plays and musical performances, but audience sizes are limited to 400, for conservation reasons. Performances take place in two theatre seasons; classical plays in the autumn and the festival Il Suono dell'Olimpico in the spring. The theatre is not equipped with heating or air conditioning, which could damage the delicate wooden structures.

Scaenae frons of the Teatro Olimpico. The large arch in the center is known as the porta regia or "royal arch".

Photo by Tango7174


~1776 – The Battle of Nassau began. The naval action and amphibious assault by American forces against the British port of Nassau in the Bahamas (during the American Revolutionary War) is considered the first cruise and one of the first engagements of the newly established Continental Navy and the Continental Marines, the progenitor of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The action was also the Marines' first amphibious landing.

The oil on canvas Continental Marines land at New Providence

Artist: V. Zveg , courtesy the US Navy (Art Collection)


~1820 – The 2nd Missouri Compromise was introduced in the U.S. Congress.

~1845 – Florida was admitted as the 27th state of the Union.

~1845 – For the first time the U.S. Congress passed legislation overriding a presidential veto.

~1849 – The United States Department of the Interior was established on the eve of President Zachary Taylor's inauguration, when the Senate voted 31 to 25 to create the Department. The first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing.

~1849 – The U.S. Congress passed the Gold Coinage Act that allowed for the minting of 2 new denominations of gold coins, the gold dollar and the gold $20, or Double Eagle. It further defined the variances which were permissible in United States gold coinage.

~1851 - The U.S. Congress authorized the 3 cent piece. It was the smallest U.S. silver coin ever minted.

The US 3 cent piece

Image courtesy the Library of Congress


~1857 – The British House of Commons passed a resolution by 263 to 249 against the Government regarding its entry into the Second Opium War against the Qing Dynasty of China.

~1865 – After raising a capital stock of $5 million (Hong Kong dollars), the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited opened its doors. It went on to become the founding member of today's HSBC Group.

~1873 – The U.S. Congress enacted the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. In addition to banning contraceptives, this act also banned the distribution of information on abortion for educational purposes.

The symbol of Comstock's
Society for the Suppression of Vice

Image courtesy the US National Archives


~1875 – Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, today a worldwide favorite, premièred at the Opéra Comique in Paris.

Célestine Marié was the original Carmen
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Galli-Marie_Carmen_Photo.PNG (broken link)
Photo by P. Nadar


~1875 – The first recorded indoor ice hockey game took place at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Canada. Organized by James Creighton, who also captained one of the teams, the game was between a pair of 9 member teams that used a wooden puck. The team members used skates and sticks designed for outdoor hockey.

~1875 - The U.S. Congress authorized the 20 cent piece. The 20 cent coin had one of the shortest mintages and lowest circulations in US coin history, for both the series and the denomination. It was minted from 1875-1878, but was only released for circulation in 1875 and 1876 with a few hundred proofs released during the remaining 2 years. The coin also has the distinction of being one of the few coins minted in the short lived Carson City Mint branch of the United States Mint in Carson City, Nevada (which only operated from 1870-1893).

An 1875 US 20 cent piece
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/54/20_cent_piece_obverse.jpg (broken link)
Image courtesy the Library of Congress


~1877 – Because March 4, 1877 was a Sunday, incoming US President Rutherford B. Hayes took the oath of office in the Red Room of the Executive Mansion, becoming the first president to take the oath of office in the White House. This ceremony was held in secret, because the previous year's election had been so bitterly divisive that outgoing President Grant feared an insurrection by supporters of the defeated Tilden and wanted to ensure that any Democratic attempt to hijack the public inauguration ceremony would fail. With Hayes having been sworn in already in private this was assurred. Hayes took the oath again publicly on March 5 on the East Portico of the United States Capitol.

~1879 – The United States Geological Survey was created. (I am eternally grateful to them and their Public Domain photos!)

Seal of the
United States Geological Survey

Image courtesy (appropriately enough)
the United States Geological Survey


~1885 – In 1880, the management of American Bell created what would become AT&T Long Lines. The project was the first of its kind to create a nationwide long distance network with a commercially viable cost structure. This project was formally incorporated into a separate company named American Telephone and Telegraph Company on this date.

~1901 - Born this day: Claude Choules, at age 109 one of the last 3 World War I veterans in the world. He is also the last veteran in the world to have served in both world wars and the last seaman from the First, as of March 2010.

~1904 – (According to 2 different sources) Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany became the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using Thomas Edison's phonograph cylinder. (I'm gonna have to give that honor to Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 with his Parks Policy statement.)

~1907 - The SS Dakota was wrecked when she struck a reef off the coast of Yokohama on her 7th journey. The ship was close enough to shore to avoid any deaths and the passengers along with thecargo were evacuated before she sank. 80 bags of mail later washed ashore.

The SS Dakota

Artist unknown, as scanned from the June, 1905 edition of "Popular Mechanics" Magazine


~1915 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was founded. It was the predecessor of today's NASA.

~1918 – Germany, Austria and Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in World War I, and leading to the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

The signing of the treaty on March 3rd, 1918

Photo courtesy the Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), from the file Brest-Litovsk 15. Dezember 1917


~1923 – The first issue of TIME magazine was published.

Time magazine, Volume 1 Issue 1, March 3, 1923
The cover shows the Speaker of the United States House
of Representatives, Joseph Gurney Cannon

Image courtesy Time magazine archive


~1924 – The 1400 year old Islamic caliphate was abolished when Caliph Abdul Mejid II of the Ottoman Empire was deposed. The last remnant of the old regime gave way to the reformed Turkey of Kemal Atatürk.

~1931 – The United States officially adopted The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem by a congressional resolution.

~1938 – Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia. (Hmmm...this could prove troublesome down the road.)

~1940 – 5 people were killed, including 2 children, in an arson attack on the offices of the communist newspaper Norrskensflamman in Luleå, Sweden, another 5 persons were injured in the blaze. As well, the newspaper's offices were completely destroyed.

~1942 – The town of Broome, Western Australia was attacked by a force of 10 Japanese warplanes. At least 88 people were killed in the assault. Although Broome was a small pearling port at the time, it was also a refuelling point for aircraft, on route between the Netherlands East Indies and major Australian cities. As a result, Broome was on a line of flight for Dutch and other refugees, following the Japanese invasion of Java, and had become a significant Allied military base. During a 2 week period in February–March 1942, more than 8,000 refugees from the Dutch East Indies (many of them in flying boats, which often served as airliners at the time) passed through Broome.

A USAAF B-24 Liberator on fire at Broome Airfield following the attack

Photo courtesy the Australian War Memorial


~1943 – In London, 173 people died while trying to enter an air raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station. Families had crowded into the underground station due to an air raid siren. There was a panic coinciding with the sound of an anti-aircraft battery being fired at nearby Victoria Park. In the wet, dark conditions, a woman slipped on the entrance stairs and the 173 victims died in the resulting crush.

~1945 – The last pocket of Japanese resistance at the Finance Building, which was already reduced to rubble, was flushed out by heavy artillery, thereby ending the protracted Battle of Manila, in the Philippines. The American/Filipino victory was a costly one as large areas of the city had been leveled. The battle left 1,010 U.S. soldiers dead and another 5,565 wounded. An estimated 100,000 Filipinos civilians were killed, both deliberately by the Japanese and from artillery and aerial bombardment by the U.S. military force. About 12,000 Japanese soldiers died, mostly sailors from the Japanese Manila Defense Force.

Aerial view of the destroyed city of Manila (May 1945)

Photo courtesy the US Army


~1945 - The MiG I-250, the first foray into jet propulsion in a fighter by the Soviet Air Force, took to the air on its maiden flight. The Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau decided to focus on a design that used something more mature than the jet engine, which was still at an experimental stage in the Soviet Union, and chose a mixed-power solution with the VRDK motorjet powered by the Klimov VK-107 V12 engine. While quite successful when it worked, with a maximum speed of 820 km/h (510 mph) being reached during trials, production problems with the VRDK fatally delayed the program and it was canceled in 1948 as obsolete.

The dual powered MiG I-250
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/I-250_back.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy the Russian Air Force Archives

Diagram of the I-250's engine installations

Image courtesy Cholschtschewnikow WRDK


~1953 – A new Canadian Pacific Airlines De Havilland Comet 1A (CF-CUN), being delivered to Australia, failed to become airborne on takeoff from Karachi, Pakistan. The aircraft plunged into a dry drainage canal and collided with an embankment, killing all 5 crew and 6 passengers on board, the first ever fatal crash of a jet airliner.

~1958 – Nuri as-Said became the prime minister of Iraq for the 14th time. Only 4 months later, on July 15th, 1958 (the day after the republican revolution) he attempted to flee the country disguised as a woman, but was captured and killed. (Lord grant me the strength to not bat this one right out of the ballpark...)

~1961 – Hassan II ascended the throne of Morocco.

~1969 – NASA launched Apollo 9 to test the lunar module. Lunar Module pilot Rusty Schweickart tested several aspects critical to landing on the moon, including the LM engines, backpack life support systems, navigation systems, and docking maneuvers. The mission was the 2nd manned launch of a Saturn V rocket, and was the 3rd manned mission of the Apollo Program.

Apollo Lunar Module Diagram

Image courtesy NASA


~1972 – Mohawk Airlines Flt. 405, a Fairchild FH227B twin-engine turboprop, crashed into a house while on final approach to Albany International Airport, New York, killing 17 people including 1 on the ground and injured 35 others. It remains the deadliest air crash in the history of the Capital District as of March 2010.

~1974 – Turkish Airlines Flt. 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed just outside Senlis, France. Known as the "Ermenonville air disaster", from the forest where the aircraft crashed, the accident resulted in the deaths of all 346 on board. The crash of Flt. 981 was the deadliest air disaster of all time before the Tenerife Disaster in 1977, and remained the deadliest single-airliner disaster until the crash of Japan Airlines Flt. 123 in 1985. Flt. 981 has the highest death toll of any aviation accident in France and the highest death toll of any accident involving a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 anywhere in the world. The crash resulted from the failure of the rear cargo hatch latching system, which allowed the hatch to blow off in flight. The resulting decompression of the cargo hold caused the cabin floor above the hatch to collapse. The flight control cables for the airplane that ran through the floor were severed, leaving the pilots with almost no control over the aircraft.

~1980 – After 25 years of service the USS Nautilus, the world's first operational nuclear powered submarine and the first vessel to complete a submerged transit across the North Pole, was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. The Nautilus was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982. She has been preserved as a museum of submarine history in New London, Connecticut, where she receives some 250,000+ visitors a year.

USS Nautilus during her initial sea trials on January 20th, 1955

Photo courtesy the US Navy


~1985 - ABC Television premiered Moonlighting. Its run of 66 episodes lasted for 5 seasons. (I seem to recall that Bruce Willis still had hair back then, didn't he?)

~1991 – An amateur video captured the beating of Rodney King by 4 Los Angeles police officers. (This could prove to be troublesome, no?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROn_9302UHg


~1991 – United Airlines Flt. 585, a Boeing 737, crashed on approach into Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing all 25 aboard. The cause of the crash was determined to be the result of a sudden malfunction of the rudder power control unit.

~1997 – The tallest free standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, Sky Tower in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, opened after 2 1/2 years of construction.

Sky Tower illuminating the skyline of Aukland with its Christmas colors

Photo by K Vasir taken on December 16th, 2004


~2004 – Belgian brewer Interbrew and Brazilian rival AmBev merged (in a $11.2 billion deal) to form InBev, the world's largest brewer.

~2005 – The Mayerthorpe Incident: A crazed farmer murdered four Royal Canadian Mounted Police constables during a drug bust at his property in Rochfort Bridge, Alberta before committing suicide. It was the deadliest peace time incident for the RCMP since 1885 and the North West Rebellion.

~2005 – Steve Fossett became the first person to fly an airplane non stop around the world solo without refueling, in a time of 67 hours 1 minute. The flight speed of 590.7 km/h (342.2 mph) broke the Absolute World Record for the fastest nonstop unrefueled circumnavigation set by the previous Rutan designed Voyager aircraft at 9 days 3 minutes and an average speed of 186.11 km/h (115.65 mph).

Steve Fossett's GlobalFlyer on static display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia

Photo by someone calling him/herself Crypticfirefly (I don't make 'em up, I just post 'em...)

~2009 – A bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers, part of a larger convoy, was fired upon by 12 gunmen, near the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, Pakistan. The cricketers were on their way to play the third day of the second Test against the Pakistani cricket team. 6 members of the Sri Lanka national cricket team were injured. 6 Pakistani policemen and 2 civilians were killed. These were the first attacks on a national sports team since the Munich Olympics Massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants in 1972.

~2009 – The building of the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (Historical Archives) in Cologne, Germany, collapsed. It is generally believed that the construction of a new subway line of the Cologne Stadtbahn system was closely related to the collapse. Construction workers who built an underground switch facility noticed that water flooded the building pit. They quickly warned staff and visitors of the archive and told them to leave the building. Shortly afterwards, an underground landslide into the subway tunnel caused the archive building to collapse. 2 adjacent apartment buildings also collapsed, killing 2 residents. It is still not known exactly how many of the historical archives can be excavated safely and saved.

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~306 – The martyrdom (murder) of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia took place.

~561 – Died this day: Pope Pelagius I (b. circa 500)

~852 – Croatian Duke Trpimir I issued a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.

~1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa was elected King of Germany, at Franfurt.

~1193 – Died this day: Saladin, first Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt and Syria and leader of the Muslim and Arabs that recaptured Palestine from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. (b. 1137)

~1215 – King John of England made an oath to Pope Innocent III as a crusader to gain his support. (And the idiot actually believed a liar like John...)

~1238 – The Battle of the Sit River was fought in the northern part of the present day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol Hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol Invasion of Russia. (As usual, whenever the Russians went up against the Mongols, they got their Ruskie asses handed to them on a platter, in a BIG way. The battle marked the end of unified resistance to the Mongols and inaugurated 2 centuries of Mongol domination in modern day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.)

Bishop Cyril finds headless body of Grand Duke Yuri on the field of battle of the Sit River

Artist: Верещагин Василий Петрович (1835-1909)
(If you can pronounce that you're doing better than me...)


~1303 – Died this day: St. Daniel of Moscow, Grand Prince of Muscovy (b. 1261)

~1351 – Ramathibodi I ascended the throne of Siam.

~1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) became King consort by marrying King Jadwiga (a woman) of Poland.

~1461 – During the Wars of the Roses in England, Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by his Yorkist cousin.

~1461 - King Edward IV seized the throne of England after deposing his insane cousin, Henry VI.

~1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrived back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his first voyage to the Americas.

~1570 – King Philip II of Spain banned foreign Dutch students. (He was in a bit of a pissy mood that day...)

~1611 – George Abbot was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "[a] sincere but narrow-minded Calvinist". His brother Robert was Bishop of Salisbury.

~1629 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a Royal charter by King Charles I of England.

~1665 – English King Charles II declared war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

~1681 – Charles II granted a land charter to William Penn for the area that would later become Pennsylvania.

~1776 – Dorchester Heights, dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts, was captured from the British by American forces.

A 1913 potcard of the Dorchester Heights Memorial
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/DorchesterHeights.jpg (broken link)
Artist unknown, possibly Leroy Brule


~1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States met, putting the United States Constitution into effect.

~1791 – Vermont was admitted as the 14th state of the Union.

~1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. It deals with each state's sovereign immunity from being sued in federal court by someone of another state or country. This amendment was adopted in response to, and in order to overrule, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793).

~1804 – The shortlived Castle Hill Rebellion began. A large scale rebellion by Irish convicts against British colonial authority in the Australian Colony of New South Wales broke out.

The painting The Battle of Vinegar Hill, where several
hundred convicts broke out of Castle Hill prison farm
to take on the British redcoats

Artist unknown, possibly Beatrice Rawlings,
courtesy the National Library of Australia

~1813 – Russian troops, battling the army of Napoleon, reached Berlin in Germany only to have the French garrison evacuate the city without putting up a fight.

~1814 – A mounted American raiding party defeated an attempt by British regulars, volunteers from the Canadian militia and Indians to intercept them in the small-scale Battle of Longwoods. The engagement took place near Wardsville, in present day Southwest Middlesex, Ontario.

~1824 – The National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck was founded in Britain. It was later renamed The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, in 1858.

~1837 – Chicago was incorporated as a city.

~1863 – The Idaho Territory was created as a political division of the United States by an Act of Congress and signed into law by US President Abraham Lincoln.

~1865 – The 3rd, and last, national flag of the Confederate States of America was adopted. (Something about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind here...)

~1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland (measuring 1,710 feet long) was opened. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, drove home the last rivet which was gold plated and suitably inscribed.

The Forth Rail Bridge

Photo by Josh von Staudach

~1899 – Cyclone Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Australia and the surrounding region with winds up to 350 km/h (220 mph) and a devastating 12 metre (39 ft) storm surge that reached up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing 410. This is still the largest death toll of any natural disaster in Australian history.

~1902 – The American Automobile Association was founded in Chicago, Illinois as a response to a lack of roads and highways suitable for automobiles. The organization originally had 1000 charter members, generally auto enthusiasts. (Yeah, I know...us gearheads have been raising hell since way back in the day.)

~1908 – The Collinwood School Fire: One of the deadliest disasters of its type in the United States. 172 students, 2 teachers and a rescuer were killed in the conflagration in Collinwood, Ohio, a community that has since been absorbed into the city of Cleveland. While the Lake View School was built with load bearing masonry outer walls, much of the 4 story building's floor structure system used wooden joists. It was one of the wooden joists that caught fire when it was overheated by a steam pipe. The building’s main stair case extended from the front doors of the building, up to the 3rd floor; without the benefit of fire doors. The stairwell acted like a chimney, helping to spread the fire quickly. Oiled wooden hall and classroom floors also fueled the fire.

A 1909 postcard of the school after the blaze
Photographer unknown


~1918 – In the United States the first case of Spanish flu was observed at Fort Riley, Kansas. It was the start of the devastating worldwide pandemic.

Red Cross workers remove a flu victim in St. Louis, Missouri in October, 1918

Uncredited photographer for the St. Louis Post Dispatch


~1929 – Charles Curtis becomes the first native Indian Vice President of the United States. Curtis spent years of his childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation in Kansas.

~1933 – Frances Perkins became United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member appointed to the United States Cabinet.

~1941 – British forces launched Operation Claymore on Norway's Lofoten Islands. It was carried out by British Commando and Royal Naval units on the remote islands off the coast of Norway, just inside the Arctic Circle. The raid was conducted by approximately 1,000 men of No. 3 and No. 4 Commando, 52 Norwegians of Norwegian Independent Company 1 and demolition teams from the 55th Field Squadron Royal Engineers. The force made an unopposed landing and generally continued to meet no opposition. They achieved their objective of destroying fish oil factories and some 3,600 tonnes (800,000 gallons) of oil and glycerine, some of the oil being destined for use in munitions. Through naval gunfire and demolition parties, 18,000 tons of shipping were sunk. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the raid, however, was the capture of a set of rotor wheels for an Enigma cypher machine and its code books from the German armed trawler Krebs. This enabled German naval codes to be read at Bletchley Park, providing the intelligence needed to allow allied convoys to avoid U-boat concentrations.

The British destroyer HMS Legion stands offshore
while oil tanks burn during Operation Claymore

Photo by Royal Navy Lt. R G G Coote,
courtesy the Imperial War Museum


~1944 – Following the success of Big Week, the US 8th Air Force launched the first of several daylight bombing raids against Berlin. Fierce battles raged and resulted in heavy losses for both sides; 69 B-17s were lost but the Luftwaffe lost 160 aircraft. The Allies replaced their losses immediately whereas the Luftwaffe could not.

~1952 - Actor, and future US president, Ronald Reagan married actress Nancy Davis.

~1954 - The first flight of the incredible Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was made in the skies over southern California. The single-engined, high-performance, supersonic interceptor served with the US Air Force (USAF) from 1958 until 1967. It continued in service with Air National Guard units until it was finally phased out in 1975. When it was first introduced in 1958 it outclassed every other fighter in the world.

The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

Photo courtesy the US Air Force


~1960 – The French freighter La Coubre exploded in Havana, Cuba. At least 75 died and approximately 200 others were injured, with some sources giving figures that are much higher. Cuban Government spokesmen have occasionally put forward the claim that this event was an act of sabotage carried out by William Alexander Morgan acting on orders from the CIA. (Well of course they'd claim that! What in hell else would you expect them to use as an excuse?)

People near the Havana docks running from the La Coubre blast

Photo provided by Granma Internacional Digital
(No, I will not post linking information and access permissions
to your damned site!)

~1966 – Canadian Pacific Airlines Flt. 402, a Douglas DC-8-43 crashed on landing in Tokyo, Japan at Tokyo's Haneda Airport due to poor visibility. 64 of the 72 passengers and crew were killed.

~1970 – The French Navy submarine Eurydice exploded while diving in calm seas off Cape Camarat in the Mediterranean, 35 miles east of Toulon. A geophysical laboratory picked up the shock waves of the underwater explosion. French and Italian search teams found an oil slick and a few bits of debris, including a parts tag that bore the name Eurydice. The cause of the explosion was never determined. All 57 crew were lost.

~1977 – The Vrancea Earthquake occurred. It was felt throughout the Balkans, having a magnitude of 7.2 with its epicenter in Vrancea (in the Eastern Carpathians) at a depth of 94 kilometers. The quake killed 1,570 people and injured more than 11,000. Over 35,000 buildings were damaged, and the total damage was estimated in excess of $2 billion. Most of the damage was concentrated in Romania's capital, Bucharest, where 33 large buildings collapsed. Most of those buildings were built before World War II, however, and as such were not reinforced. Many of the historic buildings that collapsed were never rebuilt; instead, the land was cleared for the building of the Palace of the Parliament. After the earthquake, the Romanian government imposed tougher construction standards.

The Enei Church in Bucharest collapses following the
Vrancea Earthquake on March 4th, 1977

Photo by Radu Stefanescu


~1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe won a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister. (Even if the election was marked by intimidation from all sides, mistrust from security forces and reports of full ballot boxes found on the road...)

~1982 – NASA launched the Intelsat V-504 satellite.

~1984 - NASA launched the Intelsat V-508 satellite.

~1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 space probe began returning images of Comet Halley and the first images ever of its nucleus. The images showed the nucleus to be dark, and the infrared spectrometer readings measured a nucleus temperature of 300 K to 400 K, much warmer than expected for an ice body.

~1994 – Space shuttle Columbia was launched on mission STS-62. The primary payloads were the USMP-02 microgravity experiments package and the OAST-2 engineering and technology payload, both in the orbiter's cargo bay. The 2 week mission also featured a number of biomedical experiments focusing on the effects of long duration spaceflight.

~1998 – Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services: The US Supreme Court ruled that federal laws banning on the job sexual harassment also applied when both parties are the same sex.

~2001 – The Hintze Ribeiro Bridge Disaster: A bridge collapsed in northern Portugal, killing 70 people. Fast waters and a storm at the time gave no chance for an immediate rescue, and all of the victims drowned. Although the site of the accident was more than 30 kilometers (18 miles) away from the sea, the strong river current meant that bodies were found as far away as the north coast of Spain and France. The causes of the disaster have not yet been established. The bridge was more than 100 years old.

~2002 – The Battle of Takur Ghar, a short but intense military engagement between United States Special Operations Forces and al-Qaeda insurgents, was fought atop Takur Ghar mountain in Afghanistan. For the US side the battle proved the deadliest entanglement of Operation Anaconda, an effort early in the war in Afghanistan to rout al-Qaeda and Taliban forces from the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains. The battle saw 3 helicopter landings by the U.S. on the mountain top, each greeted by direct assault from Taliban forces. Although Takur Ghar was eventually taken, 8 US soldiers were killed and many more wounded.

~2005 – The car of a released Italian hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena, was fired upon by US soldiers after it allegedly ran a roadblock in Iraq, causing the death of an Italian Secret Service Agent and the wounding of Sgrena and another passenger. Sgrena later testified that US forces fired on the car without warning, this incident caused serious strain in the diplomatic relations between Italy and the United States.

~2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur but ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for genocide. Al-Bashir is, to date, the only sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~363 – Despite a series of omens against the campaign, Roman Emperor Julian left Antioch with an army of 90,000 troops to attack the Sassanid Empire. The endeavor would bring about his own death at Maranga, following the indecisive Battle of Samarra.

~1046 – Naser Khosrow began the 7 year Middle Eastern journey which he later described in his book Safarnama.

~1496 – King Henry VII of England issued letters patent to John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), authorizing him to set sail for and explore unknown lands.

~1624 - Legislation was passed in the Colony of Virginia that exempted members of the upper class from whippings and floggings. (Well, I should hope so! That sort of dehumanizing punishment was ALWAYS meant for only the lower classes, certainly not their betters...)

~1689 – Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham was named Secretary of State for the Northern Department. (Well, good for Mrs. Finch's charming little boy, Danny!)

~1766 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrived in New Orleans. The French colonists, however, refused to recognize Spanish rule and de Ulloa was expelled from Louisiana by a Creole uprising during the Louisiana Rebellion of 1768. (Sorry about that, Antonio. Hope you got to keep your pension...)

~1770 – The Boston Massacre: 5 Americans, including a young boy, were killed by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War 5 years later. (I dunno...doesn't seem to qualify as a bona fide massacre to me.)

This 19th century lithograph is a variation of Paul Revere's famous engraving
of the "Massacre"

Artist: John Henry Bufford (1810-1870), courtesy the Library of Congress


~1824 – The First Burmese War: The British officially declared war on Burma.

~1850 – The Britannia Bridge, across the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, was opened. For its time, it was a bridge of "magnitude and singular novelty", far surpassing in length contemporary cast beam or plate girder iron bridges. One aspect of its method of construction was also novel; the box sections were assembled on shore, then floated out into position before being lifted into place.

A postcard picture of the (first) Britannia Bridge (c. 1886)

Photo by Jochem Hollestelle (1842-1923)


~1868 – A court of impeachment was constituted in the United States Senate to hear charges against US President Andrew Johnson.

~1868 – Mefistofele, an opera by Arrigo Boito, premièred at La Scala in Milan under the baton of the composer himself, despite his lack of experience and skill as a conductor. The show was an utter disaster and was withdrawn after only 2 performances. A revised version was premiered in Bologna on October 4th, 1875 and was an immediate success.

~1872 – George Westinghouse was issued a patent for his air brake. By 1905, over 2,000,000 freight, passenger, mail, baggage and express railroad cars and 89,000 locomotives in the United States were equipped with the Westinghouse Automatic Brake. Today's modern train braking systems are still based on Westinghouse's 138 year old design.

~1904 – Nikola Tesla, in Electrical World and Engineer, described his theory on the process of the ball lightning formation.

A 1987 photo showing natural ball lightning
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cb/Ball_lightning_appears_cropped.jpg (broken link)
Photo by taken by an unknown student in Nagano, Japan


~1912 – Italian forces were the first to use airships for military purposes, employing them west of Tripoli for reconnaissance behind Turkish lines.

~1922 - 61 year old Annie Oakley broke all existing records for women's trap shooting when she hit 100 out of 100 targets.

~1933 – The Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions in order to stop large amounts of money from being withdrawn from banks.

~1936 - One of history's greatest aircraft, the Supermarine Spitfire, took to the skies over the English countryside on its maiden flight. It would become the backbone of the RAF's Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain and go on to fight for the rest of World War II and serve for years beyond. The Spitfire is generally acknowledged as one of 4 superfighters that flew during the Second World War.

Spitfire LF Mk XIIs of 41 Squadron over Sussex in June, 1943

Photo courtesy the Imperial War Museum


~1940 – The Katyn Massacre: Members of the Soviet politburo signed an order for the mass murder of thousands of Polish prisoners of war (primarily military officers), intellectuals, policemen, and other public servants by the Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps. The 21,768 victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkov prisons and elsewhere. (Yet another example of what a fine upstanding citizen of the world good old Uncle Joe Stalin truly was...)

~1943 – The first flight of the Gloster Meteor took place in Britain. It was the first RAF jet fighter and the Allies' first operational jet.

A Gloster Meteor Mk III over the English Channel in March, 1945

Photo courtesy the Royal Air Force


~1946 – Winston Churchill coined the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri when he said:
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow".

~1953 – Died this day: Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union (b. 1878) (*smiles* Yup...it was a damned good day on March 5th back in '53.)

~1958 – The Explorer 2 spacecraft was launched but failed to reach Earth orbit when the 4th stage of the Jupiter-C launch vehicle did not ignite.

~1958 - The first flight of the gorgeous swept wing Yakovlev ***-28 medium bomber took place in the Soviet Union. It entered service with the Soviet Air Force in 1960 and enjoyed a long and successful career until it was finally retired in 1992.

The ***-28
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/***-28i.jpg (broken link)
Photographer unknown, originally from the Soviet Air Force archives


~1963 - The Camden Tragedy: Country singing legend and all around total class act Patsy Cline died in a small plane, piloted by her manager Randy Hughes, when it crashed in a storm just outside of Camden, Tennessee. Aboard the plane with her were the noted singers Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins who, along with Hughes, also died in the crash.

Patsy Cline just prior to her death

Photo by Les Leverett, taken at WSM
studios in Nashville, 1963


Patsy on the Glenn Reeves Show 10 days before her death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG-8uZg2uV0

~1965 – The March Intifada: An uprising broke out in Bahrain that was led by the leftist groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain and the National Liberation Front. The groups called for the end of British presence in Bahrain. The spark that ignited the uprising was the laying off of hundreds of Bahraini workers at the Bahrain Petroleum Company. Several people died in the sometimes violent clashes between protesters and police.

~1966 – BOAC Flt. 911, a Boeing 707, crashed on Mount Fuji, Japan due to severe winds at altitude. All 124 aboard were killed.

~1970 – The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect after ratification by 43 nations. There are now 189 states party to the treaty, 5 of which are recognized as nuclear weapon states.

~1975 – The Homebrew Computer Club, an early computer hobbyist club in Silicon Valley, met for the first time. Several very high profile hackers and IT entrepreneurs emerged from its ranks, including the founders of Apple Inc.

~1978 – The Landsat 3 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Landsat program is the longest running enterprise for acquisition of Imagery of Earth from space. The first Landsat satellite was launched in 1972 and the most recent, Landsat 7, was launched on April 15th, 1999. The instruments on the Landsat satellites have acquired millions of images.

~1979 – NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter at 349,000 kilometres (172,000 miles).

Time lapse imagery of Voyager 1's approach to Jupiter

Images courtesy NASA


~1980 – Died this day: Jay Silverheels, Canadian actor, Tonto of The Lone Ranger fame (b. 1912).

~1982 – Died this day: John Belushi, American actor and comedian (b. 1949).

~1982 – The Soviet probe Venera 14 arrived at the planet Venus. After launch and a four month cruise to Venus the descent vehicle separated from the bus and descended to the Venusian surface. The lander sent back data for 57 minutes (the planned design life was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 465 °C and a pressure of 94 Earth atmospheres (9.5 MPa). The lander probably still rests on the surface of Venus today.

The Venera 14 orbiter and descent craft

Photo courtesy NASA


~1984 – In Britain, 6,000 miners began their strike at Cortonwood Colliery. The National Coal Board announced that the mine was due to close, this becoming the "final straw" which brought about the long running UK miners' strike of 1984–85.

~1998 - NASA announced that an orbiting spacecraft had located enough water on the moon to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.

~2003 – The Haifa Bus 37 Bombing: In Haifa, Israel, a suicide bomber from Hebron detonated a bomb hidden underneath his clothes on a bus carrying many children and teenagers on their way home from school. The bus exploded on Moriah Boulevard, near the neighborhood of Carmeliya in Haifa. 17 people were killed and 53 more were injured. Police said the bomb, strapped to the bomber's body, was laden with metal shrapnel in order to maximize the number of injuries. The bombing followed several weeks of violence in the occupied territories in which more than 40 Palestinians had been killed during Israeli army incursions into the Gaza Strip.

~2004 - Martha Stewart was found guilty of lying about the reason for selling 3,298 shares of ImClone Systems stock, conspiracy, making false statement and obstruction of justice. (Off to jail with you, Martha...the rough girls are waiting!)

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~1454 – Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledged allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agreed to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation's struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights.

~1475 - Born this day: Michelangelo, master Italian renaissance artist (d. 1564).

Portrait of Michelangelo in chalk

Artist: Daniele da Volterra (1509 - 1566)


~1521 – Ferdinand Magellan and his crew discovered the island of Guam.

~1788 – Royal Navy Lieutenant Philip Gidley King led a party of 15 convicts and 7 free men, including surgeon Thomas Jamison (the future Principal Surgeon of New South Wales), to take control of Norfolk Island in the South Pacific and prepare for its commercial development.

~1820 – The (2nd) Missouri Compromise was signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but made the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery free.

~1834 – York, in Upper Canada, was incorporated as the City of Toronto, reverting to its original native name. The population at the time was only 9,000.

~1836 – The Fall of the Alamo: After a 13 day siege by an army of 2,400 Mexican troops, the 182 Texas volunteers defending the Alamo were overwhelmed and killed to a man with the fall of the fort. The news sparked a panic and the Texian army, most settlers, and the new Republic of Texas government fled from the advancing Mexican Army.

The 1844 painting Fall of the Alamo

Artist: Theodore Gentilz (1819-1906)


~1836 – Died this day: Jim Bowie, American pioneer, soldier and creator of the Bowie Knife - at the Alamo (b. 1796)

~1836 – Died this day: Davy Crockett, American frontiersman and member of the U.S. House of Representatives - at the Alamo (b. 1786)

~1853 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata premiered in Venice's La Fenice Theatre, it was a dismal failure. A revised version was presented at Her Majesty's Theatre in London on May 24th, 1856 followed on December 3rd of that year by its premiere in New York. Today, the opera has become immensely popular and it is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire. It is third on Opera America's list of the 20 most performed operas in North America, behind only Madama Butterfly and La bohème.

~1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. The Court ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants (whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. As well, the ruling stated that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves, as chattel or private property, could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. (Whoa! I'm surprised that one didn't lead to a civil war or something...)

~1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev made a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society of the first periodic table, entitled The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements, which described elements according to both atomic weight and valence. (Somebody give that hippie a haircut and get him a razor!)

~1899 – Bayer registered Aspirin as a trademark.

~1900 - Died this day: Gottlieb Daimler, German industrialist, engineer and father of the modern internal combustion engine (b. 1834).

~1915 - The REO Motor Car Company introduced the legendary REO Speedwagon. The Speedwagon was the forerunner of today's pickup and its stunning sales success was soon copied by the competition, with 60 individual variations soon appearing. Over the years REO's Speedwagon continued to offer industry firsts such as electric starters and lighting, shaft driven axles, and pneumatic tires mounted on steel wheels. The company expanded the option list for its lightweight Speedwagons and added heavier versions with up to 2 tons of capacity. In reality, REO dominated the commercial truck field. More than 125,000 Speedwagons had been produced by 1925.

A 1917 3/4 ton REO Speed Wagon

Image scanned from a 1917 magazine ad


~1928 - A Communist attack on Peking, China resulted in 3,000 dead and caused over 50,000 to flee to Swatow.

~1934 - The Polikarpov I-16, a Soviet fighter aircraft of revolutionary design, entered into service. It was the world's first cantilever winged monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear. The I-16 formed the backbone of the Soviet Red Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter featured prominently in the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Khalkhin Gol and the Spanish Civil War.

An I-16 with Chinese insignia, flown by Chinese pilots and Soviet
volunteers during the Second Sino-Japanese War (c. June, 1938 )
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Soviet_volunteer.jpg (broken link)
Photographer unknown


~1935 - The Kawasaki Ki-10, the last biplane fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army, made its maiden flight in Japan. Though lightweight, adequately armed and highly maneuverable while still being moderately fast at just over 250 mph (403 km/h), it was rendered obsolete in only a couple of years by the more modern monoplane fighters of the day.

(Lousy) photo of an early Ki-10 (c. spring 1935)

Photo originally taken by the Japanese Imperial Army,
courtesy the Japanese National Archives
(Ya' need to take some photography lessons there, Louie.)


~1945 – Petru Groza assumed power as Prime Minister of the first Communist Party dominated governments under the Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania.

~1946 – Ho Chi Minh was forced to sign an agreement with France which denied Vietnam its independence but recogized it as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.

~1948 - The USS Newport News, a Des Moines-class heavy cruiser, was launched from Newport News, Virginia. She was the first air conditioned surface ship in the US Navy. (Drat that blasted heat while cruising on the ocean with its soothing breeze...WE NEED A/C DAMMIT!!!)

The USS Newport News underway in July 1949

Photo courtesy the US Navy


~1951 – The espionage trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg began.

~1953 – Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeded Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (One murderous goon replaces another...)

~1957 – The British colony of Gold Coast was granted its independence and took on the name of Ghana.

~1964 - Died this day: King Paul of Greece (b. 1901).

~1964 – Constantine II ascended the throne of Greece upon the death of his father, King Paul.

~1964 - The Soviet Air Force raised military eyebrows around the world with the maiden flight of the beautiful, yet extremely lethal, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat, a twin engined high supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance-bomber aircraft. The Foxbat entered into service in 1970 and is still active 46 years after first taking to the air.

A MiG-25 Foxbat of the Russian Air Force

Photo by Leonid Faerberg, taken on August 23rd, 2003


~1967 – Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the United States. Upon her April, 1967 arrival in New York City, Alliluyeva gave a press conference denouncing her father's regime and the Soviet government. (Well, ya' know, it's been 14 years now since Dad died and I've alway wanted to shop 5th Avenue. Plus that, I really dig the new '67 Chevy Camaro so I just sorta figured... )

~1970 – During preparations for the bombing of a Non Commissioned Officers’ (NCO) dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base and for Butler Library at Columbia University there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house of the Weather Underground when the nail bomb being constructed prematurely detonated for unknown reasons. 3 WUO members died in the explosion. (Awww...too bad, so sad, sucks to be an urban terrorist! See why you shouldn't play with things that go boom, kiddies?)

~1975 – For the first time ever, the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination was shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. The public's response and outrage to that first television showing quickly led to the forming of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, contributed to the Church Committee Investigation on Intelligence Activities by the United States, and resulted in the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation.

~1975 – The Algiers Accord: The Shah of Iran and Iraq's saddam Jussein announced a settlement of their long running border dispute. (Of course Saddam ordered an attack on Iran that started a bloody war over this very same supposedly settled dispute some years later but, after all, it was Hussein.)

~1981 – After 19 years of presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time with his farewell statement:
This is my last broadcast as the anchorman of The CBS Evening News; for me, it's a moment for which I long have planned, but which, nevertheless, comes with some sadness. For almost two decades, after all, we've been meeting like this in the evenings, and I'll miss that. But those who have made anything of this departure, I'm afraid have made too much. This is but a transition, a passing of the baton. A great broadcaster and gentleman, Doug Edwards, preceded me in this job, and another, Dan Rather, will follow. And anyway, the person who sits here is but the most conspicuous member of a superb team of journalists; writers, reporters, editors, producers, and none of that will change. Furthermore, I'm not even going away! I'll be back from time to time with special news reports and documentaries, and, beginning in June, every week, with our science program, Universe. Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away; they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is: Friday, March 6, 1981. I'll be away on assignment, and Dan Rather will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night.
(Damn but that guy was a class act!)

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009) speaking at a ceremony at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington on July 20th, 2004
celebrating the 35th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Photo by Bill Ingalls, courtesy NASA


~1983 – The first United States Football League game was played. (The United States Awful League is something I wish I could forget...)

~1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise, a roll-on roll-off (RORO) car and passenger ferry, capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, killing 193 of the 539 passengers and crew aboard. This was the worst maritime disaster involving a British registered ship in peacetime since the sinking of the HMS Iolaire in 1919.

~1988 – Operation Flavius: In Gibraltar, Special Air Service members were tasked with preventing a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb plot that had been discovered. 3 IRA Active Service Unit's (ASU) members conspired to detonate a car bomb where a military band assembled for the weekly changing of the guard at the governor’s residence. Although the operation was meant to be an arrest operation it ended with all 3 members of the ASU dead. (Refer to previous comment regarding too bad, so sad and things that go boom...)

~1992 – The Michelangelo Computer Virus began taking down computers worldwide.

~2006 – South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed legislation banning most abortions in the state.

~2007 – Former White House aide I. Lewis Libby, Jr. was found guilty on 4 of 5 counts: 2 counts of perjury, 1 count of obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation, and 1 of the 2 counts of making false statements to federal investigators.

~2008 – The Mercaz HaRav Shootings: A lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem, Israel. 8 students and the perpetrator were killed and 11 more were wounded, 5 of them in serious to critical condition.

...

[Da Grouch]

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~322 BC – Died this day: Aristotle, Greek philosopher (b. 384 BC).

~161 - Died this day: Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (b. 86).

~308 - Saint Eubulus was put to death at Caesarea Palestina. He had come from Magantia to visit the Christian congregation there. The judge who condemned him offered Eubulus the opportunity to go free if he sacrificed to an idol. Eubulus refused, and was executed.

~321 – Roman Emperor Constantine I decreed that the dies Solis Invicti (sun-day) was the day of rest in the Empire.

~1277 – Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, promulgated a Condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions (or articles) that addressed ideas and concepts which were being discussed and disputed in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris. (I suppose I should care about what a French critic from 733 years ago said, but...)

~1724 – Died this day: Pope Innocent XIII (b. 1655)

~1799 – The French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte captured Jaffa and ransacked it. Bonaparte, on discovering many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, ordered the garrison and 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save bullets. Men, women and children were robbed and murdered for three days.

~1814 – The Battle of Craonne was fought on the Chemin des Dames, in the département of Aisne. Napoleon's French army attacked a force more than twice its size consisting of Russian and Prussian troops under General Blücher. The result was yet another victory by Napoleon.

~1827 – During the Argentina-Brazil War (1825–1828), Brazilian troops attempted to take the naval base at Carmen de Patagones but they were repelled by the civilians. This date is still commemorated with a festival in the city.

~1827 – The Shrigley Abduction: 15 year old heiress Ellen Turner was abducted by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the High Sheriff of Cheshire who wanted to force her into marriage with him so he could access the family fortune. (Yeah, he must have been HIGH on something to think he'd get away with it...)

~1850 – Senator Daniel Webster gave his Seventh of March speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 which included the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; a law that required federal officials to recapture and return runaway slaves. Webster was bitterly attacked by abolitionists in New England who felt betrayed by his compromises. The Rev. Theodore Parker complained, "No living man has done so much to debauch the conscience of the nation." Horace Mann described him as being "a fallen star! Lucifer descending from Heaven!" James Russell Lowell called Webster "the most meanly and foolishly treacherous man I ever heard of." Webster never recovered the popularity he lost in the aftermath of the Seventh of March speech.

~1862 – The 2 day Battle of Pea Ridge began in northwest Arkansas, near Bentonville. Union forces led by Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis defeated Confederate troops under Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn. The outcome of the battle essentially cemented Union control of Missouri. One notable fact of this battle is that it was one of the few in which a Confederate army significantly outnumbered a Union army.

A lithograph of the Battle of Pea Ridge

Created by Kurz and Allison (c. 1862), courtesy the Library of Congress


~1876 – Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for an invention he called the telephone, an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically" (patent # 174,465).

Alexander Graham Bell with a prototype telephone in 1876. The single port design required
the user to alternately speak into and then listen through the same hole.
(Hey...that's just like talking to my ex wife!)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/1876_Bell_Speaking_into_Telephone.jpg (broken link)
Photographer unknown, courtesy the Early Office Museum


~1887 – The North Carolina General Assembly founded North Carolina State University, as a land grant college.

The first freshman class at North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1889

Photographer unknown, courtesy the North Carolina State University Special Collections Research Center


~1912 – When he arrived at Hobart, Australia, Roald Amundsen publicly announced that his expedition had reached the South Pole on December 14th, 1911.

~1913 - Died this day: (Emily) Pauline Johnson, famous Native Canadian writer and performer, notable for her poems and performances that celebrated her native heriitage (b. 1861).

The 1922 ceremony unveiling the Pauline Johnson monument at her burial site in
Vancouver's Stanley Park

Photographed by my grandfather, courtesy the City of Vancouver Archives


~1914 – Prince William of Wied arrived in Albania to begin his reign. Only 6 months later he left for exile.

~1936 – In direct violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler ordered the reoccupying of the Rhineland by German forces. Neither France nor Britain made an effort to stop him.

~1945 – During Operation Lumberjack, troops of the U.S. Army's 9th Armored Division reached the bridge at Remagen. It was one of the 2 damaged but intact bridges over the Rhine (a railway bridge in Wesel was the other one). This after German defenders failed to demolish it, despite several attempts. The fuses of the German explosives were cut by 2 Polish engineers from Silesia that had been forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht. US Army Sergeant Alexander A. Drabik of Holland, Ohio was the first American soldier to cross the bridge. In doing so he became the first American soldier to cross the Rhine River into Germany. Combat Command B of the 9th Armored was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for capturing the bridge at Remagen.

The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen on March 7th, 1945

Photo courtesy the US Army archives


~1951 – During the Korean War, Operation Ripper (which had begun the day before) gained momentum and made significant progress as United Nations troops led by General Matthew Ridgeway assaulted Chinese forces in the area around Soeul.

~1965 – Died this day: Louise Mountbatten, Consort queen of Sweden, wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden (b. 1889)

~1965 – Bloody Sunday (1 of at least 14 incidents that have had this stupid tag hung on them over the years): In Selma, Alabama a march by 600 civil rights protesters was forcefully broken up. A wall of Alabama state troopers began shoving the peaceful demonstrators after they had crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Many were knocked to the ground and then beaten with nightsticks. Another detachment of troopers fired tear gas as mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback. Brutal televised images of the attack, which presented people with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, roused support for the U.S. civil rights movement. Amelia Boynton was beaten and gassed nearly to death; her photo appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world. In all, 17 marchers were hospitalized.

Alabama state troopers attack civil rights
demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama
on March 7th, 1965

Photo courtesy the
Federal Bureau of Investigation


~1968 - During the Tet Offensive, the First Battle of Saigon ended with an American/South Vietnamese victory.

~1971 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered his historic "This time the struggle is for our freedom" speech at Ramna Race Course, calling upon the Bengali people to prepare for the freedom struggle ahead against the powerful political and military establishment of West Pakistan.

~1973 - Comet Kohoutek, formally designated C/1973 E1, was first sighted by Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek. It attained perihelion on December 28 that same year. Comet Kohoutek is a long period comet; its previous apparition was about 150,000 years ago, and its next apparition will be in about 75,000 years. Before its close approach, Kohoutek was hyped by the media as the "comet of the century". But because Comet Kohoutek fell far short of expectations, its name has become synonymous with spectacular duds. However, it was fairly bright as comets go and put on a respectable show in the evenings shortly after perihelion.

Photo of the comet Kohoutek, taken on January 11th, 1974 at the Catalina observatory

Photo courtesy NASA


~1983 - The Nashville Network (TNN) began broadcasting. In 2000, after an attempt to attract younger viewers failed, TNN's country music format was changed and the network was renamed The National Network, eventually becoming Spike in 2003.

~1984 - US backed forces attacked San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua.

~1986 – The Challenger Disaster: Divers from the USS Preserver located the crew cabin of the doomed Space Shuttle Challenger on the ocean floor off Florida. The ship later received a Navy Unit Commendation for the operation.

The USS Preserver off the Florida coast

Photo courtesy the US Navy


~1989 – Iran and Britain broke off diplomatic relations over Salman Rushdie and his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses.

~1994 – Copyright Law: In the case of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use. (And I smiled...)

~2001 - The SpongeBob SquarePants "You Wish" special aired on Nickelodeon TV. (Preschoolers still make note of this date!)

~2007 – British House of Commons voted in favor of making to make the upper chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected. (It hasn't happened yet...but they're working on it.)

...

[Da Grouch]

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~161 - Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus became co-Emperors of Rome following the death of Emperor Antonius Pius. This was an unprecedented political arrangement in the Roman Empire.

~1126 – Died this day: Queen Urraca of León (b. 1082).

~1126 – Alfonso VII ascended the throne of Castile and León upon the death of his mother Queen Urraca.

~1144 – Died this day: Pope Celestine II (b. circa 1082).

~1655 – John Casor became the first legally recognized slave in Britain's North American colonies. (Sorry about that, John...)

~1702 - Died this day: King William III of England and Ireland (b. 1650).

~1702 – Anne Stuart, sister of Mary II, ascended the throne as Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland upon the death of her cousin King William III. She was extremely popular with the English people during her short 12 year reign. (Of course, it didn't hurt that she was SMOKIN' HOT, either...)

Anne of Great Britain (1665-1714)

Michael Dahl's 1705 portrait, courtesy the
National Portrait Gallery in London


~1722 – The Battle of Gulnabad was fought between Afghani military forces and the army of the Persian Safavid Empire. The battle resulted in Afghanistan troops, under the Shah Mahmud, crushing the Persian force (more than 2 1/2 times its size and much better equipped) and controlling much of Persia. Persian Shah Hussain was taken captive during the battle causing the once wealthy and powerful Persia to fall into anarchy. Their cities were looted, their women of prominent families married off to powerful men from Afghanistan and the Persian bloodlines became blurred. This battle further cemented the eventual fall of the Persian Empire.

~1777 – Regiments from Ansbach and Bayreuth, sent to support Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, mutinied in the town of Ochsenfurt.

~1782 – The Gnadenhütten Massacre: At the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhütten, Ohio, 96 Indians who had converted to Christianity were tied, stunned with a mallet blow, and killed with a fatal scalping cut by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians. In all, 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children were murdered and scalped. Their bodies were piled in the mission buildings and the town was burned to the ground. Other abandoned Moravian towns were burned as well. 2 boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Although the identity of the perpetrators was known no criminal charges were ever filed.

~1817 – The New York Stock Exchange was created. The first central location of the Exchange was a room, rented in 1817 for $200 a month, located at 40 Wall Street.

~1827 - The Commonwealth of Virginia chartered the Baltimore an Ohio Railway. It was tasked with building a railroad from the port of Baltimore, Maryland west to a suitable point on the Ohio River. The railroad (formally incorporated on April 24th of that year) was intended to provide not only an alternative to, but also a faster route for Midwestern goods to reach the East Coast than the 7 year old hugely successful, but slow Erie Canal across upstate New York.

The familiar logo of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railway



~1844 - Died this day: King Karl XIV Johan of Sweden and Norway (b. 1763).

~1844 – King Oscar I ascended the the thrones of Sweden and Norway upon the death of his father King Karl XIV Johan.

~1862 – The iron-clad CSS Virginia (built using the remains of the scuttled USS Merrimack) was launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

The CSS Virginia

Wash drawing by Clary Ray, 1898, courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection


~1862 - The Battle of Hampton Roads: The newly launched iron-clad, CSS Virginia, took on the blockading wooden hulled Union fleet Off Sewell's Point, near the mouth of Hampton Roads, Virginia. While proving impervious to the Union cannonfire she sank the sloop-of-war USS Cumberland and the frigate USS Congress before attacking the USS Minnesota, which had run aground. Due to her deep draft and the falling tide, however, Virginia was unable to get close enough to be effective. Virginia retired with the expectation of returning the next day and completing the task. During the night, though, the iron-clad USS Monitor arrived and day 2 of the battle would be very different indeed. 241 Union seamen died as a result of Virginia's attack while she only lost 2 Confederate sailors.

The lithograph The sinking of the "Cumberland" by the iron clad "Merrimac," off Newport News Va. March 8th 1862

Created/Published by Currier & Ives


~1917 - The February Revolution broke out in Russia (February 23rd Old Style calendar).

~1917 – The U.S. Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting "cloture" in the form of Rule 22.

~1917 - The SS Storstad, made famous by her 1912 ramming of the RMS Empress of Ireland on the Saint Lawrence River, was torpedoed and sunk by U-62 off the southern coast of Ireland.

~1917 – Died this day: Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German aircraft manufacturer (b. 1838) (Hmmm...a busy day back in 1917!)

~1921 – Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato Iradier was assassinated as he exited the parliament building in Madrid.

~1924 – The Castle Gate Mine Disaster: In Utah, all of the 171 men working in the Castle Gate coal mine were killed in a series of 3 violent explosions deep within the mine. One worker, the leader of the rescue crew, died from carbon monoxide inhalation while attempting to reach the victims shortly after the explosion. Recovery of the bodies took 9 days and identification of the victims was only possible, in some cases, by recognizing familiar articles of clothing.

~1936 – The Daytona Beach Road Course held the first sanctioned stock car race in its history, a precursor to the Daytona 500. Daytona Beach officials enlisted local racer Sig Haugdahl to organize and promote the auto race along the 3.2-mile (5.1 km) course. Haugdahl is credited for designing the track.

~1942 – The Allied forces in Indonesia surrendered to the invading Japanese. The colonial army was consigned to detention camps but Indonesian soldiers were released. Most of European civilians were interned once Japanese or Indonesian replacements could be found for senior and technical positions.

~1942 - Rangoon, Burma fell to the invading Imperial Japanese Army.

~1943 - Japanese troops counter-attacked American forces on Hill 700 by Bougainville in a battle that lasted for 5 days.

~1957 – The 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, which petitioned the U.S. Congress to declare the ratification of the 14th & 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution null and void, was adopted by the state of Georgia. The Memorial, part of Georgia's "continuing battle for segregation," followed the Supreme Court's ruling, in Brown v. Board of Education, that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from discriminating against racial minorities in public schools.

~1959 - The Marx Brothers appeared in The Incredible Jewel Robbery, an episode of General Electric Theater, broadcast by CBS. It was the first appearance of all three Marx Brothers together (minus the retired Zeppo) since the film Love Happy in 1949, and it would prove to be their last joint TV appearance.

~1960 - The Saab J35 Draken supersonic fighter entered into service with the Swedish Air Force. It would fly for 39 years before finally being retired.

A line-up of J 35As

March 1975 photo by Towpilot


~1963 – The Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria in a Coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers. A National Revolutionary Command Council took control and assigned itself legislative power; it appointed Salah al-Din al-Bitar as head of a "national front" government. The Ba'ath participated in this government along with the Arab Nationalist Movement, the United Arab Front and the Socialist Unity Movement.

~1965 - 3,500 United States Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war in that country. U.S. public opinion at the time was overwhelmingly in support of the deployment.

~1966 – The 158 year old Nelson's Pillar in Dublin was blown up. A group of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers planted a bomb that destroyed the upper half of the pillar, throwing the statue of Nelson into the street and causing large chunks of stone to be thrown around. Fortunately there were no injuries.

Nelson's Pillar, Dublin c. 1830) .

Drawn by George Newenham Wright, as published in 1831


~1973 - The Whiskey Au Go Go Fire: A firebombing occurred at 02:10 a.m. in the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. It resulted in the deaths of 15 patrons and staff making it one of the worst mass murders in modern Australia. The fire began with the ignition of two 23 litre (6 gal.) drums of diesel fuel in the building's foyer. The drums were thrown into the foyer and then ignited by a lit torch thrown through the open door. Once ignited the burning diesel sent carbon monoxide up to the club's main room on the first floor. Large quantities of grease had been smeared over the stairs of the building's rear fire escape and the door of the fire escape had also been greased. The 15 people killed had died of asphyxiation as they struggled to open the greased fire escape doors. However, police believed that had they been able to open the doors they would have slipped and fallen down the steel stairs. 2 men were later convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison.

~1974 – Charles de Gaulle Airport opened in Paris, France. The planning and construction phase of what was known then as Aéroport de Paris Nord (Paris North Airport) had begun in 1966.

~1978 – The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Despite a low key launch of the series (the first episode was broadcast at 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night) it received generally good reviews and a tremendous audience reaction for radio.

~1979 – Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

~1983 – US President Ronald Reagan first called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" during a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida.

~1985 – The 1985 Beirut Car Bombing: A car bomb exploded in a failed assassination attempt on Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut, Lebanon. The blast killed at least 80 and injured more than 200 others.

~1999 – The Supreme Court of the United States denied the appeal for the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City Bbombing. McVeigh's request for a nationally televised execution was also denied.

~2004 – A new constitution was signed by Iraq's Governing Council. (That and $1.35 will get you a stale coffee down at the Exxon gas bar.)

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[Da Grouch]

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~141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumed the throne over the Han Dynasty of China. Emperor Wu is best remembered for the vast territorial expansion that occurred under his reign, as well as the strong and centralized Confucian state he organized. He is cited in Chinese history as the greatest emperor of the Han dynasty and one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history.

~1202 – Died this day: King Sverre of Norway (b. circa 1148).

~1230 – A Bulgarian force of only 25,000, led by Tsar Ivan Asen II, fought the 85,000 man army of Theodore of Epirus at the Battle of Klokotnitsa. Completely outclassed by the tactical moves of Ivan, the Epirotians were thoroughly and completely defeated. Only a small force under the despot's brother Manuel managed to escape the battlefield. The rest were killed in the battle or captured, including the royal court of Epirus and Theodore himself.

~1276 - Augsburg, Bavaria was decreed an Imperial Free City.

~1440 - Died this day: Saint Frances of Rome (b.1384).

~1500 – The 13 ship fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral left Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet discovered Brazil which laid within the boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

Replica of Pedro Álvares Cabral's ship Anunciação at Campinas, Brazil

Photo by Paulo Carmona taken in 2006


~1566 – David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was murdered in the queen's presence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland.

~1765 - After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerated Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge (largely due to his being a Protestant) although his son had actually committed suicide.
~1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte married his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.

~1841 - The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the Amistad case concerning captive Africans who, in 1839, had seized control of the slave trading ship Amistad carrying them. The court ruled that they had been taken into slavery illegally.

~1842 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, premièred at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Its success established Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.

~1847 – The first large scale amphibious assault in U.S. history was launched in the Siege of Veracruz during the Mexican-American War.

The 1851 engraving Battle of Veracruz during the Mexican-American War

Artist: Adophe Jean-Baptiste Bayot (1810-1866)
(As originally published in The War Between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated, 1851)


~1862 – The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought to a draw on the 2nd day of the Battle of Hampton Roads. It was history's first battle between two ironclad warships.

The lithograph Terrific combat between the "Monitor" 2 guns & "Merrimac" 11 guns: in Hampton Roads March 9th, 1862

Published by Currier & Ives


~1888 – Died this day: William I, King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany (b. 1797).

~1896 – Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigned following the Italian loss (read: humiliating defeat) at the Battle of Adowa.

~1905 - The Russo-Japanese War: All but encircled by Japanese forces at the Battle of Mukden, and with no hope for victory, Russian General Kuropatkin gave the order to retreat to the north. The Russian withdrawal was complicated by General Nozu's breach through Russian rearlines over the Hun River, and quickly turned into a rout. The panicked Russian forces abandoned their wounded, weapons and supplies in their flight north towards Tiehling.

The retreat of the Russian Army after the Battle of Mukden

Photographer unknown, published by P. F. Collier & Son


~1910 – The Westmoreland County Coal Strike began. At its height, the strike encompassed 65 mines and 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers. 16 people were killed during the strike, nearly all of them striking miners or members of their families. The strike ended on July 1st, 1911 as a defeat for the union.

~1916 – Pancho Villa led 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, which was garrisoned by a detachment of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment. Villa's force burned a part of the town and killed 7 or 8 soldiers and 10 residents before retreating back into Mexico. United States President Woodrow Wilson responded to the Columbus raid by sending 10,000 troops under Brigadier General John J. Pershing to Mexico to pursue Villa. This was known as the Punitive Mexican Expedition, or, the Pancho Villa Expedition. The expedition was eventually called off after failing to find Villa, who had successfully escaped.

~1925 – Pink's War: An air to ground bombardment and strafing carried out by the Royal Air Force, under the command of Wing Commander Richard Charles Montagu Pink, began against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan.

~1933 – The Emergency Banking Act was passed. Submitted to Congress by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was the first of his New Deal policies.

President Roosevelt signs
the act on March 9th
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/FDRbankingact.jpg (broken link)
Photo courtesy the
US Government National Archives


~1934 – Born this day: Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut and the first human in space (d. 1968)

~1945 - Operation Meetinghouse: A B-29 Superfortress task force consisting of 335 planes took off to raid Tokyo, leading to 279 of them dropping over 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs on the Japanese capital. 14 B-29s were lost in the attack but approximately 25% (16 sq mi - 41 km²) of the city was destroyed and some 100,000 people are believed to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombs.

~1954 – McCarthyism: CBS television broadcast the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly & Edward R. Murrow (who hosted). This show has often been referred to as television's finest hour.

~1956 – The Soviet military suppressed mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy. (These Georgian morons were against the dismantlantling of Stalin's bloody and oppressive authoritarian state.)

~1957 – A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the Andreanof Islands, Alaska triggered a Pacific wide tsunami causing extensive damage to Hawaii and Oahu. No deaths resulted from either the quake or the tsunami.

~1959 – The Barbie doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

~1964 - The very first Ford Mustang rolled off the Ford assembly line at Dearborn, Michigan.

The First Mustang produced, on display at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
This is Mustang serial number 1

Photo by Doug W


~1967 – Trans World Airlines Flt. 553, a Douglas DC-9, crashed into a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron 55 that was not under air traffic control.All 25 aboard the airliner died, as did the pilot of the Beechcraft.

~1975 - Construction began on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

~1976 – 42 people died in the Cavalese Cable Car Disaster, the world's worst cable car accident to date. In the subsequent inquest it was found that two steel cables crossed and one severed the other. The automatic safety system which could have prevented disaster had been switched off.

~1977 – The Hanafi Muslim Siege: In a 39 hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seized 3 Washington, D.C., buildings, taking 149 others hostage. 2 people were killed in the incident. That the toll was not higher was due largely to the courageous intervention of three Muslim ambassadors, Egypt's Ashraf Ghorbal, Pakistan's Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan and Iran's Ardeshir Zahedi.

~1981 - Dan Rather anchored the CBS Evening News for the first time.

~1987 - The Irish rock band U2 released their milestone album The Joshua Tree.

~1989 – As a result of a strike, weakened airline structure, inability to compete after deregulation and other financial problems, Eastern Air Lines filed for bankruptcy protection.

~1993 - Rodney King testified at the federal trial of 4 Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating King's civil rights when they beat him during an arrest. 2 of the 4 were subsequently convicted and sentenced to 30 months imprisonment.

~1996 - Died this day: George Burns, American actor, singer and husband of Gracie (b. 1896).

~1997 – Comet Hale-Bopp: Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia were treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permitted Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day.

Comet Hale-Bopp's sodium tail

Photo by the European Hale-Bopp team


~1999 - Nicole died.

~2005 - Dan Rather anchored the CBS Evening News for the last time.

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