Tidbits of History

Girl Scouts Day; anniversary of the founding in 1912
National Alfred Hitchcock Day
Plant a Flower Day
Katie Fisher Day – pick someone you love and bake them cookies.
National Milky Way Day

Publication of Federalist Paper #68: The Mode of Electing the President written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788.

From www.gradesaver.com

This paper presents one of the more peculiar aspects of the American Constitution: the electoral college. Although in modern American politics, the electoral college is seen by some as an archaic and unnecessary relic of an earlier time, it illustrates the founders’ fundamental concerns about stability.

One of the inherent weaknesses in a government based on the will of the people is the potential for mob rule. This was often the downfall of direct democracies, where all the people decided on public matters directly rather than through representatives. In designing the electoral college, the founders sought to insulate the selection of president from the convulsions of the multitudes. The college was essentially an extra layer of security helping to guarantee that the president would be a truly capable individual.

Birthday of Jane Pierce (March 12, 1806), wife of Franklin Pierce; first lady 1853-1857. Franklin and Jane Pierce had 3 sons. The first, Franklin, died when 3-days old; the second, Frank, died of typhus at 4-years old. The third, Benjamin, died at age 12 in a train accident on the way to Washington for his father’s inauguration.

Birthday of Jane Delano (March 12, 1862), founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service.

March 12, 1913 – Canberra was officially named.
According to Wikipedia, the word “Canberra” may be derived from the words used by the indigenus peoples to mean “meeting place”. Or, the translation is “woman’s breasts” and is the Indigenous name for the two mountains, Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie which lie almost opposite each other. In the 1860s, the name was reported to be an anglicization of the indigenous name meaning “hollow between a woman’s breasts”, and referring to the Sullivans Creek floodplain between Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain.

Alternatively,it was noted that Joshua John Moore, the first settler in the region, named the area Canberry in 1823 stating that “there seems no doubt that the original was a native name, but its meaning is unknown.”…In 1920, some of the older residents of the district claimed that the name was derived from the Australian Cranberry which grew abundantly in the area, noting that the local name for the plant was canberry.

1918 – Moscow became the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for 215 years.

1930 – Mahatma Gandhi led a 200-mile march, known as the Salt March, to the sea in defiance of British opposition, to protest the British monopoly on salt.

March 11 is:

National “Eat Your Noodles” Day According to Jamie Geller.com: Legend has it that noodles were first made by 13th century German bakers who fashioned dough into symbolic shapes, such as swords, birds and stars, which were baked and served as bread. In the 13th century, the Pope set quality standards for pasta.

1302 Romeo & Juliet‘s wedding day, according to Shakespeare

Publication of Federalist Paper #67: The Executive Department written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788.

from www.gradesaver.com/the-federalist-papers/study-guide/

“This is the first of eleven papers in which Hamilton defends the office of the presidency as described in the proposed constitution. The presidency was perhaps the most controversial aspect of the proposed form of government. Anti-federalists accused the federalists of seeking to recreate a monarchy through the creation of a president with extensive executive powers. These claims were particularly worrisome to the American people since they had just fought a war to rid themselves of a monarchy they considered tyrannical.

“Hamilton does not offer his opponents the benefit of the doubt. He questions not only the soundness of their arguments but also the goodness of their intentions. His strategy in this paper is to show, in exhaustive detail, that his opponents are purposely misinterpreting and distorting the meaning of the Constitution in order to convince the American people that it will lead to a despotic, tyrannical form of government.”

1818 – Mary Shelley’s book “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus” was published. (Prometheus was a Greek Titan credited with creating man and giving fire to mankind. I read that Mary Shelley was a vegetarian and blamed Prometheus for giving man fire, thus allowing people to eat meat.)
Frankenstein is now in the public domain and can be read at our site NextDoor eStore.com

Johnny Appleseed Day; anniversary of the death of John Chapman in 1845, known as Johnny Appleseed. He was an American pioneer nurseryman and missionary who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples.

1901 – U.S. Steel was formed when industrialist J.P. Morgan purchased Carnegie Steel Corp. The event made Andrew Carnegie the world’s richest man.

1918 First confirmed cases of the Spanish Flu in the US were reported at Fort Riley, Kansas. It is believed to have spread by soldiers traveling from fort to fort. Per Wikipedia: “The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic. Probably 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million (three to five percent of Earth’s population at the time) died, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.”

By contrast WHO reports 6,859,093 deaths worldwide from Covid-19. (if their statistics mean anything).

1941 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan. A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $656 billion today) worth of supplies were shipped.

March 11, 1985 – Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union.

1986 – Popsicle announced its plan to end the traditional twin-stick frozen treat for a one-stick model.

March 10 is:

National Ranch Dressing Day
International Bagpipe Day
International Day of Awesomeness Some of you may be wondering how, precisely, the date was chosen for this auspicious holiday. Well, for those who know the Patron Saint of Awesomeness, it should be no surprise that the date chosen was that of Chuck Norris. After all, there are few as awesome as this incredible martial-artist and inspiration. Not long after the inception of the holiday came the motto: “No one is perfect, but everyone can be awesome”. This is the kind of encouragement you need when your day is spinning around the drain; just remember: The truly awesome are those who take a situation that’s getting wildly out of control and turn it to their advantage.

1681-English Quaker William Penn received charter from Charles II, making him sole proprietor of the colonial American territory, Pennsylvania.

“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine was published in 1776.

Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, Missouri, on March 10, 1804, a formal ceremony was conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican–American War in 1848.

1849 Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent; only U.S. president to do so. He invented a mechanism to lift boats over shoals and obstructions in a river.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful telephone call by saying “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”

Anniversary of the arrival of the Salvation Army in the U.S. in 1880

In 1893, New Mexico State University (then known as New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts), canceled its first graduation ceremony. Its only graduate, 17 year old Sam Steele, was robbed and killed the night before.

March 10, 1942 Happy Birthday to me! (and on the International Day of Awesomeness!)

March 10, 1977 – Astronomers discovered rings around the planet Uranus. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has 13 faint rings and 27 small moons. But a characteristic that sets Uranus apart: It spins on its side as it orbits the sun.

March 9 is:

National Crab Day

National Panic Day

Amerigo Vespucci Day honoring the fifteenth-century Italian navigator and cartographer for whom the Americas were named. He is known for demonstrating that the New World was not Asia but a previously unknown fourth continent.

The United States v. The Amistad In 1839, a group of slaves aboard the Spanish ship Amistad rebelled and took control of the vessel. They were eventually captured and brought to the United States, where they argued that they were free people who had been wrongfully kidnapped and sold into slavery. This case was one of the first times that slavery was questioned in court.

The United States v. The Amistad tested the issue of whether the United States could seize slave ships from foreign countries on behalf of slaves being transported illegally or if they were protected property under Spanish and Cuban law.

The United States eventually won the case, with the court ruling that the slaves were illegally transported and thus were not protected by international law. They were ordered to be freed and returned to Africa. This case was an important step in the fight against slavery and helped to lay the groundwork for future abolitionist movements.

Anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the engagement between the first American ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack) on March 9, 1862.

1907 The first involuntary sterilization law was enacted in Indiana. The law provided for the involuntary sterilization of “confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles and rapists.”

March 9, 1959 – The first Barbie dolls were sold. Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

Per Wikipedia:

Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children’s toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel’s directors.

During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel… Lilli was a blonde bombshell, a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately.

Upon her return to the United States, Handler reworked the design of the doll (with help from engineer Jack Ryan) and the doll was given a new name, Barbie, after Handler’s daughter Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. This date is also used as Barbie’s official birthday.

March 7 is:

National Cereal Day

322 BC – Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, died. He had been a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander, the Great. His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government – and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy.

In 1530, King Henry VIII‘s divorce request was denied by the Pope. Henry then declared that he, not the Pope, was supreme head of England’s church.

In 1644 Massachusetts established the first 2-chamber legislature in the colonies.

Captain James Cook first sighted the Oregon coast at Yaquina Bay in 1778.

Publication of Federalist Paper #65: The Powers of the Senate. This and all of the remaining Federalists Papers were written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788. In Paper #65 Hamilton explained why delegates to the Constitutional Convention decided that the power of impeachment belonged in the Senate. Articles of Impeachment would originate in the House and a trial would be held in the Senate.

Charles Miller patented 1st U.S. sewing machine to stitch buttonholes in 1854. In his patent specification, Miller describes the three different stitches, “button-hole stitch, whip stitch or herring-bone stitch,” that can be mechanically sewn to finish the buttonhole.

Baseball, in 1857, decided 9 innings constituted an official game, not 9 runs.

Birthday of Maurice Joseph Ravel (March 7, 1875), French composer of Bolero

Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876.

March 7, 1912 – Roald Amundsen announced that his Norwegian expedition successfully reached the South Pole on December 14 of the previous year.

1933 – The board game Monopoly was invented and trademarked by Charles Darrow in Atlantic City. From Today in Science, “it was preceded by other real estate games. The first, called The Landlord’s Game, was invented by Lizzie Magie of Virginia (patented 1904). In it, players rented properties, paid utilities and avoided “Jail” as they moved through the board. Darrow set about creating his own version, modeled on his favorite resort, Atlantic City. He made numerous innovations for his game, which had a circular, cloth board. He color-coded the properties and deeds for them, allowing them to be bought, not just rented. The playing pieces were modelled on items from around his house. It was mass marketed by Parker Brothers in 1935.”

March 6, 2024 is:

National Shortbread Day
National Oreo Day

03-06-1475 -Birthday of Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance; famous for his statue of David and for painting the Sistine Chapel.Examples of his works may be viewed at Wikiart.

Birthday of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806), English poet and wife of Robert Browning, author of “How Do I Love Thee?”

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

1820 – The Missouri Compromise was signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brought Maine into the Union as a free state, and made the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.

1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo – After a thirteen day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and Colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo were killed and the fort was captured.

1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case.

• Any person descended from Africans, whether slave or free, is not a citizen of the United States, according to the Constitution.
• The Ordinance of 1787 could not confer either freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory to non-white individuals.
• The provisions of the Act of 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise, were voided as a legislative act, since the act exceeded the powers of Congress, insofar as it attempted to exclude slavery and impart freedom and citizenship to non-white persons in the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase.

1899 – Bayer registered “Aspirin” as a trademark.

1951 – The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg began. They were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war and were executed.

1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village killed three. The Weather Underground was an American radical left organization founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Their goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party for the overthrow of the US government. One of the leading members of the Weather Underground was Bill Ayers. On March 6, 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 when the nail bomb being constructed prematurely detonated for unknown reasons.