March 29 is “Good Friday” in 2024.
National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day
1638 – Swedish colonists establish the first European settlement in Delaware, naming it New Sweden.
Birthday of John Tyler (March 29, 1790), tenth president of the U.S.
Points of Interest about John Tyler:
- Tyler was the first vice-president to become President due to the death of a president, (William Henry Harrison)
- Tyler was the first president to have impeachment proceedings begun against him.
- Tyler was the first president to have Congress override his veto.
- Tyler was the first president whose wife died while he was in office. (Letitia)
- Tyler was the first president to marry while in office. (Julia)
- Tyler was the only president to hold office in the Confederacy.
- Five years after leaving office, Tyler was so poor he was unable to pay a bill for $1.25 until he had sold his corn crop.
- The tradition of playing “Hail to the Chief” whenever a president appears at state functions was started by Tyler’s second wife, Julia.
- He was nicknamed “His Accidency” due to the way in which he assumed office.
- According to the Census of 1840, the U. S. population was at 17 million people, including 14 million whites and 2.8 million blacks, free and slave
- Tyler fathered 15 children, 8 with Letitia and 7 more with Julia.
1806 – Construction was authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.
Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the British North America Act which established the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867.
Dr. John Pemberton brewed the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia on March 29, 1886.
1936 – In Germany, Adolf Hitler received 99% of the votes in a referendum to ratify Germany’s illegal reoccupation of the Rhineland, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters.
On 7 March 1936, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, German troops marched into the Rhineland and other regions along the Rhine. This was the first of the aggressive military actions of Nazi Germany that contributed to the outbreak of World War II.
1961 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.
Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors District and perform such other duties as prescribed in the twelfth article of amendment.
Vietnam Veterans’ Day; the anniversary of the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam in 1973