Tag Archives: Tidbits for this day in history

National Oysters on the Half Shell Day

National Clam Day

Bunsen Burner Day celebrates the birthday of its creator, German chemist, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard von Bunsen, who was born on March 31, 1811.

1492 –The joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) issued the Alhambra decree, ordering 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.

Birthday of René Descartes (1596), French philosopher. “I think, therefore I am.”

Birthday of Franz Joseph Haydn (March 31, 1732), Austrian composer. An Austrian composer of the Classical period, he was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio. His contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets “Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet”.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower was opened to the public. It commemorates the French Revolution.

Transfer Day, a holiday in the Virgin Islands commemorating the purchase of the islands by the U.S. from Denmark on March 31, 1917.

1918 – Daylight saving time went into effect in the United States for the first time.

1949 – The Dominion of Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation and became the 10th Province of Canada.

1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

Birthday of Cesar Chavez (March 31, 1927), Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader, and activist. Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California, Colorado, and Texas.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma! ,” premiered in NYC in 1943. It was their first musical. It was based on a play by Lynn Riggs, Green Grow the Lilacs. Oklahoma! ran for over five years, a Broadway record that “would not be bested until My Fair Lady in 1956. The film adaptation in 1955 starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Songs from Oklahoma! include: “Oh, what a beautiful morning”; “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top”; “People Will Say We’re in Love”; and, of course, “Oklahoma!”.

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

March 27 is National Joe Day: Celebrated in honor of all the people with the name or nickname of “Joe”. According to the Social Security Administration the name Joseph was the 5th most used in the United States.

1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reached the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.

Birthday of the U.S. Navy as established by President Washington in 1794. The United States Government established a permanent navy and authorized the building of six frigates.

The Navy Theme Song is “Anchors Away”
The refrain is:

Anchors Away, my boys,
Anchors Aweigh.
Farewell to foreign shores,
We sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay.
Through our last night on shore,
Drink to the foam,
Until we meet once more,
Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home.

Birthday of Nathaniel Currier (March 27, 1813), American publisher and founder of Currier & Ives, printmakers

1814 – War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre – Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texas captured prisoners at Goliad, Texas, March 27, 1836.

1886 – Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrendered to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.

First Lady Helen Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first flowering cherry trees in Washington, D.C. in 1912.

Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, was put in quarantine in 1915, where she would remain for the rest of her life. She died in 1938.

1958 – Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States in 1998. Men with heart conditions should not use Viagara. Unfortunately when Viagra and Nitroglycerin are taken too close together they can cause an irreversible drop in bloodpressure and sudden death.

March 26 is National Nougat Day

Varieties of nougat are found in:
3 Musketeers, Mars, Snickers, Milky Way, Zero, Salted Nut Rolls, Reese’s Fast Break, Reese’s Whipps, Baby Ruth, and others.
There are three basics kinds of nougats:

1. White nougat – made with beaten egg whites and honey.
2. Brown nougat – made without egg whites and has a firmer, often crunchy texture.
3. Viennese or German nougat – chocolate and nut praline

Publication of Federalist Paper #75: The Treaty-Making Power of the Executive written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788.

From www.teaparty911.com

A president acting alone and soon to be out of office and of slender means might be subject to monetary influence from foreign powers. Human history suggests it would not be wise to entrust so delicate and momentous an intercourse with the rest of the world to the sole disposal of the chief magistrate. To have entrusted the treaty making power to the senate alone would have deprived it of the benefits of the constitutional agency of the president in the conduct of foreign negotiations. The security of the people is best served by the combination of the senate and the president.

Congress ordered removal of Indians east of Mississippi to Louisiana in 1804.

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

1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts.designed to help incumbents win re-election.

Death of Ludwig van Beethoven (Mar 26, 1827), His dying words were “Applaud, friends, the comedy is finished.”

March 26, 1830 – The Book of Mormon was published in Palmyra, New York.

1872 Thomas J. Martin patented fire extinguisher.

Birthday of Robert Frost (1874), American poet, remembered for “A Road Not Taken” and “Stopping By Woods” (“I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.”.)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

On March 26, 1910, The U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the 1907 Immigration Act that barred criminals, paupers, anarchists and carriers of disease from settling in the U.S.

Congress appropriated $50,000 for Inter-American highway March 26, 1930.

Spinach growers in Crystal City, TX, (Spinach capital of the world) erected a statue of Popeye in 1937.

1958 – US Army launched America’s third successful satellite, “Explorer III“

“The Young and The Restless” aired for the first time in 1973.

1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C..

March 24 is:

National Cake Pop Day

Feast day of Saint Gabriel, archangel of the Annunciation; patron saint of postmen, messengers, radio, telegraph, and telephone workers.

March 24, 1603 – Queen Elizabeth I of England died at age 69, without children. Her cousin, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England.

Roger Williams was granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island on March 24, 1664. He was an early proponent of religious freedom and of the separation of church and government. He asserted that the civil magistrates must not punish any sort of “sins” such as idolatry, false worship, and blasphemy.

The Acts of Union 1707 was signed, officially uniting the Kingdoms of England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Britain enacted Quartering Act of 1765 which required colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers. When 1500 British troops arrived at New York City in 1766, the Assembly refused to comply with the Quartering Act and would not provide housing for the troops.

In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tarred and feathered Mormon leader Joseph Smith on March 24, 1832.

In 1837, Canada gave its black citizens the right to vote

On March 24, 1874, Harry Houdini, the Hungarian-born magician and escape artist, was born.

The Planet Pluto (discovered February 18, 1930) was named after the god of the underworld. Pluto has five known natural satellites (moons): Charon, first identified in 1978 by astronomer James Christy; Nix and Hydra, both discovered in 2005, Kerberos, identified by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011, and Styx, discovered in 2012. In 2006 Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

Elvis Presley joined the army (serial number 53310761) on this day in 1958.

March 24, 1989 – The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground at Prince William Sound in Alaska, causing a devastating oil spill.

March 23 is National Chips and Dip Day

George Frideric Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” premiered in London on March 23, 1743.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivered his speech – “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” – at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace – but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

In 1801, Tsar Paul I of Russia was struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death inside his bedroom at St. Michael’s Castle. He had been Tsar for only five years. Court physician, James Wylie, declared apoplexy the official cause of death.

Lewis and Clark reached Pacific coast on March 23, 1806. They had left St. Louis in May, 1804.

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

Dixie Cup invented by Lawrence Luellen in 1912 when he became concerned about germs being spread by people sharing glasses or dippers at public supplies of drinking water.

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

Pakistan became the first Islamic republic in the world in 1956. (Republic Day in Pakistan)

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

March 23, 2013 – By a margin of 50-49, the U.S. Senate passed its first budget in four years.

March 22 is National Water Day

Birthday of Sir Anthony VanDyck (1599), Flemish painter. The Van Dyke beard is named after him. Examples of his work can be viewed at Wiki-Art

The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags on March 22, 1621.

Jamestown massacre : March 22, 1622: Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlawed the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables in 1630.

Anne Hutchinson was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent on March 22, 1638.

Joseph Priestly invented carbonated water (seltzer) in 1733. English theologian, clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and Liberal political theorist who published over 150 works, he is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state.

1765 – The Stamp Act was passed. It was the first direct British tax on the American colonists. It was repealed on March 17, 1766.

1871 – Republican William Woods Holden of North Carolina became second governor in American history to be impeached, and the first to be removed from office. As governor, Holden appointed George Kirk to stop the Ku Klux Klan. Many prominent citizens were arrested. Following the election of 1870, the Democrats took over the House of Representatives in North Carolina and impeached Holden.

1882 – The U.S. Congress outlawed polygamy.

Grand Coulee Dam in Washington went into operation in 1941.

1903 – Niagara Falls ran out of water (on the U.S. side) due to a drought. Pictures

1935 – Persia was renamed Iran.

On this day in 1972 the United States Congress sent the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. It failed to receive the requisite number of ratifications (38), receiving only 35 before the deadline mandated by Congress so was not adopted. Five ratifications were later rescinded. Twenty-one states have a version of the ERA in their state constitutions.

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.