Tag Archives: Tidbits for this day in history

March 17 is Saint Patrick’s Day. The dates of Patrick’s life are not known but it is believed he died on March 17th, c.537. Legend says that St. Patrick taught the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by showing the shamrock. Legend also has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. There’s no evidence that Ireland ever had snakes. St. Patrick’s day is a major holiday in Ireland but is celebrated in New York City, too, with the “wearers of the green” of all nationalities joining in a spectacular Saint Patrick’s Day parade, a tradition that began in 1762.

National “Eat Like an Irishman” Day

American Revolution: George Washington granted the Continental Army a holiday on March 17, 1780, “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence”.

The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was formed in 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois. It is the women’s organization in the Mormon Church.

Camp Fire Girls Founders Day in 1910. The organization changed its name in 1975 to Camp Fire Boys and Girls when membership eligibility was expanded to include boys.

Anniversary of the opening of the National Gallery of Art in 1941. The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress.

It includes the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas, Ginevra de’ Benci

In 1942, the first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto were gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland. Lvov was the third largest Jewish community in pre-war Poland, established after the Nazi invasion. It was home to over 220,000 Jews. Between March 17 and April 1, 1942, 15,000 Jews were deported to the Belzec extermination camp. Eventually between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews were murdered at Belzec. Only one or two Jews were known to survive Belzec.

1992 – A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa was passed 68.7% to 31.2%. Voting was limited to white voters.

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:

Daylight Savings Time starts. Turn your clocks forward (spring forward) by one hour. (Not observed in Arizona…thanks AZ!)
Daylight saving time in the United States is the practice of setting the clock forward by one hour during the warmer part of the year, so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

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.