March 2nd
 

1824 ~ Birthday of Bedrich Smetana, Composer (The Moldau, The Bartered Bride).

1836 ~ Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico.

1904 ~ Birthday of Dr. Seuss [Theodor Geisel], Author.

1931 ~ Birthday of Mikhail S Gorbachev, Soviet Leader.

1946 ~ Ho Chi Minh elected President of Vietnam.

1956 ~ Morocco gained independence from France.

1969 ~ Concord flew for the first time.

1970 ~ Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia, declared Rhodesia a republic.

1983 ~ Final episode of M*A*S*H; 125 million viewers.

2001 ~ The Taliban began the destruction of ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan.

March 3rd
 

1634 ~ First tavern in Boston opened.

1794 ~ First performance of Joseph Haydn's 101st Symphony in D.

1845 ~ Birthday of Georg Cantor, Mathematician.

1847 ~ Birthday of Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor.

1875 ~ Georges Bizet's opera ‘Carmen’ debuted in Paris.

1917 ~ Nicholas II, last Russian Tsar, abdicated.

1931 ~ The "Star-Spangled Banner" adopted as the U.S. national anthem.

1956 ~ Morocco gained its independence.

1978 ~ The remains of Charlie Chaplin were stolen from his grave.

1985 ~ NUM decides to return to work with no resolution on over pit closures. Arthur Scargill announced “We face not an employer but a government aided and abetted by the judiciary, the police and you people in the media …”.

March 4th
 

1678 ~ Birthday of Antonio Vivaldi, Composer.

1681 ~ King Charles II granted William Penn royal charter for what would become Pennsylvania.

1748 ~ Birthday of Casimir Pulaski, General.

1789 ~ The Constitution of the United States went into effect.

1835 ~ Birthday of Giovanni Schiaparelli, Astronomer.

1885 ~ Gilbert & Sullivan's opera "Mikado", premieres in London.

1888 ~ Birthday of Knute Rockne, Football Coach.

1966 ~ John Lennon, said "We (Beatles) are more popular than Jesus".

1975 ~ Silent film comic Charlie Chaplin knighted.

1997 ~ President Clinton banned federally funded human cloning research.

On March 4, 1933, the start of President Roosevelt's first administration brought with it the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.

March 5th
 

1512 ~ Birthday of Gerardus Mercator, Cartographer.

1623 ~ The first temperance law in the colonies was enacted in Virginia. I would have expected it in New England.

1845 ~ The U.S. Congress appropriated $30,000 to ship camels to the western U.S. Just think – the “Ghan” could have been running from Sacramento to San Antonio!

1846 ~ First track meet between Oxford and Cambridge.

1898 ~ Birthday of Heitor Villa-Lobos, Composer.

1908 ~ Birthday of Rex Harrison, Actor.

1924 ~ Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corp. became IBM.

1931 ~ Birthday of Barry Tuckwell, Hornist

1946 ~ Winston Churchill's gave his "Iron Curtain" speech.

1976 ~ British £1 fell below $2 for first time.

March 6th
 

1475 ~ Birthday of Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), one of the most inspired creators in the history of art.

1619 ~ Birthday of Cyrano de Bergerac, Satirist, and Dramatist.

1836 ~ The thirteen-day siege of the Alamo by Santa Anna and his army ended. The Alamo fell.

1836 ~ HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard reached King George's Sound, Australia.

1853 ~ Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata" opera opened in Venice.

1926 ~ Birthday of Alan Greenspan, Economist.

1944 ~ Birthday of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Singer.

1957 ~ The former British colonies of Togoland and the Gold Coast united to form independent Ghana.

1960 ~ Switzerland granted women the right to vote in municipal elections.

1992 ~ The computer virus "Michelangelo" fizzled out.

March 7th
 

1274 ~ Death of St. Thomas Aquinas, Philosopher, Theologian.

1844 ~ Birthday of Anthony Comstock, Social Reformer.

1875 ~ Birthday of Maurice Ravel, Composer,

1876 ~ Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.

1896 ~ Gilbert & Sullivan's last operetta "The Grand Duke," premiered in London.

1902 ~ Boers beat British troop in Tweebosch Transvaal.

1906 ~ Finland granted women the right to vote.

1933 ~ The board game “Monopoly” invented.

1936 ~ Adolf Hitler broke Treaty of Versailles, sent troops to Rhineland.

1939 ~ Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians recorded "Auld Lang Syne".

It was on this day in 1933 that Charles Darrow created the game we know as Monopoly.

0322 BC - Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, died.

1774 - The British closed the port of Boston to all commerce.

1799 - In Palestine, Napoleon captured Jaffa and his men massacred more than 2,000 Albanian prisoners.

1848 - In Hawaii, the Great Mahele was signed.

1849 - The Austrian Reichstag was dissolved.

March 8th
 

1714 ~ Birthday of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Composer

1859 ~ Birthday of Kenneth Grahame, Author of “The Wind In The Willows”.

1930 ~ Mahatma Gandhi began civil disobedience campaign in India.

1934 ~ Edwin Hubble photo showed as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars.

1942 ~ Japanese forces captured Rangoon, Burma.

1943 ~ Birthday of Lynn Redgrave, Actress.

1965 ~ First U.S. combat forces arrived in Vietnam.

1971 ~ Joe Frazier beats Muhammad Ali for the World Heavyweight Boxing title.

1979 ~ Volcanoes on Io discovered y Voyager 1.

1983 ~ President Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire".

March 9th
 

1454 ~ Birthday of Amerigo Vespucci, Explorer.

1842 ~ Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Nabucco” opens in Milan.

1862 ~ The "Monitor" (Union) and "Merrimack" (Confederate) battle to a draw in Hampton Roads.

1873 ~ Royal Canadian Mounted Police founded.

1890 ~ Birthday of Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister.

1910 ~ Birthday of Samuel Barber, Composer.

1934 ~ Birthday of Yuri Gagarin, first man into space (Vostok 1).

1943 ~ Birthday of Bobby Fischer, World Chess Champion

1945 ~ 334 US B-29 Superfortresses fire bomb Tokyo.

1959 ~ Barbie, the American icon, brought to market.

March 10th
 

241 BC ~ Battle of Aegusa: Roman fleet sank 50 Carthaginian ships.

418 ~ Jews excluded from public office in the Roman Empire.

1844 ~ Birthday of Pablo de Sarasate, Composer.

1876 ~ First telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson).

1913 ~ Harriet Tubman Abolitionist, died in New York.

1916 ~ Birthday of James Herriot, Author.

1940 ~ Birthday of Chuck Norris, Martial Art Champion, Actor.

1964 ~ Birthday of Prince Edward.

1977 ~ Rings of Uranus discovered.

1990 ~ At the not-so-gentle urging of the U.S., Lt Gen Avril resigns as President of Haiti.

March 11th
 

1302 ~ Romeo & Juliet's wedding day, according to Shakespeare.

1931 ~ Birthday of Rupert Murdoch, Publisher.

1835 ~ HMS Beagle anchored off Valparaiso, Chile.

1936 ~ Birthday of Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

1952 ~ Birthday of Douglas Adams, Author.

1953 ~ Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, died. He was 73.

1982 ~ Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat sign peace treaty.

1985 ~ Mikhail Gorbachev replaced Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader.

1990 ~ Lithuania declared it's independence from Soviet Union.

1997 ~ Beatle Paul McCartney knighted by Queen.

March 12th
 

1609 ~ Bermuda became an English colony.

1685 ~ Birthday of George Berkeley, Philosopher & Bishop Of Cloyne.

1832 ~ Birthday of Charles Boycott, landowner whose intransigent behavior gave rise to the term “Boycotts”.

1881 ~ Birthday of Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President.

1890 ~ Birthday of Vaslav Nijinsky, Ballet Master.

1927 ~ Birthday of Mstislav Rostropovich, Cellist & Conductor.

1930 ~ Mahatma Gandhi began a 200 mile march protesting British salt tax.

1964 ~ Jimmy Hoffa, the president of the American Teamsters union sentenced to eight years on bribery charges.

1964 ~ Malcolm X resigned from Nation of Islam. He was later murdered.

1999 ~ Yehudi Menuhin, one of the 20th century's finest violinists, died, aged 82.

March 13th
 

1519 ~ Cortez arrived in Mexico.

1733 ~ Birthday of Joseph Priestly, Clergyman & Scientist, Isolated Oxygen.

1764 ~ Birthday of Charles Earl Grey, British PM (Whig, 1830-34).

1781 ~ Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus.

1855 ~ Birthday of Percival Lowell, Astronomer (predicted discovery of Pluto).

1868 ~ U.S. Senate began Pres. Andrew Johnson Impeachment trial. He was acquitted.

1897 ~ Birthday of William Herald, Swimmer (Olympic Gold -1920).

1930 ~ Clyde Tombaugh announced discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory.

1970 ~ Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) introduced PDP-11 Minicomputer.

1989 ~ Power grid of Qubec knocked off-line by solar flare.

March 14th
 

1681 ~ Birthday of Georg Philipp Telemann, Late Baroque Composer.

1794 ~ Eli Whitney patented the Cotton Gin.

1804 ~ Birthday of Johann Strauss the Elder, Composer (Radetzky March).

1879 ~ Birthday of Albert Einstein, Physicist.

1885 ~ ”The Mikado”, arguably the most famous of G&S’s operas, opened at the Savoy Theatre.

1920 ~ Birthday of Hank Ketcham, Cartoonist.

1933 ~ Birthday of Michael Caine, Actor.

1946 ~ Birthday of Wes Unseld, NBA All-Star.

1971 ~ The Rolling Stones left England for France to escape taxes.

1984 ~ Gunmen shot and wounded the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams.

Today in Rotten History:

Mar 13 1881

An anarchist from the radical group People's Will throws a bomb which disrupts Czar Alexander II's motorcade. After he thanks God for his deliverance, the anarchist yells "It is too early to thank God" and throws a second bomb, causing injuries from which Alexander bleeds to death.

Mar 13 1923

Twenty-two persons killed in a poison rice episode, China. Five cooks are blamed.

Mar 13 1996

Salim and Ruksana Patel find the arabic word for Allah spelled in the seeds of an aubergine (a Persian eggplant variant) which they intended for a casserole at their home in Bolton, England. Their local mullah declares it a miracle.

Mar 13 1997

Hassan Abdullah's wife accidentally severs her husband's penis while she was "dreaming about strangling him". Luckily for Abdullah doctors in Malaysia were able to successfully reattach his endangered manhood, but not so lucky is the fact that he sleeps with a woman who keeps a knife in bed and dreams about strangling her husband.

A tip of the old severed head to: http://www.dailyrotten.com/

March 15th
 

44 BC ~ Assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome.

1729 ~ Sister St. Stanislas Hachard, the first U. S. nun, takes her vows in New Orleans.

1827 ~ The University of Toronto was established, when King's College at York (Toronto) was granted its Royal Charter.

1875 ~ John McCloskey invested as first American cardinal

1877 ~ The first Test between Australia and England was played in Melbourne. Australia won by 45 runs.

1935 ~ Birthday of Judd Hirsch, Actor.

1956 ~ Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway.

1957 ~ Great Britain became third nation to detonate a nuclear wepon.

1964 ~ Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor married in Montreal.

1999 ~ Pluto again became outermost planet.

March 16th
 

1911 ~ Birthday of Dr. Josef Mengel, Angel of Death.

1926 ~ Robert Goddard launched the first liquid fuel rocket.

1926 ~ Birthday of Joseph Levitch AKA Jerry Lewis, Comedian.

1953 ~ Marshal Tito, the first Communist head of state to visit England, arrived in London.

1963 ~ Peter, Paul and Mary released "Puff the Magic Dragon”.

1972 ~ John Lennon & Yoko Ono are served with deportation papers.

1976 ~ U.K. Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigns.

1978 ~ Italian politician Aldo Moro kidnapped by left-wing terrorists. He was later murdered by the group.

1988 ~ Indictments were issued for Lt. Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter of the National Security Council for their involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.

1999 ~ The 20 members of the European Union's European Commission announced their resignations amid allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement.

March 17th
 

461 ~ Death of St. Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland.

1804 ~ Johann von Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell," premiered. This is the play upon which Rossini based (loosely) his opera, “William Tell”, and which, as we all know, provided the opening and closing music for TV’s “The Lone Ranger”. “Hi Ho Silver Away!”

http://mobilepark.co.uk/order.id_12...-ouverture.html


1834 ~ Birthday of Gottlieb Daimler, pioneer of the modern internal combustion engine.

1919 ~ Birthday of Nat King Cole, Singer ("Mona Lisa", "Ramblin' Rose”, and many, many more).

1938 ~ Birthday of Rudolph Nureyev, Ballet Master.

1941 ~ Birthday of Paul Kantner, the only native San Franciscan among the Jefferson Airplane/Starship principles.

1959 ~ The Dalai Lama fled Tibet and went into exile in India.

1969 ~ Golda Meir was sworn in as P.M. of Israel.

1995 ~ President Clinton welcomed Gerry Adams to the White House. HM government was not amused.

1999 ~ The International Olympic Committee voted to expel six members for corruption.

March 18th
 

1123 ~ First Latern Council (9th Ecumenical Council) opened in Rome.

1483 ~ Birthday of Raphael (Raphael Sanzio), Painter (The School of Athens)

http://www.theartgallery.com.au/Art...Raphael/athens/

1844 ~ Birthday of Rimsky-Korsakov, Composer (Scheherazade).

1858 ~ Birthday of Rudolph Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine.

1869 ~ Birthday of Neville Chamberlain, British PM

1893 ~ Birthday of Wilfred Owen, Poet (S.I.W., Anthem for Doomed Youth).

1922 ~ Mahatma Gandhi sentenced to 6 years imprisonment.

1963 ~ U.S. Supreme Court's Miranda Decision; Defendants must have lawyers.

1967 ~ Beatles' "Penny Lane”, single went #1.

1992 ~ White South Africans voted for political reforms to end apartheid.

March 19th
 

1748 ~ The English Naturalization Act passed granting Jews right to colonize in the U.S.

1821 ~ Birthday of Sir Richard Burton, Traveler, Linguist, and Anthropologist.

1848 ~ Birthday of Wyatt Earp, Gunslinger.

1859 ~ The opera ‘Faust’ by Charles Gounod premiered in Paris.

1900 ~ Archeologist Arthur Evans began the excavation of Knossos Palace in Crete.

1906 ~ Birthday of Adolph Eichmann, Nazi War Criminal.

1928 ~ Birthday of Hans Kung, Roman Catholic theologian.

1947 ~ Birthday of Glenn Close, Actress (The World According to Garp, Dangerous Liaisons).

1970 ~ The leaders of East and West Germany met for the first time since the country was divided in 1949.

2001 ~ California officials declared a power alert and ordered the first of two days of rolling blackouts.

March 20th
 

1792 ~ In Paris, the Legislative Assembly approved the use of the guillotine. It saw much use.

1815 ~ Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris after his escape from Elba and began his "Hundred Days" rule.

1816 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed its right to review state court decisions.

1828 ~ Birthday of Henrik Ibsen, Playwright.

1852 ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" published.

1904 ~ Birthday of Burrhus Frederic (BF) Skinner, Psychologist.

1928 ~ Birthday of Fred "Mr." Rogers, Friend.

1939 ~ Birthday of Brian Mulroney, Canadian Prime Minister.

1948 ~ Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra featured in the first televised symphonic concert.

1956 ~ Tunisia gained independence from France.

March 21st
 

1556 ~ Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and author of the Book of Common Prayer, burned at the stake for Heresy.

1685 ~ Birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer.

1826 ~ Beethoven's Quartet #13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna.

1839 ~ Birthday of Modest Mussorgsky, Composer.

1918 ~ The Somme Offensive started. This, followed by the Lys Offensive the following month accounted for about 1,125,000 total casualties. As difficult as this may be to believe, I’m not making it up.

http://www.westernfrontassociation....ne/sommeoff.htm
http://www.westernfrontassociation....imeline/lys.htm


1939 ~ "God Bless America" recorded by Kate Smith.

1960 ~ More than 50 people were killed when police opened fire on a "peaceful" protest in the South African township of Sharpeville.

1963 ~ The federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, closed.

1965 ~ More than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began a march from Selma to Montgomery, AL.

1990 ~ Namibia became independent of South Africa.

March 22nd
 

1638 ~ Anne Hutchinsoon, a religious dissident, was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1887 ~ Birthday of Leonard (Chico) Marx, of the Marx Brothers, Comedian. He was the silent one with the horn.

1895 ~ Auguste and Louis Lumiere showed their first “moving picture show” to an invited audience in Paris.

1919 ~ The first international airline service inaugurated on a weekly schedule between Paris and Brussels.

1923 ~ Birthday of Marcel Marceau, the best Mime ever to grace a stage.

1948 ~ Birthday of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Composer of Musical Theater.

1963 ~ The Beatles' first album, "Please Please Me", released in the U.K.

1971 ~ The Andromeda Strain became first film to use computer animation.

1972 ~ The U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment. It was not ratified by the states.

1977 ~ The John Denver TV special "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" aired.

March 23rd
 

1703 ~ Antonio Vivaldi entered the priesthood. He had asthma attacks, or faked them, when he said Mass. But he never had the same problem while conducting a church orchestra or choir.

1792 ~ Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 94 in G Major (the "Surprise Symphony") performed publicly for the first time, in London.

1743 ~ George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Messiah" had its London premiere, at which the first "standing ovation" was recorded. King George was so inspired by the “Halleluiah” chorus that he jumped to his feet after which everyone else followed suit.

1912 ~ Birthday of Wernher von Braun, Rocket Scientist.

1919 ~ Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.

1925 ~ The state of Tennessee enacted a law that made it a crime for a teacher in any state-supported public school to teach any theory that was in contradiction to the Bible's account of man's creation.

1929 ~ Birthday of Roger Bannister, Runner who broke the “4 minute mile” barrier in 1954.

1963 ~ The Beach Boys released "Surfin' U.S.A.".

1994 ~ Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's National Hockey League (NHL) career record with his 802nd goal.

1998 ~ The movie "Titanic" won 11 Oscars at the Academy Awards.

March 24th
 

1721 ~ In Germany, Johann Sebastian Bach presented six concertos to the Marburg of Brandenburg.

1765 ~ Britain passed the Quartering Act that required the American colonies to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings. That one showed up in the Declaration of Independence.

1855 ~ Birthday of Andrew Mellon, Financier and Industrialist.

1874 ~ Birthday of Harry Houdini, Magician and Escape Artist.

1927 ~ Chinese Communists seized Nanking and break with Chiang Kai-shek over the Nationalist goals.

1947 ~ The U.S. Congress proposed the limitation of the presidency to two terms.

1955 ~ Tennessee Williams' “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” debuted on Broadway.

1980 ~ In San Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot to death by gunmen as he celebrated Mass.

1992 ~ Punch, Britain's oldest satirical magazine, closed after 150 years.

1999 ~ NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia. The attacks marked the first time in its 50-year history that NATO attacked a sovereign country. The bombings were in response to Serbia's refusal to sign a peace treaty with ethnic Albanians who were seeking independence for the province of Kosovo.

March 25th
 

1306 ~ Robert the Bruce crowned king of Scotland.

1634 ~ Lord Baltimore founded the Catholic colony of Maryland.

1807 ~ The first railway passenger service began in England.

1867 ~ Birthday of Arturo Toscanini , Conductor.

1881 ~ Birthday of Béla Bartók, Composer.

1908 ~ Birthday of David Lean, Director, Producer, and Scriptwriter (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago).

1942 ~ Birthday of Aretha Franklin, Singer.

1947 ~ Birthday of Elton John, Singer.

1953 ~ The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea.

1992 ~ British scientists find new largest perfect number (2 756839 -1 * 2 756839).

March 26th
 

1827 ~ Death of Ludwig van Beethoven, who led the musical transition from the Classical style to the Romantic.

1828 ~ In Vienna, Austrian composer Franz Schubert gave his only public concert.

1875 ~ Birthday of Robert Frost, Poet.

1886 ~ Birthday of Al Jolson, early Superstar.

1911 ~ Birthday of Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams, Playwright.

1913 ~ During the Balkan War, the Bulgarians took Adrianople. Interestingly, a few years earlier, 378 AD, in a battle that established the dominance of cavalry over infantry for the next thousand years, the Goths destroyed the Roman army led by the emporer Valens.

1930 ~ Birthday of Sandra Day O'Connor, first woman Justice of the US Supreme Court.

1942 ~ The Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.

1971 ~ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared East Pakistan to be the independent republic of Bangladesh.

1989 ~ The first free elections took place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin was elected.

March 27th
 

1512 ~ Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted Florida.

1836 ~ The first Mormon temple was dedicated in Kirtland, OH.

1836 ~ The Mexican army massacred about 400 Texan rebels at Goliad, TX, under the order of Santa Anna.

1845 ~ Birthday of Wilhelm Röntgen, Physicist. The unit of radiation exposure is named after him.

1863 ~ Birthday of Sir Frederick Royce, Engineer, automobile pioneer. Teamed up with some guy named Charles Rolls.

1899 ~ The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.

1912 ~ The first cherry blossom trees, a gift from Japan, were planted in Washington, DC.

1927 ~ Birthday of Mstislav Rostropovich, Cellist and Conductor.

1931 ~ Actor Charlie Chaplin received France’s Legion of Honor decoration.

1995 ~ Tupac Shakur's "Me Against the World" gave him the dubious distinction of being first rap artist to debut at No. 1 on the charts while in jail for sexual assault. He was later murdered.

March 28th
 

1797 ~ Nathaniel Briggs patented a washing machine.

1854 ~ The Crimean War began with Britain and France declaring war on Russia.

1899 ~ Birthday of August Busch, Brewer & Team Owner.

1903 ~ Birthday of Rudolph Serkin, Pianist.

1930 ~ The Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora changed their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively.

1939 ~ The Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to Francisco Franco.

1945 ~ Germany launched the last of the V-2 rockets against England.

1970 ~ Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Woodstock" was released.

1979 ~ A major accident occurred at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. A nuclear power reactor overheated and suffered a partial meltdown.

1986 ~ More than 6,000 radio stations of all format varieties played "We are the World" simultaneously at 10:15 a.m. EST.

March 29th
 

1867 ~ The British Parliament passed the North America Act to create the Dominion of Canada.

1903 ~ A regular news service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.

1918 ~ Birthday of Pearl Bailey, Jazz Singer.

1918 ~ Birthday of Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), Retailer.

1943 ~ Birthday of John Major, English Prime Minister.

1951 ~ Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed in June 19, 1953.

1951 ~ A Rodgers & Hammerstein triumph, “The King and I” opened on Broadway, with Yul Brynner and Gertrude Lawrence in the principal roles.

1973 ~ The last US combat troops left South Vietnam.

1976 ~ Bruce Springsteen jumped a fence at Graceland in an attempt to see his idol, Elvis Presley.

1992 ~ Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton said "I didn't inhale and I didn't try it again" in reference to when he had experimented with marijuana.

March 30th
 

1492 ~ King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling all Jews from Spain.

1746 ~ Birthday of Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, Painter

1820 ~ Birthday of Anna Sewell, Author (Black Beauty)

1853 ~ Birthday of Vincent Van Gogh, Painter

1900 ~ Birthday of Ted Heath, English Big Band Leader - really!

1945 ~ Birthday of Eric Clapton, Musician

1947 ~ Lord Mountbatten arrived in India as the new Viceroy.

1950 ~ President Truman denounced Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy.

1981 ~ Ronald Reagan was shot by John W. Hinckley Jr.

1998 ~ Rolls-Royce was purchased by BMW in a $570 million deal.

March 31st
 

1596 ~ Birthday of René Descartes, Philosopher & Mathematician.

1621 ~ Birthday of Andrew Marvell, Metaphysical Poet.

1732 ~ Birthday of Franz Joseph Haydn, Composer.

1811 ~ Birthday of Robert Bunsen, Chemist and inventor of the Bunsen burner.

1889 ~ Eiffrel Tower inaugurated.

1928 ~ Birthday of Gordie Howe, Athlete.

1943 ~ Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "Oklahoma!" opened on Broadway

1945 ~ ”The Glass Menagerie” opened on Broadway.

1959 ~ The spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, crossed the border into India after a 15-day journey on foot from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, over the Himalayan mountains.

1995 ~ Selena was killed by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar.

April 1st
 

1578 ~ Birthday of William Harvey, Scientist (circulatory system).

1735 ~ Handel's "Organ Concerto in F major”, Op. 4 No. 4 premiered.

1815 ~ Birthday of Otto von Bismarck, founder of the German Empire.

1873 ~ Birthday of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Composer, Pianist & Conductor.

1883 ~ Birthday of Lon Chaney, Actor (The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, The Phantom Of The Opera).

1905 ~ The British East African Protectorate became the colony of Kenya.

1918 ~ The Royal Air Force (RAF) formed by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy Air Service.

1924 ~ Adolf Hitler sentenced to five years in prison for high treason in the "Beer Hall Putsch”.

1948 ~ The Big Bang theory was proposed in a letter to the Physical Review by Alpher, Bethe & Gamow.

1957 ~ The BBC's "Panorama" airs a piece on the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/70000...prilfool_vi.ram

April 2nd
 

1725 ~ Birthday of Giovanni Casanova, Libertine

1800 ~ Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 first performed for Baron von Swieten.

1805 ~ Birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, Author.

1875 ~ Birthday of Walter Chrysler, Industrialist (Chrysler Corp.).

1905 ~ The Simplon rail tunnel officially opened. The tunnel went under the Alps and linked Switzerland and Italy.

1914 ~ Birthday of Alec Guinness, Actor (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi).

1953 ~ Francis Crick and James Watson described a double helix structure for DNA in the journal “Nature”.

1964 ~ The Beach Boys recorded "I Get Around."

1998 ~ Former French cabinet minister Maurice Papon been found guilty of war crimes for his part in deporting Jews from France during World War II.

1982 ~ Argentina invaded the British territory of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic.

April 3rd
 

1783 ~ Birthday of Washington Irving, Author (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle).

1829 ~ James Carrington, sometimes called “Saint Carrington” patented the coffee mill.

1888 ~ Birthday of Ma Rainey, the "Mother of the Blues".

1924 ~ Birthday of Marlon Brando, Actor (Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris).

1930 ~ Birthday of Helmut Kohl, last Chancellor of West Germany & first Chancellor of the reunified Germany.

1934 ~ Birthday of Jane Goodall , Ethologist.

1936 ~ Richard Hauptmann executed for the kidnapping and death of the son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh.

1946 ~ Lt. General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March was executed.

1973 ~ The first portable phone call was placed by inventor Martin Cooper.

1989 ~ Pepsi dismissed Madonna as a spokesperson after her "Like a Prayer" video was called "blasphemous" by the Vatican.

April 4th
 

1541 ~ Ignatius of Loyola became the first superior-general of the Jesuits.

1581 ~ Frances Drake completed the circumnavigation of the world.

1884 ~ Birthday of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, planner of the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

1887 ~ Susanna Salter became mayor of Argonia, KS, making her the first woman mayor in the U.S.

1895 ~ Birthday of Arthur Murray, Dance Instructor, burlesqued in one of the “Avengers” episodes.

1915 ~ Blues legend McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters.

1917 ~ Birthday of Gregory Peck, Actor.

1949 ~ Delegates from 12 countries met in Washington to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating NATO.

1968 ~ U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death.

1969 ~ Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first total artificial heart.

April 5th
 

1588 ~ Birthday of Thomas Hobbes, Materialist Philosopher.

1614 ~ Pocahontas marries colonist John Rolfe.

1827 ~ Birthday of Sir Joseph Lister, surgeon and medical scientist who was the founder of antiseptic medicine.

1843 ~ Queen Victoria proclaimed Hong Kong to be a British crown colony.

1895 ~ Playwright Oscar Wilde lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.

1900 ~ Birthday of Spencer Tracy, Actor.

1908 ~ Birthday of Bette Davis, Actress.

1953 ~ Jomo Kenyatta was convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison for orchestrating the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya.

1955 ~ Sir Winston Churchill resigned as British PM.

1985 ~ John McEnroe said "Any man can beat any woman at any sport, especially tennis".

April 6th
 

1862 ~ The U.S. Civil War’s Battle of Shiloh began. There was a two day toll of 23,746 casualties.

1890 ~ Birthday of Anthony Fokker, Aircraft Manufacturer.

1896 ~ The first modern Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece.

1928 ~ Birthday of James Watson, Biophysicist.

1929 ~ Birthday of André Previn, Pianist & Conductor.

1930 ~ Hostess Twinkies were invented.

1957 ~ Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up" was released.

1989 ~ British government announced it would repeal legislation which guaranteed Dockers' 'jobs for life’.

1994 ~ The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed in a plane crash near the Rwandan capital, Kigali. This led to the massacre of at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

1998 ~ Pakistan successfully tested medium-range missiles capable of attacking neighboring India.