This Day in History

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March 12

Today, our Aztec Dwellers celebrate the New Year.

Today is the Girl Scouts' Birthday, marking the founding of the first Girl Scout troop in the USA.


Events

1550 – Several hundred Spanish and indigenous troops under the command of Pedro de Valdivia defeat an army of 60,000 Mapuche at the Battle of Penco during the Arauco War in present-day Chile.

1864 – American Civil War: The Red River Campaign begins as a US Navy fleet of 13 Ironclads and 7 Gunboats and other support ships enter the Red River.

1894 – Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph A. Biedenharn.

1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States.

1913 – Canberra Day: The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. (Melbourne remains temporary capital until 1927 while the new capital is still under construction.)

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

1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill over 600 people.

1930 – Mahatma Gandhi begins the Salt March, a 200-mile march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India.

1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his "fireside chats".

1947 – The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.

1950 – The Llandow air disaster occurs near Sigingstone, Wales, in which 80 people die when their aircraft crashed, making it the world's deadliest air disaster at the time.

1961 – First winter ascent of the North Face of the Eiger.

1993 – The 1993 Storm of the Century: Snow begins to fall across the eastern portion of the US with tornadoes, thunder snow storms, high winds and record low temperatures. The storm lasts for 30 hours.

2003 – WHO officially released global warning on pandemic SARS disease.

2009 – Financier Bernard Madoff pleads guilty in New York to scamming $18 billion, the largest in Wall Street's history.

2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.

2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.

Births

1806 – Jane Pierce (15th FLOTUS), 1831 – Clement Studebaker (yeah, that one), 1913 – Agathe von Trapp (of The Sound of Music von Trapps), 1921 – Gordon MacRae, 1922 – Jack Kerouac, 1928 – Edward Albee, 1933 – Barbara Feldon, 1938 – Johnny Rutherford, 1940 – Al Jarreau♪ ♫, 1942 – Ratko Mladić, 1945 – Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano (mobster), 1946 – Liza Minnelli♪ ♫, 1947 – Mitt Romney, 1948 – James Taylor, 1949 – Mike Gibbins(Badfinger), 1956 – Steve Harris(Iron Maiden), 1960 – Courtney B. Vance, 1962 – Darryl Strawberry, 1969 – Jake Tapper, 1978 – Casey Mears, 1979 – Pete Doherty♪ ♫

Deaths

1628 – John Bull, 1820 – Alexander Mackenzie, 1914 – George Westinghouse, 1929 – Asa Griggs Candler, 1942 – Robert Bosch, 1955 – Charlie 'Yardbird' Parker♪ ♫, 1978 – John Cazale, 1987 – Woody Hayes, 1999 – Yehudi Menuhin, 2001 – Morton Downey, Jr., 2001 – Robert Ludlum, 2003 – Lynne Thigpen, 2005 – Bill Cameron, 2012 – Samuel Glazer (co-founded Mr. Coffee), 2012 – Michael Hossack(The Doobie Bros), 2013 – Clive Burr(Iron Maiden), 2015 – Terry Pratchett

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March 13

1639 – Harvard College is named after clergyman John Harvard.

1781 – William Herschel discovers Uranus. [I didn't even know he was back there.]

1845 – Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto receives its première performance in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist.

1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

1881 – Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. (Gregorian date: it was March 1 in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia.)

1897 – San Diego State University is founded.

1943 – The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

1985 – The Kenilworth Road riot takes place at an association football match at Kenilworth Road in Luton, England with disturbances before, during and after an FA Cup 6th Round tie between Luton Town F.C. and Millwall F.C..

1991 – The United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

1996 – Dunblane school massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 primary school children and one teacher are shot dead by spree killer Thomas Watt Hamilton who then committed suicide.

1997 – The Phoenix Lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.

2003 – The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints have been found in Italy.

2008 – Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

2013 – Pope Francis is elected, in the papal conclave, as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.

Births

1798 – Abigail Fillmore (14th FLOTUS), 1855 – Percival Lowell, 1898 – Henry Hathaway, 1910 – Sammy Kaye, 1911 – L. Ron Hubbard, 1913 – William J. Casey, 1914 – Edward 'Butch' O'Hare, 1920 – Ralph J. Roberts, 1932 – Jan Howard, 1933 – Mike Stoller, 1939 – Neil Sedaka, 1947 – Lyn St. James, 1950 – Danny Kirwan, 1950 – Charles Krauthammer, 1950 – William H. Macy, 1951 – Charo, 1954 – Robin Duke, 1971 – Annabeth Gish, 1976 – Danny Masterson

Deaths

1842 – Henry Shrapnel, 1881 – Alexander II of Russia, 1901 – Benjamin Harrison 923rd POTUS), 1906 – Susan B. Anthony, 1938 – Clarence Darrow, 1943 – Stephen Vincent Benét

[xoxoxoBruce]

1943 – The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.

You make it sound like a bad thing. When NYC pushes urban renewal they just throw everyone out in the street. Whereas the SS escorted all the residents to new accommodations... by train. Not only that, the SS gathered and itemized all the valuables, so the people wouldn't have to worry about them.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Not only that, the SS gathered and itemized all the valuables, so the people wouldn't have to worry about them.

Is this the new Secret Service under Trump?

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March 14

44 BC – Casca and Cassius decide, on the night before the Assassination of Julius Caesar, that Mark Antony should live.

1663 – Otto von Guericke completes his book on Vacuum.

1757 – Admiral Sir John Byng is executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch for breach of the Articles of War.

1794 – Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.

1885 – The Mikado, a light opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, receives its first public performance in London.

1900 – The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.

1903 – The Hay–Herrán Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate would later reject the treaty.

1910 – The Lakeview Gusher, the largest U.S. oil well gusher near Bakersfield, California, vents to atmosphere.

1936 – The first all-sound film version of Show Boat opens at Radio City Music Hall.

1942 – Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the United States successfully to treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.

1964 – A jury in Dallas finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assumed assassin of John F. Kennedy.

1967 – The body of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.

1994 – Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released.

1995 – Space exploration: Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.

Births

1804 – Johann Strauss I♪ ♫, 1863 – Casey Jones, 1874 – Anton Philips (co-founded Philips Electronics), 1879 – Albert Einstein, 1912 – Les Brown♪ ♫, 1914 – Lee Petty, 1916 – Horton Foote, 1920 – Hank Ketcham (created Dennis the Menace), 1921 – S. Truett Cathy (founded Chick-fil-A), 1921 – Ada Louise Huxtable, 1923 – Diane Arbus, 1925 – William Clay Ford, Sr., 1928 – Frank Borman, 1933 – Michael Caine, 1933 – Quincy Jones♪ ♫, 1934 – Eugene Cernan, 1939 – Raymond J. Barry, 1941 – Wolfgang Petersen, 1945 – Michael Martin Murphey♪ ♫, 1948 – Billy Crystal, 1950 – Rick Dees♪ ♫, 1951 – Jerry Greenfield (co-founded Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream), 1958 – Albert II, Prince of Monaco, 1959 – Steve Byrnes (racing reporter), 1961 – Gary Dell'Abate ('Baba Booey'), 1961 – Penny Johnson Jerald (' Kasidy Yates' on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), 1961 – Mike Lazaridis (founded BlackBerry Limited), 1965 – Billy Sherwood♪ ♫(Yes), 1968 – Megan Follows (Anne of Green Gables), 1979 – Chris Klein, 1983 – Taylor Hanson♪ ♫(Hanson), 1984 – Aric Almirola, 1986 – Jamie Bell, 1988 – Stephen Curry, 1988 – Sasha Grey, 1997 – Simone Biles

Deaths

1757 – John Byng, 1883 – Karl Marx, 1932 – George Eastman (founded Eastman Kodak), 1973 – Chic Young (created comic strip Blondie), 1975 – Susan Hayward, 1976 – Busby Berkeley, 2010 – Peter Graves, 2013 – Jack Greene♪ ♫