March 23
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March is:
Humorists Are Artists Month - Recognizes the contributions of humorists. Sponsor: Lone Star Publications of HumorIrish-American Heritage Month - The month of Saint Patrick's Day.
Mental Retardation Awareness Month - Promotes the needs and abilities of America's citizens with mental retardation. Sponsor: The Arc National Headquarters.
Music in Our Schools Month - Music has been a part of public school curriculums since 1838; it is an important aspect of a balanced education. Sponsor: Music Educators National Conference
March 23 is:
Birthday of the Spoon - Sometime around 1900 B.C. the useful eating utensil was invented Slurp some soup today! Sponsor: Pilgrim's Almanac.
Dixie Cup Birthday - The Dixie Cup was invented 1912. Contact: Dixie Container Corporation
First human in space twice (1965) - Gemini 3 carried the first person to at go into space more than once. Contact; NASA.
First passenger elevator installed (1857) - Elisha Otis installed the first passenger elevator in New York.
World Meteorological Day To study and teach about weather. Sponsor: United Nations.
Liberty Day - In 1775, Patrick Henry spoke in favor of arming the Virginia Militia against the British. At the end of his speech, he said ''Give me liberty or give me death.''
Near Miss Day - In 1989, an asteroid came within 500,000 miles of hitting Earth.
Rally for Decency Anniversary - The Rally for Decency, which protested the on-stage nudity of Jim Morrison of the Doors, took place in Miami, Florida in 1969.
Saint Turibius Feast Day - Saint Turibius, archbishop of Lima, championed native rights in South America. As a result, he is a patron saint of native rights.
1430: Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England
1596: Bevil Grenville
1857: Cookery expert Fannie Farmer was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
She later edited "The Boston Cooking School Cook Book," which ran into 21
editions before her death in 1915.
1908: Actress Joan Crawford
1910: Japanese film maker Akira Kurosawa
1912: Werner von Braun, rocket scientist
1922: Comedian Marty Allen
1926: Martha Wright (in Seattle, Washington)
1929: Roger Bannister, the first person to run the mile in less than
four minutes
1934: Movie director Mark Rydell
1938: Race car driver Craig Breedlove
1949: Singer-producer Ric Ocasek (Cars)
1953: Singer Chaka Khan (Yvette Marie Stevens)
1954: Moses Malone, basketball player
1957: Actress Amanda Plummer
1965: Actor Richard Grieco.
1966: Singer Marti Pellow
1968: Rock singer-musician Damon Albarn (Blur)
1970: Rock musician John Humphrey (The Nixons)
1976: Actress Keri Russell ("Felicity")
1977: Actress Nicholle Tom ("The Nanny")
1990: British Princess Eugenie in 1990. (daughter of Prince Andrew and
Fergie)
0752: Pope Stephen the Second was elected to
succeed Pope Zacharias; however, Stephen died only two days later.
1169: Death of Shirkuh, Caliph of Egypt
1281: Coronation of Martin IV as Pope
1324: Excommunication of Louis IV, Holy Roman
Emperor
1402: Yann V becomes Duke of Brittany
1534: The Pope declares Henry VIII of England
"truly married" to Catherine of Aragon
1540: Waltham Abbey, the last remaining
monastery in England, seized by Henry VIII, King of England
1555: Death of Pope Julius II
1606: Death of St. Toribio of Lima
1703: 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.
1743: George Frideric Handel's oratorio
"Messiah" had its London premiere after which the first
"standing ovation" was recorded. King George was so
"inspired" he jumped to his feet after which everyone else
followed suit.
1765: The British Parliament passed the Stamp
Act for taxing the American colonies, an action that became a major
grievance for rebellious colonials.
1775: In a speech to the Virginia Provincial
Convention, Patrick Henry made his famous plea for American independence
from Britain, saying, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Henry
was 38 years old.
1792: Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 94 in G
Major, also known as the "Surprise Symphony," was performed
publicly for the first time, in London.
1794: Josiah G. Pierson received a patent for
a rivet machine.
1806: Explorers Lewis and Clark, having
reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east.
1839: H-F Chorley, a London reviewer reported
on Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique": "A Babel, and not a
Babylon of music."
1840: The most widely used Americanism
"O.K." was first used in the New York publication "The New
Era" by the Democratic OK Club. They got the name from Old Kinderhook,
NY, where President Martin Van Buren was born.
1858: Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, received a patent for the cable street car.
1861: John D. Defrees became the first Superintendent of the United States
Government Printing Office.
1862: Battle of Kernstown, VA - Jackson begins
his Valley Campaign.
1862: Count Karl Robert Nesselrode, foreign
minister of imperial Russia from 1822-56, died. His policies helped bring
about the Crimean war.
1880: John Stevens of Neenah, Wisconsin,
patented the grain crushing mill. The machine allowed flour production to
increase by 70% and to sell for $2 per barrel.
1901: Dame Nellie Melba, Australian Opera
Singer, reveals secret of her now famous toast.
1918: The giant German gun, "Big
Bertha," shelled Paris from 75 miles away.
1919: Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist
political movement in Milan, Italy.
1925: The State of Tennessee made it a crime
for a teacher in any state-supported public school or college to teach any
theory that contradicted the Bible's account of man's creation.
1929: First telephone installed in the White
House.
1933: The German Reichstag adopted the
Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative
powers.
1937: Los Angeles Railway Co starts using PCC
streetcars.
1942: Japanese-Americans were forcibly moved
from their homes along the Pacific Coast to inland internment camps.
1956: Pakistan became an independent Islamic
Republic within the British Commonwealth with Maj. Gen. Iskander Mirza as
its first provisional President.
1964: Peter Lorre (Laszlo Loewenstein),
Hungarian-born U.S. film actor who starred in gangster and horror films,
died.
1965: America's first two-person space flight
began as "Gemini Three" blasted off from Cape Kennedy with
astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard.
1966: Pope Paul VI met Britain's archbishop of
Canterbury at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, the first meeting between
the heads of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in 400 years.
1981: The US Supreme Court ruled that states
could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teen-age
girls seek abortions.
1981: British "Great Train Robbery"
suspect Ronald Biggs was taken into custody in Barbados after his abduction
in Brazil.
1983: President Reagan first proposed
development of technology to intercept enemy missiles -- a proposal that
came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, as well as "Star
Wars."
1983: Dr. Barney Clark, recipient of a
permanent artificial heart, died at the University of Utah Medical Center
after 112 days with the device.
1985: Patricia Roberts Harris, who served in
two Cabinet posts in the Carter administration, died in Washington at age
60.
1985: Billy Joel married model Christie
Brinkley in New York City. They "parted" in 1994.
1986: Tens of thousands of people filled the
streets of Pusan, South Korea, as they cheered political opposition leader
Kim Young-sam in the biggest anti-government rally in six years.
1987: Jerry Collins, a millionaire greyhound
race track owner, donated one-point-three million dollars to help evangelist
Oral Roberts reach his goal of raising eight million dollars for medical
scholarships.
1988: President Reagan announced he would
visit the Soviet Union for the first time, from May 29th until June second,
for his fourth summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
1989: The most expensive wedding dress in
history was presented by Helen Gainville in Paris. It featured embroidered
diamonds by Alexander Reza and was valued at over $7 million.
1989: Fawn Hall, former secretary to onetime
National Security Council aide Oliver North, completed two days of testimony
at North's Iran-Contra trial.
1990: Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph
Hazelwood was sentenced by a judge in Anchorage, Alaska, to help clean up
Prince William Sound and pay $50,000 in restitution for his role in the 1989
oil spill.
1991: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein shuffled
his Cabinet, but kept in place his hard-line ministers of interior and
defense to direct a crackdown on rebellion against his rule.
1991: L.A. Kings hockey center Wayne Gretzky
and Kings owner Bruce McNall bought a 1910 Hinus Wagner baseball card at
Sotheby's auction for $451,000, breaking a 1989 record: $115,000 for another
Honus Wagner card.
1992: The president of the United Nations
Security Council announced that Libya had offered to surrender two men
suspected in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League (however,
Libya reversed itself two days later).
1993: Alex Ross of the New York Times gave a
favorable review to a recent Lincoln Center performance by the Prism
Quartet, a foursome not of strings but of saxophones. They premiered Michael
Ruszczynski's "Fantasy Quartet," which Ross liked very much.
1993: In his first formal news conference
since taking office, President Clinton suggested restricting the duty
assignment of homosexuals in the military as a way of allowing openly gay
personnel; however, the idea was quickly abandoned.
1993: Scientists announced they'd found the
renegade gene that causes Huntington's disease.
1994: Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexico's leading
presidential candidate, was assassinated in Tiajuana.
1994: 23 paratroopers were killed when a F-16
fighter jet and a C-130 transport plane collided while landing at Pope Air
Force Base in North Carolina and the F-16 skidded into another transport on
the ground.
1994: Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's
National Hockey League career record with his 802nd goal.
1994: Actress Giulietta Masina died in Rome at
age 73.
1995: Secretary of State Warren Christopher
met with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in Geneva; afterward,
Kozyrev said the U.S.-Russia "honeymoon has come to an end,"
referring to disagreements over Chechnya and nuclear sales to Iran.
1996: Taiwan held its first direct
presidential elections; incumbent Lee Teng-hui was the landslide victor.
1997: Amid renewed violence, Israel's Cabinet
called on the Palestinian Authority to crack down on Islamic militant
groups, but stopped short of suspending peace talks.
1997: The American Cancer Society recommended
that women begin annual mammograms at age 40.
1998: President Clinton hailed "the new
face of Africa" as he opened a historic six-nation tour in Ghana.
1998: The US Supreme Court allowed term limits
for state lawmakers.
1998: Russian President Boris Yeltsin fired
his Cabinet.
1998: The greatest ship that ever sank found a
berth in Hollywood history night as "Titanic" sailed off with 11
Oscars, tying the record for most Academy Awards won by a single film. James
Cameron, the film's co-producer, screenwriter, co-editor and director picked
up three awards for the picture - best director, best picture and best
editing. Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, the odd couple in "As Good as
It Gets," walked off with the top acting awards. It was Nicholson's
third Oscar.
1998: Britain placed all ports of entry on
alert for Iraqi biological weapons after intelligence sources warned of a
plot to smuggle lethal anthrax in bottles of perfume and alcohol.
1999: NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana
gave the formal go-ahead for airstrikes against Serbian targets following
the failure of Kosovo peace talks.
2000: Pope John Paul the Second paid his respects at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial.
2000: President Clinton visited the western Indian village of Nayla.
2000: In a first, Speaker Dennis Hastert named a Catholic priest, the Reverend Daniel Coughlin, as the new House chaplain.
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