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.