1749 ~ Birthday of Pierre Simon de Laplace, Mathematician & Astronomer.

1775 ~ Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech - "give me liberty or give me death" in Williamsburg, Virginia.

1882 ~ Birthday of Emmy Noether, Mathematician. Now there's a lady who had a tough row to hoe!

1912 ~ Birthday of Wernher von Braun, Engineer.

1923 ~ Birthday of Roger Bannister, athlete, first "Miracle Mile"

1962 ~ NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, was launched.

1983 ~ President Ronald Reagan made his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept missiles.

1989 ~ Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced cold fusion at the University of Utah.

1989 ~ A 1,000-foot diameter Near-Earth asteroid (4581 Asclepius) missed the Earth by 400,000 miles.

2001 ~ The Russian space station Mir was de-orbited, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

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Eudaimonia

1874 ~ Birthday of Harry Houdini, Magician.

1882 ~ Robert Koch announced the discovery of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.

1882 ~ Death of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet.

1893 ~ Birthday of Walter Baade, Astronomer.

1905 ~ Death of Jules Verne, Author.

1944 ~ In occupied Rome, the Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by Italian partisans the day before that killed 32 German soldiers.

1965 ~ Ranger 9 broadcast live TV as it crashed-landed onto the Moon.

1980 ~ Archbishop Óscar Romero was killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.

1989 ~ The Exxon Valdez spilled 270,000 barrels of oil after running aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

1999 ~ NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia. This marked the first time NATO attacked a sovereign nation.

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Eudaimonia

1634 ~ The first settlers arrived in Maryland (led by Lord Baltimore).

1807 ~ The Slave Trade Act became law, abolishing slavery in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1881 ~ Birthday of Béla Bartók, Composer.

1918 ~ Death of Claude Debussy, Composer.

1942 ~ Birthday of Aretha Franklin, Singer.

1957 ~ The European Economic Community was established (West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).

1975 ~ King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness.

1978 ~ Birthday of Teanna Kai, Porn Actress.

1992 ~ Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to Earth from the Mir space station after a 10-month stay, during which his native country, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.

1998 ~ President Clinton acknowledged during his Africa tour that "we did not act quickly enough" to stop the slaughter of one million Rwandans four years earlier.

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Eudaimonia

1827 ~ Death of Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer.

1874 ~ Birthday of Robert Frost, Poet.

1892 ~ Death of Walt Whitman, Poet.

1904 ~ Birthday of Joseph Campbell, Author & Mythologist.

1911 ~ Birthday of Tennessee Williams, Playwright.

1964 ~ The musical “Funny Girl”, starring Barbra Streisand, opened on Broadway.

1979 ~ Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in Washington, DC.

1981 ~ The "Gang of Four", Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party.

1997 ~ The 39 Heaven's Gate cult suicides.

1999 ~ Dr. Jack Kevorkian was found guilty of second-degree murder.

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Eudaimonia

1836 ~ Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.

1845 ~ Birthday of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics.

1863 ~ Birthday of Sir Henry Royce, automobile pioneer.

1871 ~ First international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.

1886 ~ Birthday of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Architect.

1958 ~ Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the USSR.

1968 ~ Death of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.

1972 ~ Death of M. C. Escher, Dutch artist.

1977 ~ A KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife, killing 582 people.

2002 ~ Passover Massacre: A suicide bomber killed 28 people in Netanya, Israel.

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Eudaimonia

1910 ~ Henri Fabre becomes the first man to fly a seaplane after taking off from a water runway near Martigues, France.

1928 ~ Birthday of Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to President Carter.

1939 ~ Generalissimo Franco entered Madrid, essentially ending the Spanish Civil War.

1942 ~ Birthday of Neil Kinnock, British Labor politician.

1943 ~ Death of Sergei Rachmaninoff, composer and pianist.

1947 ~ The last episode of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century played on radio.

1965 ~ Conclusion of the 'Selma to Montgomey' Civil Rights march.

1979 ~ One of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island was severely damaged in what remains as the largest nuclear incident in U.S. history.

1987 ~ Death of Maria von Trapp, Singer.

2004 ~ Death of Peter Ustinov, Actor.

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Eudaimonia

1867 ~ Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the British North America Act which established the Dominion of Canada on July 1.

1899 ~ Birthday of Lavrenty Beria, Soviet Communist leader.

1912 ~ Death of Robert Falcon Scott, Explorer.

1973 ~ The last U.S. troops left South Vietnam, ending America's direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.

1981 ~ First running of the London Marathon.

1982 ~ Death of Carl Orff, German composer (Carmina Burana).

1982 ~ Queen Elizabeth gave Royal Assent to the Canada Act 1982, setting the stage for the Queen of Canada to proclaim the Constitution Act, 1982.

1984 ~ The Baltimore Colts of the NFL moved to Indianapolis in the middle of the night.

2004 ~ Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join NATO as full members.

2004 ~ Death of Alistair Cook, Journalist.

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Eudaimonia

When I was in high school in 1972, my mother hired an Estonian lady to teach me oil painting. She always wore long sleeves. One day, she was showing me some brush blending, when her sleeve slipped down from her wrist. She had numbers tatooed up her forearm. She had been in a concentration camp during the war. The rest of her family was never seen again. Your mention of Estonia reminded me of her.

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Just be yourself. The rest will fall in line.

1135 ~ Birthday of Moses Maimonides, Medieval Jewish Philosopher.

1746 ~ Birthday of Francisco Goya, Spanish painter and engraver.

1842 ~ Anesthesia (ether) was used for the first time in an operation.

1853 ~ Birthday of Vincent van Gogh, Painter.

1870 ~ Texas was readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.

1951 ~ Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage.

1977 ~ Death of Sergey Ilyushin, Russian aerospace engineer.

1981 ~ President Reagan was shot and seriously injured.

1998 ~ German automaker BMW bought Rolls-Royce for $570 million.

2006 ~ The Terrorism Act 2006 becomes law in the UK.

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Eudaimonia

1732 ~ Birthday of Joseph Haydn, Composer.

1837 ~ Death of John Constable, Painter.

1855 ~ Death of Charlotte Brontë, Author.

1918 ~ Daylight Savings Time went into effect in the United States for the first time.

1959 ~ The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crossed the border into India and was granted political asylum.

1968 ~ President Johnson announced he would not run for re-election.

1970 ~ After 12 years in orbit, Explorer 1 burnt up when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.

1976 ~ Birthday of Ashton Moore, Porn Actress.

1991 ~ The end of the Warsaw Pact.

1995 ~ Latina superstar Selena was killed by the president of her fan club.

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Eudaimonia

1884 ~ Birthday of Florence Blanchfield, the first woman to receive a regular commission in the U.S. Army.

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

1917 ~ Death of Scott Joplin, Musician & Composer.

1918 ~ The Royal Flying Corps was replaced by the Royal Air Force.

1945 ~ World War II: U.S. forces invaded Okinawa.

1970 ~ President Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and TV.

1973 ~ Birthday of Joe Francis, Girls Gone Wild Producer.

1976 ~ Apple Computer Company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

2001 ~ Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and taken to prison.

2001 ~ A U.S. intelligence gathering plane collided with a PRC Army fighter jet. The Navy crew made an emergency landing in Hainan, PRC and was detained.

Feastdays & Holidays

April Fools Day

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Eudaimonia

1725 ~ Birthday of Giacomo Casanova, adventurer and writer.

1805 ~ Birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer.

1875 ~ Birthday of Walter Chrysler, automobile pioneer.

1917 ~ President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany.

1917 ~ The first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, took her seat as a representative from Montana.

1966 ~ Death of C.S. Forester, Author.

1978 ~ Dallas premiered on CBS, beginning a 13-year run.

1982 ~ Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, starting the war.

1986 ~ A grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter were sucked out of a TWA jet when it was bombed by a group calling itself the Ezzedine Kassam Unit of the Arab Revolutionary Cells

2005 ~ Death of Pope John Paul II.

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Eudaimonia

1895 ~ The libel trial started by Oscar Wilde against the Marquess of Queensbury began, eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.

1901 ~ Death of Richard D'Oyly Carte, Impresario.

1934 ~ Birthday of Jane Goodall, Zoologist.

1946 ~ Masaharu Homma, the Japanese general responsible for the Bataan Death March, was executed in the Philippines.

1948 ~ President Truman signed the Marshall Plan.

1975 ~ GM Anatoly Karpov was awarded the title of World Champion by default when Bobby Fischer refused to play.

1981 ~ Death of Juan Trippe, Airline & Hotel (Pan Am & InterContinental) founder .

1991 ~ Death of Graham Greene, English writer.

1996 ~ Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his Montana cabin.

2000 ~ Microsoft was ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws.

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Eudaimonia

1884 ~ Birthday of Isoroku Yamamoto, naval commander.

1885 ~ Birthday of Arthur Murray, dancer.

1902 ~ British financier Cecil Rhodes left £6 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University in England.

1949 ~ Twelve nations signed The North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

1964 ~ The Beatles occupied all of the top five positions on the Billboard singles chart in the United States.

1968 ~ Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

1979 ~ Death of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan Prime Minister (hanged).

1975 ~ Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

1984 ~ Winston Smith, the main character of George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four, began writing in his secret diary.

1994 ~ Netscape Communications Corporation was founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark.

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Eudaimonia

1588 ~ Birthday of Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher.

1614 ~ In Virginia, Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe.

1792 ~ President Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.

1908 ~ Birthday of Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor.

1930 ~ In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.

1942 ~ The Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Colombo, Sri Lanka, and sank the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire southwest of the island.

1951 ~ Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.

1976 ~ Death of Howard Hughes, aviation pioneer.

1997 ~ Death of Allen Ginsberg, Poet.

2008 ~ Death of Charlton Heston, Actor.

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Eudaimonia