This day in history.....

[Mare]

3-9-08


1796: French general Napoleon Bonaparte marries Joséphine de Beauharnais, widow of the Vicomte de Beauharnais.


1847: In the Mexican War, a United States amphibious expedition under the command of General Winfield Scott lands near the Mexican fortress city of Veracruz.


1867: The United States agrees to purchase the 1,524,640 sq km/586,400 sq mi Alaska Territory from Russia for $7,200,000.


1916: Pancho Villa and his soldiers of the Mexican Revolution raid the border town and military camp of Columbus, New Mexico.


1959: The original Barbie doll makes her debut in American stores.

 

[Mare]

2-11-08


1302: According to Shakespeare, this is Romeo and Juliet's wedding day.


1865: General William T. Sherman takes Fayetteville, North Carolina, and destroys the aresenal there.


1888: From March 11 until March 14, the worst blizzard in history hits the eastern United States, paralyzing the region.


1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act. It gives the president authority to aid any nation whose defense is regarded as vital to the United States and to accept repayment.


1959: The play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, is first performed in New York City. It stars Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil and goes on to win a New York Drama Critics Circle award.


1985: Mikhail Gorbachev is named first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

 

[Mare]

2-12-08


1868: The south African chief Moshoeshoe I is granted British protection from the Boers, making Basutoland (modern Lesotho) a British protectorate.

1912: The Girl Scouts of the United States of America is founded.


1933: President Franklin Roosevelt holds his first fireside chat by radio, to encourage support for the New Deal.


1938: The Anschluss (annexation) of Austria takes place when German troops invade and occupy the country, and a Nazi government is formed.


1969: Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman marry.

1992: Mauritius becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth.

 

[Mare]

2-13-08


1781: German-born English astronomer William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.


1868: The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson begins. Johnson is the first United States president to be impeached.


1881: Alexander II, emperor of Russia, is assassinated by a bomb thrown into his carriage by a member of a revolutionary group, the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will).


1961: The Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, age 79, marries Jacqueline Roque, age 37.

 

[Mare]

March 26, 2008


1827: German composer Ludwig van Beethoven dies in Vienna.


1885: The first commercial motion picture film is manufactured by Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.


1953: Dr. Jonas Salk announces that he has successfully tested a vaccine against the crippling disease polio.


1962: American poet Robert Frost publishes his first new collection of poems in 15 years, In the Clearing.

 

[Mare]

3-29-08


1867: The British North America Act establishes the Dominion of Canada, comprising the provinces of Québec, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.


1932: American comedian Jack Benny makes his radio debut.


1961: The 23rd Amendment is ratified, giving residents of Washington, D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections.


1973: The last U.S. troops leave Vietnam, ending U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.


1974: The Mariner 10 spacecraft, launched by NASA in November, is the first spacecraft to visit Mercury and take close-up pictures of the planet.

 

[Mare]

3-30-08


1858: Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patents his idea of attaching an eraser to the top of a lead pencil.


1867: U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward signs a treaty with Russia, purchasing Alaska for $7,200,000; critics dub the deal "Seward's Folly."


1981: President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest as he leaves a Washington, D.C. hotel; drifter John Hinckley, Jr. is promptly arrested for the shooting.


1986: Actor James Cagney, who won Academy Award for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy, dies at 86.


1999: A jury in Portland, Oregon orders Phillip Morris to pay $81,000,000 to the family of a man who died of lung cancer after smoking Marlboros for four decades.

 

[Mare]

4-01-08


1621: Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, and John Carver, governor of Plymouth Colony, sign the first peace treaty between Native Americans and Pilgrims.


1789: The newly established U.S. House of Representatives holds its first full meeting.


1972: The first major league baseball players strike in the U.S. begins.


1979: Following a referendum, Iran is declared an Islamic Republic by the Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini.


1984: R&B singer Marvin Gaye is shot to death by his father in Los Angeles.


1999: Nunavut becomes the third independent territory in Canada; it is the homeland of Canada's Inuit, who comprise the vast majority of the population of Nunavut.

 

[Mare]

4-2-08


1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, searching for the mythical fountain of youth, discovers Florida.


1792: Congress passes the Coinage Act, authorizing the establishment of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, then the nation's capital.


1917: President Woodrow Wilson asks the U.S. Congress to enter World War I, saying, "The world must be made safe for democracy."


1932: In New York, aviator Charles Lindbergh pays a ransom to secure the return of his kidnapped infant son; the baby is later found murdered.


1982: Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, a British dependency; Britain responds by sending in its armed forces to retake the islands.


2003: Special operations forces rescue U.S. soldier Jessica Lynch, who was captured in the early days fighting in Iraq.

 

[Mare]

4-4-08


1818: Congress approves the U.S. flag with 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars; a star is to be added for each new state.


1850: Los Angeles is incorporated as a city the same year that California is admitted to the United States.


1949: NATO is formed by 12 western democratic nations, including the United States and Great Britain, to safeguard against Soviet aggression.


1964: The Beatles hold the top five spots on Billboard's Hot 100, setting an all-time record.


1968: American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee; in 1969 James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the shooting.

 

[Mare]

4-5-08


1614: Pocahontas, daughter of Native American chief Powahatan, marries American colonist John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia; the union contributes to peace between the Native Americans and English.


1951: U.S. citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.


1976: American billionaire and famed recluse Howard Hughes dies in Houston, Texas.


1984: Los Angeles Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar becomes the all-time highest scorer in the NBA when he scores a record-breaking basket using his signature "sky hook."


1987: The Fox Broadcasting Company makes its prime time television debut with Married…with Children.

 

[Mare]

4-7-08


1919: The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record its music, makes its debut in London, England; its song “Tiger Rag” becomes popular.


1940: Educator Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.


1948: The World Health Organization (WHO), an agency of the United Nations dedicated to improving health worldwide, comes into existence.


1949: Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical play South Pacific, opens on Broadway; it wins a Pulitzer Prize the following year.


1980: U.S. president Jimmy Carter breaks off diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage crisis.


1994: Civil war erupts in Rwanda a day after an airplane, carrying the nation's president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was shot down.

 

[Mare]

4-8-08


1652: Cape Town in South Africa is founded by Jan van Riebeeck as a supply post for the Dutch East India Company.


1973: Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso dies at his villa in France at age 91.


1974: In Atlanta, Georgia, baseball great Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, breaking the record previously held by Babe Ruth.


1990: Ryan White, the U.S. teenager whose battle with AIDS promoted public understanding of the disease, dies at 18.


1992: Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), survives a plane crash in the Sahara Desert; the plane's three crew members perished.

 

[Mare]

4-11-08


1951: U.S. president Harry Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur from his commands during the Korean War after the general publicly criticized the administration's war policy.


1970: Apollo 13 blasts off toward the moon; an explosion two days later forces astronauts to abort the mission and make a daring return to earth.


1979: Idi Amin is overthrown as president of Uganda; during his brutal regime, an estimated 300,000 civilians were killed.

 

[Mare]

4-13-08


1796: The first elephant brought to the United States arrives from Bengal.


1943: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.


1964: Sidney Poitier becomes the first African American actor to win an Academy Award, for his performance in Lilies of the Field.


1970: An oxygen tank explodes aboard the U.S. lunar landing mission Apollo 13 as it nears the moon, forcing the astronauts to return to Earth.


1997: Golfer Tiger Woods, 21, becomes the youngest person to win the Masters and the first African American and Asian American champion.

 

[Mare]

4-15-08


1865: U.S. president Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous night at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.; Vice President Andrew Johnson is sworn in as president.


1912: The British luxury liner Titanic sinks after colliding with an iceberg; it is among the worst maritime disasters in history, with over 1,500 dead.


1947: Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American in the 20th century to play in a major league baseball game.


1986: In retaliation for the terrorist bombing of a Berlin discotheque, the United States launches an air raid against Libya; nearly 40 people are killed.


1990: The enigmatic Swedish film actress Greta Garbo dies in New York.

 

[Mare]

4-24-08


1800: The U.S. Library of Congress is established in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.; it moves to its own quarters in 1897.


1898: Spain declares war on the United States, ignoring an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.


1916: Irish nationalists, rebelling against British rule, seize key buildings in Dublin and proclaim Ireland an independent republic in the Easter Rebellion.


1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is the first person to die during a space mission when the Soyuz I craft crashes to earth.


1981: IBM introduces its first personal computer, the IBM PC; its enormous success soon leads competitors to clone the machine.


1990: West and East Germany agree to merge their currency and economies in July. Full political reunification occurs in October.

 

[Mare]

4-25-08


1859: Work begins on the Suez Canal in Egypt; it opens in 1869.


1945: Delegates from 50 nations meet in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.


1950: Basketball player Chuck Cooper becomes the first African American in the NBA when he is drafted by the Boston Celtics.


1956: Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" hits number one on the music charts.

1967: Governor John Love of Colorado signs the first law legalizing abortion in the United States.

 

[Mare]

4-26-08


1607: A group of English colonists, including Captain John Smith, land at Cape Henry, Virginia, where they will establish the first permanent English settlement in the New World.


1865: Nearly two weeks after assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, actor John Wilkes Booth is cornered by a posse of U.S. soldiers; he is either shot or commits suicide.


1983: The Dow Jones Industrial average breaks the 1,200 mark for the first time.

1986: The world's worst nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl' plant in the Soviet Union; hundreds of thousands are exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive debris.


1989: Actress and comedian Lucille Ball, star of the popular television series I Love Lucy, dies in Los Angeles.

 

[Mare]

4-29-08


1429: Joan of Arc, a 17-year-old French peasant convinced she has a divine mission to expel the British from France, leads troops into the besieged city of Orléans.


1945: German dictator Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker; the following day they commit suicide.


1980: British-born director Alfred Hitchcock, best known for psychological suspense films such as Psycho, dies at 80.


1984: Britain announces that its administration of Hong Kong will cease in 1997, when it will return the colony to China.


1992: One of the worst riots in U.S. history erupts in Los Angeles, California, when a jury acquits four white police officers of beating black motorist Rodney King.